Yale Dean Put On Leave After Calling People With ‘White Trash’

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By Rob Shimshock

Yale University placed Dean June Chu, who received criticism for remarks such as calling people “white trash,” on leave Thursday.

In an email, Stephen Davis, who leads the residential Pierson College at Yale to which Dean Chu belongs, told Yale students and faculty that the dean had been placed on leave, calling her language “inappropriate,” “unacceptable,” and “deeply harmful to [Yale’s] community fabric,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

“When I wrote to you on Saturday morning, it was with the understanding—and under assurance from Dean Chu, an assurance given to me and to others—that she had posted only two troubling reviews on social media,” said Davis in his email to Yale. “On Saturday evening, I found out that she was in fact responsible for multiple reprehensible posts, enough to represent a more widespread pattern.”

“No one, especially those in trusted positions of educating young people, should denigrate or stereotype others, and that extends to any form of discrimination based on class, race, religion, age, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”

Yale Daily News published Saturday two of Chu’s Yelp reviews, in which the dean had commended a movie theater for lacking “sketchy crowds” despite its New Haven showing location and referred to restaurant customers as “white trash.”

“I have learned a lot this semester about the power of words and about the accountability that we owe one another,” Chu wrote in an emailed apology to Yale. “My remarks were wrong. There are no two ways about it. Not only were they insensitive in matters related to class and race; they demean the values to which I hold myself and which I offer as a member of this community.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Yale for further comment, but was directed to Davis’ email.