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Crime

I recently made several revisions to the "Crime" section in the Yale article which I felt balanced the perspective more, and then was surprised to find that shortly thereafter, 70.110.215.150 removed the crime and bombing sections altogether. But this deletion does raise the question - why is the crime section in the Yale article to begin with? For there to be such a long section on crime, it seems that there is a presupposition that there is somehow more crime at Yale than at other schools. But in my most recent revision, I pointed out two facts which would contradict that supposition. I cited a fairly recent study by a Cambridge-based group that suggests that crime at Yale is actually lower than at many other urban-based peers (one-quarter the reported violent crime versus supposedly safer Harvard!). There are other studies that I can add as well. I also pointed out in the notes that similar high profile crimes have happened at other schools. For example, in the last decade, two Harvard students committed murders (Sinedu Tadesse murdered her roommate at Harvard before killing herself in 1995, and Harvard graduate student Alexander Pring-Wilson was convicted of killing an eighteen-year old father in 2004 during a street-brawl). This is not to pick on Harvard, of course, but rather to ask the question: Why does Yale warrant such a long section in its Wikipedia article if the facts neither support a higher crime rate, nor a particularly higher number of high-profile crimes, than its peer schools? Also, the original section suggests that the Yale administration has somehow been trying to cover up student murders on campus. But in fact, the Yale administration has been extremely proactive about increasing security on campus, which is a big reason why crime on campus has been lower than many other urban schools since 1991.

Why don't we discuss before making a decision, and if someone feels it necessary to revert the deletion by 70.110.215.150 in the meantime, please at least revert back to the most recently edited version which balances the picture a little more.

Here are some random thoughts, not necessarily consistent with each other (I am large, I contain multitudes--Whitman)
The injury of David Gelernter by Theodore Kachinsky Theodore Kaszczinski the Unabomber was such big news that I think it deserves a one-sentence mention somewhere.
Mention of the existence of general plain old "urban" crime at particular universities should not be forbidden. Among other things, I think this is of at least as much practical interest to prospective students as whether a school has produced a greater or lesser number of Rhodes scholars than some other school.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology article once had an overly long, tendentious section on suicides (with original-research statistical analysis of whether it was significantly higher than elsewhere) and I thought it was way out of proportion but I don't think it should have been excised altogether. An anon added an unsourced one-liner to the UMass article which I found a source for and expanded into a note, see University of Massachusetts Amherst#Most violent campus controversy.
I don't know how to compare crime at different campusses neutrally. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:45, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
There should be no comparison, there should simply be a relation of the facts of Yale campus history. It's already been cut down from a larger size, linking to other articles. It's unthinkable not to mention the Black Panther trial bombing or the Unabomber bombing, and the murders are important in campus history as well. It's irrelevant whether other articles contain similar information. Could the initial anonymous commentator please provide a link to his preferred version of the section, and I'll reinstall it (or you could reinstall it yourself). - Nunh-huh 18:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC) - actually, I've restored one version, if you prefer another go ahead with it. - Nunh-huh 18:56, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, you have both argued your cases well. But I have reverted back to my preferred edited version of the section, which maintains the facts on murders/bombings, but also puts in context the more recent history of Yale (e.g. last 15 years), and the efforts made by Yale and New Haven to increase campus security since 1991. If anyone else deletes this section in the future, please use this new edited version as the starting point for reversions or edits.


Hi: Sorry for not knowing til now that each article has a talk section - only thought talk was on Wiki user pages. That said, it's unfair, misleading, biased, wrong, deceptive, etc., that only one school has a Crime/Bombings/Murders section while no other college has a similar section on wiki. Go try adding similar stuff to entries for Georgia Tech, Columbia U, Southern Cal, Harvard U, NYU, U of Penn, U of Chicago, ... list goes on forever. It's also unfair and deceptive to have extremely detailed Crime/Bombings/Murders section for only one college but with the added counterpoint statement that "other schools also have crime". Again, all the crime stuff and subsequent debate gets stuck in one school entry while no other school has similar entry. That's misleading. Counter-argument is, you're trying to make this college entry a "puff piece" for this college. So why the concern with a puff piece for only this school even as 99.9999% of wiki college entries remain "puff pieces" with no complaint? Next response is, we must start somewhere with wiki campus crime details, let's do it with this one college entry. That's unfair unless similarly detailed Crime/Murders/Bombings sections are simultaneously added to wiki entries for other colleges, for example, those listed above ..... for starters. I get the Ted Kazinski point made earlier but sadly that leads to the unfair situation we have in this listing because a few people want a Crimes/Murders/Bombings section for this school only - don't know why. Since people don't want to be fair, it should be removed. Why single out one college for crimes, bombings, and murders? -- 70.110.215.150

Crime is a relevant statistic for any college. Yale has had a particularly bad reputation in this respect (possibly undeservedly), and it's fair to have a section on crime in the article as long as the section doesn't get disproportionately large. Bombings are always both noteworthy and relevant. They are highly uncommon occurrences in this country. Particularly at colleges. Murders are less relevant unless particularly numerous. How about creating an article called Crime at Yale or Crime at American Colleges and Universities and putting the bulk of the info there, putting only the highlights in the Yale article itself? If you think it's unfair for Yale to have a crime section while other universities do not, then by all means go out and add sections to the pertinent articles. -Bindingtheory 22:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


I am the original contributor who added information to the crime section, and who started this discussion thread. I see the arguments of dpbsmith and Nunh-huh, but I also see the point of 70.110.215.150. The problem is that there is an "editorial perspective" embedded in the fact that a "Crime" section even exists. The existence of the "Crime" section at all suggests that there is a unique and special problem with crime at Yale, and that it is a defining element of Yale as an institution. Even if the facts reported in the section suggest otherwise, the editorial bias remains in putting the topic out there in the first place. Let me put this another way - since "crime" is an unusual, atypical entry for a university article (unlike, say, academics or residential life), the burden of proof is on the author of the section to prove that the existence of such a section is warranted. It seems to me that there are a few high profile, historic events that probably warrant mention in the history section - perhaps the Unabomber bombing, and the Black Panther bombing qualify. However, the murders are no more prevalent or defining of the Yale experience than the murders that happen at other universities like Harvard, and therefore do not meet the burden of proof I've outlined above. Similarly, other types of crime do not belong either, since Yale does not have a special problem with crime, and is in fact among the lowest crime universities in the Ivy League, so therefore crime is not a "defining" or "informative" aspect of the Yale experience with respect to an encyclopedia article. By the way, the same thing would probably go for suicides at MIT, or "students who are driven to murder" at Harvard. Unless there is a current, statistically significant, well-documented problem with a university that sets it apart from its peer group, I don't think it warrants a section in an encyclopedia.

Also, to the new comments by Bindingtheory above, Yale's reputation for crime should be irrelevant if it is not based in fact and citation. The statistics clearly say that today, Yale is the second safest school in the Ivy League, and much safer than, say, Harvard, in terms of campus crime. An encylopedia has a higher burden of proof than "reputation" - it must remain based in facts. But I do agree with your suggestion that someone could create a new section on crime at American universities, which could list unusual crimes at ALL schools, not just Yale.

I just read the previous two paragraphs from another contributor. Still, nobody wants to tackle my earlier question: why Crimes/Murders/Bombings section for only this college's wiki entry? Bindingtheory? anyone? -151.197.18.159

I hear ya. But crime is a fact of college life. The reason Yale has a crime section and other colleges' articles don't is because someone decided to add a crime section to the Yale article. If you think other articles should have crime sections, then add them. -Bindingtheory 22:50, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi, original thread poster here again. Crime may be a fact of college life, but it is not particularly unique to the Yale experience, so it does not belong in the Yale article. It is also unrealistic to suggest adding a similar section to the hundreds of other university articles that exist. Each university has its own editors, and we must decide amongst ourselves whether this section meets the burden of proof of being relevant and informative in explaining what defines Yale. I don't think it does, any more than I think we should have a section on "Student Drinking at Yale, or "Student Sex at Yale":) I vote the section gets removed from the Yale article until someone decides to resurrect it in another article, perhaps "Crime in the Ivy League". But to address the concerns of dpbsmith and Nunh-huh, perhaps we could move a couple of sentences on the Unabomber and the Black Panther bombings to the History section. Oh, and one more thing we should keep in mind: this is an encyclopedia article, not a college guide. Our job is to help the reader understand Yale as an institution, not necessarily to help college applicants decide whether Yale is safe enough for them to attend.
First off, it would be good (especially for those who don't have a static IP) to log on, assume a single identity, and edit under it so we can more easily understand who is saying what. I agree that much of the problem people have is from approaching this as if it were a college guide; it's not. And it's not a comparison with other institutions. Yale's history is necessarily included in an article about Yale; the Ingall's Rink bombings, May Day 1970, etc. is perhaps the pivotal event in Yale's recent history. It's not well-treated here (in fact, much of Yale's history is not); as history accumulates in the article it would be reasonable to split it out into subarticles. I'm gathering info for on May Day - stay tuned. At any rate, the fact that other articles omit facts that some might find unpleasant is no excuse for omitting them here, and the exclusion of such facts on the basis that they don't appear elsewhere would be a miserable precedent. - Nunh-huh 00:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Nunh-huh, I understand your point about the Ingall's Rink bombings having historical significance, and I don't think anyone is proposing that this particular point be removed from the article (or the Unabomber attack for that matter). In fact, I would encourage you to take the two bombings to the "History" section, and expand upon them as you do your research. The question I have is, why is it necessary to have an entire section on "Crime", including the four murders, in order to get the historical significance of the bombings across? The two bombings may have historical significance, but what is the encyclopedic significance of the four murders, or re-visiting the 1980s crime environment when the current environment is so different? I don't feel super strongly about this, since I think the section as written now is at least somewhat balanced, but I do take issue with highlighting the four murders because they give the impression that Yale is not safe, which I believe is misleading. As I mentioned earlier, I believe that unless the murders have encyclopedic significance (which I don't believe they do), they are just there gratuitously, and reinforce the misperception that Yale is not safe. For the same reason, I take issue with a separte section entitled "Crime" because it gives the impression that crime is rampant at Yale, which it is not. Thanks, Original Poster (sorry, not super-experienced with Wikipedia yet, will figure out screen name soon so I can get one of those nifty bright blue signatures, until then I will mark my entries as "Original Poster").
The words "Sign in / create account" should appear at the top right corner of the web page. All you have to do to become "Original Poster" is click there, choose "Original Poster" (or whatever) as your log-in name, and pick a password and enter it (twice). Then to sign your name you put four tildes (~~~~) after what you write and they will be converted to your log-in name when the page is saved.
Actually, not only has someone proposed that the Ingall's Rink bombing be removed, someone's done it several times!
I'm not sure the fact that you make an unwarranted inference from the section ought to be determinitive of the organization of the page. I don't disagree that some parts might be moved to a history section. But pretty much everything mentioned there is encyclopedic - some of the murders have been the subject of more than one book. Can you think of something you'd rather call the subsection? - Nunh-huh 02:25, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Nunh-huh: First, let me say good job on the Black Panthers research piece below. Good stuff. But let me get back to the Crimes section discussion. The Crimes/Bombings/Murders section should be removed. A crime blotter doesn't belong in an encyclopedia entry for a college, just as a graduate astrophysics exam answer key doesn't belong in the coffee room of your local police precinct. It's that simple. Why should criminals be rewarded with a mention in a college encyclopedia entry by bombing the place or killing their students? A ridiculous thought. Forget about those who defend criminals - a few people here (no names mentioned) want to reward criminals. Bindingtheory said the reason the Crimes/Bombings/Murders section is there is because someone put it there. Yeah, and someone can just as easily remove it. The key is which side has the better argument to do so. Bindingtheory also told me if I didn't like it, to go add detailed Crimes/Bombings/Murders sections to as many other college Wiki entries as I like. Also ridiculous - that will multiply this debate by the number of college wiki entries I update. Nunh-huh said it's not a college guide. If so, then why would you insist on keeping this detailed crime blotter if not to guide people away from a college or to deliberately damage its reputation? Nunh-huh also talked about these murder entries as "facts that some might find unpleasant". Some? Try hopefully everyone. I sure hope you include yourself in the "hopefully everyone" category. Nunh-huh, if you insist on keeping the Ted Kazinski stuff, then here's what should be done with it. Move it to the Ted Kazinski entry page (where all his rubbish deserves to be) and then there, you can mention something like "Ted Kazinski bombed Yale". So you'll have your precious link from Kazinski to the college ... but there's no reason for a college encyclopedia entry to glorify that criminal. Same goes for Black Panthers stuff (it doesn't belong on college encyclopedia entry). And no, the college encyclopedia entry doesn't need more subsections related to crimes ... given that train of thought, what you'll eventually end up with on that college page, with the green light you want to give to everyone is, Yale Crime section, Yale Bombing History section, Yale Student Murders section, Yale Child Pornography section, etc. Again, why reward the criminals by glorifying them in a college wiki entry? Put their garbage on their own separate criminal entry, not on a college wiki entry. If you then want to make links back to the college entry from the criminal entries, be my guest. But don't litter the college wiki entries with crime blotters.

Calling it a crime blotter isn't going to get rid of it. We're here to convey information, not censor it. We're not "rewarding" anyone by stating the facts. And Yale's reputation doesn't depend on suppressing information either. The Unabombing at Yale belongs here not because it was Ted Kazinski that did it, but because it was Yale and David Gelernter that he did it to. - Nunh-huh 04:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
To Nunh-huh: So your solution is to give the green light to those who want to load up this college wiki entry with reams of Crime data, the bigger the crime blotter, the better. Ridiculous. If it is allowed on this college wiki entry, it will set an awful precedent. Moving all your Crime/Murders/Bombings data out of this college wiki entry (where it doesn't belong) to separate crime entries (where it does belong) is not "censorship" nor "suppressing information", it's called commonsense editing. You certainly are rewarding the criminal Kazinsky by demanding that his name be included in college wiki entries (for colleges he didn't even attend). Colleges he did attend are embarrassed to make that fact known (no mention of Kazinsky on wiki entries for UMichigan and Harvard U, schools from which he actually received degrees). Again, think commonsense editing. The entire crime blotter should be removed from this college wiki entry.
I for one don't happen to agree. Calling your views "commonsense editing " doesn't make it so.
1) You need to build consensus, not unilaterally declare what should and should not be included in an article.
2) I don't see how it "glorifies" Kaczynski to mention him in this article. Last time it was there, the sentence read "computer science professor David Gelernter was seriously injured in his office in Arthur K. Watson Hall by a bomb sent by serial killer Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a the Unabomber." I don't think sending mail bombs is a glorious thing to do, and I doubt that many readers would see it that way.
3) The deliberate insertion of unpleasant information about a school--reverse boosterism if you will--violates NPOV, just as boosterism does. And I believe the crime section as originally inserted was tendentious and biassed. But it's not at all obvious to me that articles about a college should omit anything that happens to be unpleasant. Would you seriously suggest that all mention of the Kent State Shootings should be confined to that article, and that the Kent State University article should not mention the shootings or link to the article about them?
4) It does not set a precedent, as other university articles do mention crimes. Please stop saying it's the only article that does. That's not to say that a lengthy section on crime should be a standard part of every university article, but I don't think anyone is suggesting that. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
More or less yes, like he said. However, Dpbsmith is wrong about the original insertion of the crime section, which appeared around the time of the third campus bombing during a time frame which led many to conjecture that the third bombing was by terrorists. That is, it was a "current events" insertion, years ago, not tendentious or biased in any way. The section has been in this article for a good, long time, and I don't think its removal because someone has an emotional reaction to it is appropriate. - Nunh-huh 21:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Dpbsmith, you are pointing to what I think is the right conclusion. BindingTheory has started a new article on Violent Crime in the Ivy League, and this is the right place to deposit individual events like student murders. The article is just at the beginning, but already we can see that high profile murders have happened at many (perhaps all) Ivy League universities. But I also agree that if something of historic significance has happened at the university, like the Unabomber or Black Panther bombings, those could be moved to the History section if they are put in their historic context. Original poster.
All these crimes are necessary parts of Yale history. I'll replace the section, you can then place the individual events where you would like to see them in the article, and I'll be happy to flesh them out if further context is needed. And what about the Black Panthers? It's too detailed for this article, should it become a sub-article with a link? - Nunh-huh 21:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

May Day and the David S. Ingalls Rink bombing

In the fall of 1969, Jerry Rubin and others gathered in Max's Kansas City bar in New York to hatch a plan to "get Yale" because it was one of the few major college campuses that "had yet to experience a massive, unruly demonstration". They chose the trial of Black Panther founder Bobby Seale as their cause.

John Huggins, Jr., son of the steward of the Fence Club at Yale had joined the Black Panthers in California and been killed in a shoot-out with a rival gang in the UCLA cafeteria. When his body was returned to New Haven, his widow and friends formed the nexus of a Black Panther chapter in New Haven at a time when there were few such chapters in the east. The group ran a free breakfast program for children, stockpiled arms, and placed wiretaps. Bobby Seale came to New Haven in spring 1969 to speak at Battell Chapel. After speaking there he retired to Black Panther headquarters on Orchard Street. That same day, Alex Rackley, suspected of being an informant, was tortured by the Panthers with boiling water, lit cigarettes, and an ice pick. The Panthers took Rackley out of town, shot him in the head, and dumped his corpse in the Coginchaug River, where it was found the next day. Seale and three other Black Panthers were arrested and faced the death penalty. (Seale because an implicated Black Panther turned state's evidence and alleged that Seale had ordered the killing). In 1970, the New Haven Panther Defense Committee was formed and mapped out plans for a massive demonstration, planned for 1 May 1970.

On April 4, in a move widely condemned as unduly harsh, Black Panthers David Hilliard and Emory Douglas were sentenced by Judge Mulvey to six months in prison for contempt for passing and reading a note from Seale in the courtroom. On Tuesday, April 21, Hilliard and Douglas apologized to the judge and were released. A rally was quickly arranged at Ingalls Rink. The Yale Daily News's headline was "Mass Meeting Called for Tonight: Student Strike Imminent". Hilliard addressed the crowd of 4000: "There ain't nothing wrong with taking the life of a motherfucking pig." The crowd booed. Hilliard, angered by the hostile response, shouted, "I knew you motherfuckers were racist."

On April 15 at Boston, Abbie Hoffmann, speaking at Harvard, said that, in two weeks, Yale would be burned down. Kingman Brewster consulted Archibald Cox at Harvard, who had investigated the 1968 disturbances at Columbia, and who was Harvard's key player in dealing with student disruptions. Brewster decided on the strategy of welcoming the demonstrators to Yale rather than locking it up. At the April 23 faculty meeting Roy Bryce-LaPorte, spokesman for Yale's black faculty, called for a suspension of academic functions and for a reassessment of Yale's relationship with New Haven and the black community: that is, he requested that the university shut down, and become more engaged with black issues, but did not request active support of the Panthers. He was followed by Kurt Schmoke, the first undergraduate ever to address the Yale faculty, whose speech asking the faculty for guidance swayed many. "You are older than we are, and more experienced. We want guidance from you, moral leadership. On behalf of my fellow students, I beg you to give it to us." Brewster then urged neutrality, stated that Yale would not contribute to the Panther Defense Fund, but urging free speech regarding the trial and race relations. "So in spite of my insistence on the limits of my official capacity, I personally want to say that I am appalled and ashamed that things should have come to such a pass in this country that I am skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States." The eventual faculty resolution was modified from the original black faculty resolution, stated that faculty would be free to suspend their classes but did not dictate that they must do so, and was passed by an overwhelming vote. Brewster's statement that day became the most famous thing he had ever said; he was condemned for it, and praised for it. Spiro Agnew nearly immediately called for his resignation: "I do not feel that students of Yale University can get a fair impression of their country under the tutelage of Kingman Brewster."

And so Yale began to implement its policy of "shutting down to open up."

The city's inhabitants were bombarded with rumors of the impending invasion of up to 100,000 bomb-throwing radicals, right-wing motorcycle gangs, and anarchist saboteurs. Arsonists set fires in the law library and several other spots on campus, and persons unknown stole a truckload of rifles in North Branford; a sizable amount of mercury ($2500 worth; worrisome because mercury is used in bomb making) was stolen from Sterling Chemistry Lab. Connecticut's governor announced that the National Guard would be sent to New Haven, backed up by a reserve force of four thousand marines and paratroopers who had just returned from Vietnam.

Brewster called his classmate William Kunstler, scheduled to speak on the Green at the May Day demonstrations, to find out "who the hell" was "in charge" of them. A meeting was arranged with Chicago Seven defendants David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, John Froines, Ann Froines, William Sloane Coffin, Cyrus Vance, and Kingman Brewster. It was agreed that if the May Day leaders would advise the demonstrators against violence, Brewster would try to arrange to move the National Guard off the Green. (In fact, he had already made this arrangement.)

Yale's Sam Chauncey had conspired with New Haven police chief James Ahern to have the busses chartered by the Weathermen at Boston to be driven by undercover state police officers and to develop "mechanical difficulties" on the Massachusetts Turnpike, leaving two busloads of Weathermen with no way to get to the demonstration.

Between 10,000 to 20,000 demonstrators came to New Haven—fewer than expected. Yale housed and fed them, student volunteers served as marshals, medics, and day-care attendants. Pierson College master John Hersey noted "the provocateur's basic requirement, an inflammable majority, simply was not there." Non-violence was preached from the rostrum; police maintained order; National Guardsmen were kept some blocks away, at Grove Street Cemetery. Hersey characterized it: "A peaceful demonstration marred an otherwise promising holocaust." After nightfall, false rumors spread that police were arresting Black Panthers. Minor scuffles erupted, and police used tear gas. At midnight, three bombs exploded at David S. Ingalls Rink, blocks from the lab from which the mercury had been stolen. There were no injuries and damages of about $100,000). The weekend ended with just 37 arrests (only one of these was a Yale student) and no serious injuries. Classes resumed on May 4. Later that day National Guardsmen at Kent State in Ohio fired into a crowd of students, killing four. May Day at Yale and the shootings at Kent State marked the end of the era of widespread national student protest. An action "which started as an affair in support of the Black Panther defendants," John Hersey wrote in Letter to the Alumni, "ended up more or less a memorial to the white Kent State dead."

A year later, on 26 May 1971, charges against Seale and Huggins were dismissed because of a hung jury.

Anyway, that's a little something I whipped up. Discuss among yourselves. - Nunh-huh 03:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


References

  • The Guardians, Kabaservice, Geoffrey, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 2004.
  • The May Day records of Yale University [1] are held at Yale University Library.
  • Photographs of the damage to Ingall's Rink are at [2]

Crime, Part 2

Do Nunh-huh or Bindingtheory know why not one other college wiki entry has a crime blotter? (The answer should be obvious ... I hope.)

No. Perhaps they need better organization, or greater candor. Did you have one you'd care to share? - Nunh-huh 04:13, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
The answer is not "obvious" to me, and I wish you'd try to articulate it.
Meanwhile, University of Massachusetts Amherst#Most violent campus controversy is one college article I happen to know about that happens to mention crime, and I am sure there are others. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:14, 3 February 2006 (UTC)


Ok, so here's the beginnings of an article about Violent Crimes at Ivy League Universities. Go to it. -Bindingtheory 05:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Bindingtheory, thank you for beginning the new article. This is the right way to do it, and although the list is just beginning to be filled out, we can already see that serious, high profile murders have happened at most or all Ivy League universities. By putting them all together in one article, it reduces the misperception that one school is more dangerous than another based on a few high profile events. Original poster.
No, it's not "the right way to do it". It's one way of doing it, and a good one if your only purpose is to compare crime rates at Ivy League universities. I see no reason why you have this need to compare everything; the Yale article should be self-sufficient. - Nunh-huh 21:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Nunh-huh, let me ask a provocative question. We are probably in agreement that the Unabomber and May Day campus bombings were of historical significance, and should remain in the article somewhere, perhaps even expanded upon to be put in context. But why are the four individual murders important to the Yale article? Please understand the question I am asking - I am not disputing that the murders were high profile, or that books were written about them, or that they are interesting stories in their own right. That is why separate Wikipedia articles exist on the murders (for example, search under "Christian Prince" or "Suzanne Jovin"). The question I am asking is, why are they important to the Yale article? How does listing "in 1974, Yale junior Gary Stein was killed by Melvin Jones" illuminate the reader about Yale, beyond perpetrating the misperception that Yale is unsafe? Let me ask this question in the context of another example. The Harvard Crimson stated that 1-2 student suicides happen at Harvard each year. I could insert an entire section in the Harvard article listing Harvard students who have killed themselves. But what would be the editorial point of doing that, beyond spreading what would probably be an equally serious misperception about Harvard? And by the way, I am not necessarily trying to suppress unpleasant historical facts - rather, I am putting the burden on you explain why four isolated murders deserve to be included, especially when similar events seem to happen everywhere else. No one would suggest placing an exhaustive list of murders in the Wikipedia articles on New York or Boston. Why is a list of murders any more relevant to Yale? Original poster (until I think of a creative wiki name - thanks for explaining the mechanics earlier).
It's not "a list of murders", it's a "list of murders that had a significant effect on campus", and in fact on town/gown relations. If the history section grows large enough to be split off, they could certainly be in that article. But they should not simply be expunged. In general, student suicides don't have large effects on campuses; if Harvard had some that did, it would be reasonable to cite them in its article. - Nunh-huh 00:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC) I would in fact be more than willing to work on a more extensive history. - Nunh-huh 00:39, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Please, 69.110.26.70 ("original poster,") create a Wikipedia account. It takes about fifteen seconds, it costs nothing, and it requires disclosure of no personal information whatsoever--not even an email address. It will please the rest of us, soothe our nerves, and make it easier to contact you via your own Talk page. It appears as if you might even be able to use the username "originalposter" if you like. Just click on "sign in/create account." Then sign your comments by typing four tildes, ~~~~ at the end. The Mediawiki software will expand that into your username and a timestamp. No, you don't have to do this. Ironically it actually increases your privacy, since otherwise you are advertising your IP address every time you edit. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, dpbsmith, and sorry I dragged my feet for so long on this. My user name is now "Mahnmut", but to be clear on my identity, I was the one who revised the crime section to include more current-day facts on Yale's crime situation, and I am the one who started the original crime thread on the Talk page. I am NOT the person who has been unilaterally deleting the crime section, and I would never do that unless we reached consensus on the Talk page.
Nunh-huh, to be clear, I am not doubting your motives in wishing to keep the material in the article, and I think I understand what you are trying to do. My objection is that when you have a section entitled "Crime" in a university article, starting with an unfavorable description of the city, followed by a bullet-point listing of four murders and three bombings, I believe that an editorial statement is being made, even if that statement in no way reflects an intentional editorial bias. Every school has its own stereotype, and Yale's stereotype happens to be "crime-ridden, mean streets of New Haven", or something to that effect. That stereotype is not accurate with respect to either Yale or New Haven in the 21st century, and so invoking it will be politically charged among the editors of this page, even if that is not the intention of the section.
I am not looking for censorship here. Instead, what I am looking for is some sort of compromise, where the truly historical events remain (e.g. Unabomber, May Day bombings) and are placed in proper historical context, but the student murders and "crime" slant to the whole section are handled with greater sensitivity relative to the stereotypes. I think a good compromise would be to move the bombings to the history section, and explain the context around them. Move the murders to "Violent Crime in the Ivy League", where they will not be perceived as an editorial statement on Yale, but rather a description of crime across many colleges.
Beyond that, I must say that purely on the merits, I don't agree that the four murders warrant listing in the Yale article. The murders themselves may be interesting, but the reader can search the name of the victim to find greater detail - the murders do not need to be covered in the Yale article as well. My understanding of NPOV is that you have to be just as careful about what you DON'T include as what you do include, because space is at a premium, and so every word must count. Given that there is not room in the Yale article to cover every moment of Yale's 300 year history, we have to choose the events that were most defining and relevant to the institution, and we have to be selective because we can't cover everything in the space we have. The four unconnected murders over four decades, two of which may have just been romantic crimes of passion, don't meet this standard in my opinion.Mahnmut 03:57, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
The killing of Bonnie Garland and the Yale religious community's support for her killer fragmented the Yale community against each other in ways that still have repercussions. I actually find it quite shocking to dismiss its significance by characterizing it as a "romantic crime of passion". The killing of Suzanne Jovin and Yale's subsequent treatment of an employee thought to be a suspect in that killing also had wider repercussions. In any case, I have said that I do not oppose "spinning off" some of these into a Yale history "subarticle" - should anyone care to write one. What I do oppose is drive-by deletion. Further, if you think Yale has a reputation for being crime-ridden, the article needs to address that, not cover it up. "Violent Crime in the Ivy League" seems very silly to me. There's nothing innately "Ivy League" about such information. - Nunh-huh 04:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing innately "Yale" about violent crime either, so to categorize an entire section around it seems just as silly. If the point of the Bonnie Garland murder is the fragmentation of the Yale community, I would certainly not have known that from a list of bullet-point entries highlighting the violence rather than the repercussions or the historical significance. What I am hearing from you is that each of these events impacted Yale in very different ways. So why are they all lumped together under the heading "Crime?" To me, this entire section seems to be a case of facts without a story to tie them together. As a result, the de facto story that emerges is "look at how much crime there is at Yale".Mahnmut 06:12, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, no, as it works out there is nothing innately "Yale" about violent crime, as the articles on Southern University, Seton Hall University, Lehigh University, Monash University, University of Cambridge, École_Polytechnique_de_Montréal, University_of_Texas_at_Austin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dartmouth College make clear. It appears that there are quite a few articles on colleges that mention notable violent events that transpired there, I just got tired of looking for them. The details you request about the effects of these crimes were, I believe, originally in the article, and were moved to subarticles. Would you now have us move that back here? Since the objection seems to be shaping up to not liking having them grouped together under the heading "Crime", how about coming up with another heading, or moving them up to the history section? - Nunh-huh 23:48, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I have condensed the section under the new title "Famous Tragedies". All of the individual events and their links remain, and I can live with this section as it is currently written.Mahnmut 01:25, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Ok, Sorry. I reverted it by accident, but now that i look at it, it was probably the right thing to do. First because I don't think (and please correct me if I'm wrong about this) that there was a concensus to delete the text above the list of incidents. Also, it seems to me that the problem people had with the crime section was that it was just a list of horrible crimes with no context, but you've deleted all of the context that was there, explaining the trends and reasons behind them. If anything, more info needs to be added about each of the events listed to explain why they stand out as important in Yale's history. (Especially the murders, because the relevance of a bombing on a college campus should be self-evident.) Crime on a college campus is important. When there's a murder, or a rape, or a bombing, or an upswing (or downturn) of crime, it makes the front page of the college paper every time, and it's usually the talk of the campus for days to come. I've attended several colleges and worked at two, and it's naive to think that crime isn't an incredibly relevant topic for an article on any college in this country. Obviously the crime section shouldn't be disprortionately large, but Yale is an amazing institution and there should be plenty to include in this article that would more than out-balance the negative aspects of the necessity of discussing crime. -Bindingtheory 02:19, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Frankly, either version works for me, though I'd prefer we err on the side of more information rather than less. What about a version headed "criminal incidents" or even "famous tragedies" but with the statistical information intact? (I'd also suggest that for any "comparison pages" it would be good to find information mandated under the 1998 Clery Act for all (American) universities, though in many cases that data will reflect thoroughness of reporting and size of the student body rather than actual differences in incidence (Between 2000 and 2002, Yale reported 5 sex offenses, Stanford 11, Princeton 29, Borwn 28, and Harvard 80. Yale reported no crimes in fall 2003 because its workers were on strike!).) - Nunh-huh 06:03, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I have retitled the section "Safety at Yale", and added specific statistics from the U.S Department of Education (as reported under the Clery Act) to the section. The statistics can continue to be verified and updated each year at the link I provide in the article, and the interested reader can also look up whatever school they are interested in through the same link. Nunh-huh, I have taken into account your concern about statistical variations due to class size and specific events like the Yale workers strike, but it is important to note that the numbers tell the same story in each specific year that data is available, and that Yale's class size is somewhere in the middle of its peer group, so I don't think the story would change in a meaningful way.Mahnmut 18:19, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I think that you've done very nicely. The precautions on comparisons was just a general caveat, and after all we have to be content with the data that's collected. - Nunh-huh 23:37, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Secret societies

I'm moving the following material here, because it is unsourced from beginning to end. Much of it is probably valid, but per Wikipedia's verifiability policy cannot be included unless it has been published elsewhere by a reputable source, and a source citation is given. I was going to put {{fact}} tags on it, but one would have been needed for almost every sentence. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:58, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Sources are readily available (there's virtually nothing that's secret about the "secret" societies), but I think this sort of detail properly belongs in linked "daughter articles" rather than the main article. - Nunh-huh 00:56, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree that this could be a separate article. And I agree that sources probably are readily available. However, "The burden of evidence lies with the editors who have made an edit or wish an edit to remain. Editors should therefore provide references." The material I removed could be a reasonable rough draft on a talk page or in someone's user space, but it should be sourced before it goes into a main namespace article. Dpbsmith (talk) 03:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I believe Skull & Bones already is a separate article. One could reduce nearly all Wikipedia articles to stubs by moving each unreferenced sentence to talk pages, but generally I don't think that's a good idea, except as a strategem for getting information out of articles. If anyone has need to provide references to the material below, I believe "Robbins, Alexandra, Secrets of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths of Power, Little Brown & Co., 2002; Millegan, Kris (ed.), Fleshing Out Skull & Bones, TrineDay, 2003; Pinnell, Patrick L., The Campus Guide: Yale University, Princeton University Press, 1999; and Holden, Reuben A., Yale: A Pictorial History, Yale University Press, 1967, would cover it. (+IMDB if the execrable sentence on The Skulls survives the purging of the emotive language). - Nunh-huh 03:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm trying to tighten up a bit on verifiability on addition of new material, particularly when it seems to be a mix of things that are probably easily verifiable with things that "everybody knows" or "I'm sure I heard." Verbally-transmitted campus lore is quite apt to be a mixture of truth and legend, and editors that insert such things should take the trouble to source them as they insert them.
This isn't a vacuous issue; one of my formative experiences on Wikipedia was spending a really significant amount of time trying to track down a statement that Jack London had been an editor of Berkeley's literary magazine, The Pelican. (It didn't sound right, as he was only there briefly and didn't mix well with his much-younger fellow students). Eventually I contacted the editor who had put it in, and was IMHO justifiably annoyed when he replied "it was the story that was spread around at Cal when I was going there. I don't know if it's true or not, but I had no reason to doubt it at the time that I wrote the info." Recently, several Cornellian editors were honestly surprised to find out that curmudgeonly Muppets Waldorf and Statler were not based on professors at the Cornell Hotel School.
I have no problem with the Yale article's including famous secret societies. The excised paragraphs, if cut down to about half their current length and sourced, would IMHO be very appropriate. I love the Cole Porter detail. My standards for citation are not very rigorous—I for one will accept campus newspapers, for example—but the verifiability policy is there for a good reason, and just because there has been a past tendency to honor it in the breach is not a reason to ignore it completely, particularly in areas where there is good reason to worry about casual insertion of misinformation.
I do not accept "I don't know if it's true or not, but I had no reason to doubt it" as an adequate standard. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:15, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
It's perfectly reasonable to ask for references when an assertion is neither common nowledge nor readily ascertainable by an interested party. I can't say that I think "a citation for every fact" would represent an improvement, though: no encyclopedia does such a thing, it's an unreasonable expectation, and it makes for cluttered reading. A citation for reasonably questioned facts is another thing. I suppose I'm responding to the implied suggestion that just because something is called a "secret" society that its existence is a "secret": it's not, the "secret" alludes to private ceremonies, not the fact that a given society exists, or has a building at a given address. Absolutely no one maintains that these specific organizations don't exist. - Nunh-huh 05:09, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Material removed

Skull and Bones is the oldest, and by far the most prestigious, of the senior societies; The Skulls, a recent film on the society, will only further its notoriety. The other societies are obsessed with discovering its secrets; some societies even have rooms dedicated to Bones memorabilia.In actuality, Bones is neither as sinister nor as influential as it is made out to be. Traditionally, Bones selects the fifteen juniors at Yale who have most distinguished themselves in extracurricular accomplishment. In recent years, however, outside observers suggest that there has been an increasing emphasis on finding people who have the personal qualities to build strong friendships with one another. Skull & Bones was one of the last of the societies to admit women and the manner in which this was done led to a serious rift in the society. Bones is the only society with a summer home: a private island getaway on the St. Lawrence River between New York state and Ontario. Alumni include William Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush

Scroll and Key was founded when Skull & Bones uncharacteristically tapped most of its delegation from Psi Upsilon rather than Alpha Delta Phi. The neglected A.D.’s proceeded to found their own organization. Scroll and Key is, in monetary terms, the wealthiest of the senior societies, but lives constantly in the shadow of its elder cousin. Traditionally, Keys has drawn its members from the New York Social Register; in recent years, however, they have moved more in the direction of a Bones-style system, with extra weight placed upon extracurricular accomplishment. Notable alumni include Dean Acheson, Cole Porter and Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Yale is also home to the Elizabethan Club, modeled after the Century Association of New York City. In theory it is a gathering place for Yale’s student and faculty literati. Like the top senior societies, the Lizzie has a million-dollar endowment, along with a priceless collection of rare first editions of Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, and others. William F. Buckley, Jr. dc ’50 is among the Lizzie’s most famous members; Cole Porter was rejected from the club, leading him to write a satirical song about “the most exclusive club in College.” (The Lizzie later reversed its decision.) As with a traditional gentlemen’s club, the Lizzie has an admissions committee; to become a member, one must be proposed and seconded by current club members. The Lizzie is highly selective; it rejects a significant number of its applicants. Candidacies can also fall victim to internal politics and grudge matches. Freshmen are not eligible for membership; thereafter, 45 members of each class may be selected.

HTML comments removed

  • "Source citations are needed for each of these societies (this tag isn't just tagging Scroll and Key. We could have an individual citation for each society, or a single citation to a reliable source that mentions the entire list. Shouldn't be that hard for these--I don't doubt the existence of Skull and Bones--but is especially important for anything alleged to be "secret". Please do not remove the fact tag until each society mentioned has been sourced."
  • "someone seems to have been fooled by the word "secret". There is no "secret" about the existence of these societies, and their buildings are described in every guidebook to Yale architecture. They hardly need separate citations, which would be both intrusive and unnecessary. The general references I will append to the article (how did we escape citing actual books?) should more than suffice."

I removed the HTML comments after sourcing them. PRRfan 19:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

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