Yale employee smashed window depicting slaves picking cotton: Report

Yale University will not press charges nor seek restitution after a dining hall dishwasher admitted to smashing a stained-glass window that depicts slaves harvesting cotton, the New Haven Independent reported.

On June 13, dishwasher Corey Menafee, who is black, smashed a stained-glass window in a dining hall for Calhoun College, a residential college on the Yale campus named for John C. Calhoun, a staunch 19th century advocate of slavery from South Carolina.

“I took a broomstick, and it was kind of high, and I climbed up and reached up and broke it,” the Independent quoted Mr. Menafee. “It’s 2016. I shouldn’t have to come to work and see things like that.”

“I just said, ’That thing’s coming down today. I’m tired of it,’ ” Mr. Menafee said, the paper reported.

He was promptly arrested for vandalism and subsequently left his job at the New Haven, Connecticut, institution, the Independent said on Monday.

In hindsight, Mr. Menafee acknowledged it was wrong for him to take matters into his own hands.

“[T]here’s always better ways of doing things like that than just destroying things. It wasn’t my property, and I had no right to do it,” Mr. Menafee said.

In an update to its Monday story, the Independent noted that Yale administrators are not urging prosecutors to take the case to trial nor are they expecting Mr. Menafee to pay damages for his act of vandalism.

“The employee apologized for his actions and subsequently resigned from the University. The University will not advocate that the employee be prosecuted in connection with this incident and is not seeking restitution,” Yale Vice President for Communications Eileen O’Connor told the Independent in a statement.

An official for UNITE HERE emailed The Washington Times on July 14 regarding Mr. Menafee’s resignation from Yale, noting that the labor union is ready to work with the Ivy League school to return him to work.

“Facing termination and worrying about providing for his family, Mr. Menafee chose to resign; the union stood with Mr. Menafee through this terrible ordeal, and we will stand with him again if Yale is willing to discuss a pathway for Mr. Menafee to return to a Yale University job,” Bob Proto, president of UNITE HERE’s Local 35, said in a statement.

Nonetheless, it appears Mr. Menafee’s action have provided the impetus for changes at Calhoun College.

“Last week, ’Head of College’ (the new title replacing ’master’) Julia Adams announced in an email to the Calhoun community that a set of stained glass panels depicting various moments from the statesman’s life would be removed from the college common room,” the Independent reported.

Slavery-related controversies have beset other Ivy League institutions of late. In March, Harvard University announced it was retiring the shield for Harvard Law School, which came under fire from activists for its affiliation with a slave-owning family.