YALE SPITS IN THE FACE OF ITS ALUMNI: Yale’s DisTrustees.

Imagine an election where only incumbents or their hand-picked designates can run, where every candidate is gagged, where all legitimate policy debate is off-limits. Absurd? Yes. Yet that is what Yale’s trustees announced this week for an election already underway and future Yale trustee elections.

Some background. Under Yale’s charter, alumni vote for six of the 17 active trustees. Alumni stand for election through insider nomination or outside petition.

In recent years, incumbent trustees have steadily eroded the process. Nominations now come from an unelected “alumni” committee, where paid Yale officials, some not even alums, make up much of the membership. Petition candidates can gain ballot access only by amassing over 4,600 signatures — a high bar. (Last year, only 17,000 alums voted and Yale denies petition candidates access to alumni contact information. Without such access, how can petitioners realistically amass the requisite signatures?) Worst of all, Yale has of late gagged all insider candidates: Official nominees are instructed not to discuss any issue. Some election!

Last year, a 15-year petition drought ended; a distinguished alum and former U.S. ambassador, Victor Ashe, qualified. As a petition candidate, Ashe was not subject to the gag. He thus raised issues, albeit in debate with an empty chair. His biggest issue was election transparency itself; he was for it. Alas, he lost. . . .

This week, in a Commencement Day massacre, Yale changed the rules in the middle of the game. The trustees eliminated petition candidates “effective immediately” — that is, retroactively, ex post facto. Henceforth, alumni will be allowed to choose only among silent and preapproved administration puppets.

The trustees accompanied this week’s coup with a revealing if unintentionally hilarious explanation. They cited concerns about a “political campaign” where “issues-based candidacies” might emerge. Translation: Incumbent trustees know who they want and alumni might make a bad choice. For an even blunter translation: we hate democracy. Can you spell “voter suppression?”

History is not on the side of this kind of trustee high-handedness. Past incarnations of this board banned Jews, persons of color and women for eons before outside pressure forced the trustees to mend their ways. In 1965, Yale’s first Jewish trustee, William Horowitz, won — as a petition candidate.

I think the State of Connecticut needs to look into this questionable governance on the part of a multibillion dollar tax exempt organization, and perhaps change its laws if this is in fact legal.