A SMALL MEASURE OF ACCOUNTABILITY: Alumni lawsuit against Yale over trustee petition ballot ban moves forward.

Plaintiffs Victor H. Ashe, who has served as an ambassador to Poland as well as a state legislator and mayor in Tennessee, and Donald G. Glascoff, Jr., retired chair and co-partner of one of Wall Street’s oldest firms, filed the lawsuit alleging that Yale’s governing body “is engaging in the most obvious form of voter suppression and denial of rights of free expression of opinion,” according to the court complaint.

The President and Fellows of Yale consists of 19 trustees, six of whom are alumni trustees elected by Yale alumni. The corporation also includes the Connecticut governor and lieutenant governor as ex officio members. The Connecticut General Assembly in 1872, established that six trustee seats should be held by alumni who were voted on by eligible alumni.

Since 1929, Yale has had two paths by which alumni could be nominated and receive a vote for the alumni trustee position – nomination by a committee consisting of Yale Alumni Association board members and officials, or by petitioning for and receiving at least 4,397 Yale alumni signatures.

Ashe petitioned for and received over 7,000 signatures to get on the ballot for an alumni trustee position in 2021, campaigning to make Yale more transparent and highlighting that Corporation meeting minutes are embargoed for 50 years. Ashe eventually lost out to David A. Thomas President of Morehouse College in Atlanta, who was nominated by the committee.

Reached for comment, Ashe says he has no problem with losing the election. His concern in filing this lawsuit is the elimination of the petition process and creating a secretive, insular process limited only to insiders.

Connecticut should amend Yale’s charter to require more open procedures, in the public interest.