As he pulled his luggage through downtown New Haven, Conn., a woman handed him a flier describing his new city as crime-ridden and dangerous. It listed alarming local crime statistics and instructed students to “remain on campus,” “avoid public transportation” and “stay off the streets after 8 p.m.” Illustrated with a picture of the Grim Reaper, the flier wished students an ominous “Good luck.”
But perhaps most jarring was the source of the flier, listed plainly in its text: the union that represents Yale’s own campus police.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/nyregion/yale-police-fliers.html
A much shorter flyer would be “We are the Yale police and if we don’t get a significant raise - we ain’t doing our jobs. Careful walking around at night and sleep tight!”
The top comment…
Historically, New Haven is one of the poorest communities in the state when ranked by median income, while Yale’s endowment grew to $42 billion this year. Universities typically do not pay property taxes, the major income for cities. Yale does give stipends to New Haven in the form of direct cash and scholarships, but is it enough, given its enormous wealth?
How much better off would the citizens of New Haven be if they had the property taxes for all the land and buildings the Ivy League school owns? How much better would the public schools be? The libraries? The parks? City jobs? This reeks of income inequality.
The fact that private universities in USA are so widespread and even preferred over most public institutions is already mindboggling
And they don’t even have to pay property taxes?
In the US - everything about education - especially higher ed - is fucked. Not only do unis have legacy admissions - there are special legacy admissions. Like Harvard’s Z-list. If mommy or daddy went to Harvard and have given the uni enough money - their kid gets guaranteed admittance. It’s a totally vile situation.
Harvard caters to the children of well-connected alumni and big donors through the “Z-list.” Z-listers are often guaranteed admittance while in high school but are obliged to take a year off between high school and Harvard, doing whatever they wish in the interim.
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I’m American and I’m mystified why we don’t use the abbreviation “uni”.
I don’t want to sound British. Also, using a slang abbreviation for “university” makes it seem like I must be talking about it all the time and I’m tired of saying the full word, which is definitely not the impression I want to give, especially around people that didn’t go to a college or university.
As material conditions worsen, expect to more and more hysteria to be drummed up about petty crime to direct outrage to the poors instead of the system that creates such desperation.
Hell, in my area we are already seeing constant fear-mongering about “youth crime” to the point where scared rich boomers are now rallying and forming vigilante groups to punish literal children
"Bloody headlines in the news each day
Drug crisis everywhere
So much comes in so easy
It’s as though someone wants it there"
80s nostalgia is in right now let’s go baybeeeeee
Imagine growing up with this mentality, being so scared of “outside”, public transport, walking alone, etc… how this can influence the sensibilities, the mindset, and finally the politics of the people involved? Young adults that are requested to be indoor at 8pm in front of their computer or phones doing bullshit alone; either idealizing or demonizing a world they don’t know and they don’t want to know.
And that’s supposed to be the country’s elite, lol. This gated community mentality is and will be absolutely detrimental for everybody involved.
I was raised like this and it fucked me up. Wasn’t even allowed to take a walk around the neighborhood because my dad said I might get “kidnapped”. Being so extremely sheltered exacerbated my social anxiety and to this day I have a need to hide in my room alone a lot. I think it also kept me with racist and lib beliefs for a while. If daddy doesn’t let you see evidence to the contrary, then you believe what he says about “those bad people” and you hide more.
And that’s supposed to be the country’s elite, lol
Imagine how quickly they’ll fold with guns turned on them. Big talkers with wet pants.
Avoid public transportation
So tragic and funny at the same time
