I know everybody hates long quotes but bear with me just this one time because the thing is priceless. This is from an exchange between a Yale students and the unfortunate prof who found himself in the midst of a debate about having a debate about Halloween costumes:
“In your position as master,” one student says, “it is your job to create a place of comfort and home for the students who live in Silliman. You have not done that. By sending out that email, that goes against your position as master. Do you understand that?!”
“No,” he said, “I don’t agree with that.”
The student explodes, “Then why the fuck did you accept the position?! Who the fuck hired you?! You should step down! If that is what you think about being a master you should step down! It is not about creating an intellectual space! It is not! Do you understand that? It’s about creating a home here. You are not doing that!”
The student says very directly that the protesters don’t want to be taught. They want to be adopted.
I believe that people are grievously misinterpreting what is taking place here. This is not even remotely about anything political or related to social justice, freedom of speech or anything of the kind. These are unloved kids from bad families who are lashing out against any adult who refuses to adopt them and be their substitute Mommy or Daddy. They will go through life trying to attach themselves in the role of a child to every teacher, boss, romantic partner, friend, etc. And they will freak out every time they feel that teacher, boss, partner and friend are not engaging with them in a way that a loving mother does with an infant.
It’s crucial not to confuse psychological problems of individuals with politics even when individuals in question are incapable of seeing that distinction.
Clarissa's Blog 
I recall watching a demonstration from my suite on the sixth floor of Silliman College one evening in 1964 or ’65. A large group of students was demonstrating below yelling “We want Freedom!” Yalies were then among the freest people on the planet, and I can recall no explanation of what freedoms they lacked or what additional freedoms they wanted. Perhaps they sought freedom from exams, or perhaps they were just having fun.
Another time, I watched a group of about 100 or so students crown Homer Tomlinson “King of the World” in front of the Sterling Memorial Library. Tomlinson (no relationship, I suppose, to Lilly Tomlin of the comedy show Laugh In) claimed to have ended the Korean Conflict by flying over the country. Another group was there supporting Richard Nixon, and some members had signs bragging that “nobody can lick our …” er, Richard. Perhaps they were just having fun as well.
I haven’t been back to Yale for many years, but my impression is that we were a more conservative and fun-loving bunch then than is now the case.
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What you described has to be one of the very few pro-Nixon protest rallies ever held on a college campus! 🙂
I was also in college in the early and mid-1960s, and the U.S. campuses then were quite peaceful, except for occasional nonsense like panty raids. Some academics at the time were actually bemoaning the fact that American college students, unlike their overseas counterparts, were blissfully, totally apolitical.
The “serious” demonstrations that turned into campus take-overs and destructive riots began a few years later, after the Vietnam War heated up and students had serious fears of being drafted. (Yes, they became very vocal about other concerns during the radical “Free Speech” movements, but it was existential dread about the war that initially lit the fires that exploded in the late 1960s.)
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We had no panty raids, which would have been awkward at an all-boy’s college.
There was indeed rather an apolitical atmosphere. John Morton Blum, my favorite history professor, was a Democrat and later campaigned for Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. He was also a liberal in the old fashioned sense of the word and his class on American political history was so popular that it had to be held in the largest available auditorium, at the law school. One day, Blum entered the auditorium with Senator Barry Goldwater — then a likely Republican presidential candidate — and his introduction was quite gracious. Goldwater got a standing ovation following his remarks.
Bill Buckley keynoted a debate at the Yale Political Union on whether Guss Hall, head of the American Communist Party, should be permitted to address the union. It was assumed that he would be. Buckley questioned whether the union should give its imprimatur to someone whose ideology rejected any notion of free speech. Hall was not permitted to address the union.
Blum and Buckley had kind — not nasty — senses of humor and I doubt that either Blum would be happy at most present day universities.
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It’s ironic that a professed Communist wasn’t allowed to speak at Yale in the early 1960s, considering the 180-degree swing a few years later that many college student bodies took in embracing radical, anti-American viewpoints.
Chronologically, 1961 – 1970 was a single decade, but as you no doubt remember well, there were really two completely different “Sixties” during that ten-year period.
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I don’t know about the 1960s but in the 2000s, Yale was an extremely conservative institution with extremely conservative professors and a very apolitical student body that was interspersed with a trust fund “Marxist” here and there who quoted a lot but lived the most traditional, ultra-conservative lifestyle ever. “The Liberal Ivies” are a myth. These universities are places where rich people come to spend time together being rich and discussing their rich-people concerns. The idea that these very rich folks are into Communism or anything of the kind is just bizarre.
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I don’t know about the 2000’s, but in the early ’60s many Yale undergrads were “bursary boys.” They were there on scholarships, for which they worked in the dining halls and wherever else they could be used.
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That’s all dead. The kind of students I taught there thought that people who needed money should simply use their trust funds.And none of them worked in the dining halls or anywhere.
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My statement about university views on Communism refers to the 1960s. Communism today is dead as a global political force, and everybody knows that.
I’m not familiar with Yale or your university specifically, but many universities today have academics and students who hold hostile views toward the United States government and the State of Israel, considering both countries to be evil colonial powers that are to be condemned and thwarted, and who give active, enthusiastic support to groups that would like to see America harmed and Israel utterly destroyed. (Note that I didn’t say ALL academics or ALL students.)
The widespread DBS movement is one obvious example of this.
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I am now imagining Godot being hectored by the present-day Vladimir and Estragon, that he should endeavour to be present at their meetings, that on this basis they have made a home for him, that he should make ritual attendances which are in character with his place in the home they have created.
Sadly for them, Godot has no desire to attend any of their meetings, to partake of their offerings of home and comforts, because they are illusions of situation, status, and all too much seriousness.
Godot has been under threat before by more competent adversaries.
Godot does not budge even an inch.
Nothing to be done, and certainly nothing to be done on account of goons like Vladimir and Estragon.
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