The Buck Stops … Where?

As the brouhaha of the past week and a half has made blindingly clear, YU’s rollout of its new LGBTQ club, Hareni, has been somewhat of an unmitigated disaster. Media outlets were quick to characterize the settlement as YU caving to pressure, and YU’s students, donors and (apparently) even many senior roshei yeshiva were taken by surprise and left confused as to what precisely had taken place.

No statement from President Berman was released until nearly five days later. Even that was only when a statement from Rav Schachter, apparently implying that he was not apprised prior to the settlement, was already spreading like wildfire across the YU WhatsApp chat network. The statement apologized for the “confusion” engendered by how the news was rolled out and emphasized that YU had not changed its position on religious or social issues.

All this is well and good. But it begs the question: Where was YU when all this was unfolding? A quick “command F” of some news articles published in the immediate aftermath of the announcement and a quick perusal of my YU mailbox reveal that President Berman had made no statement up until his rather explicable apology. For The Commentator’s breaking coverage of the settlement (which preceded the New York Times by several hours), the only statement from YU we received following our request was a quote indirectly relayed from the dean of students’ office, with nothing from the administration proper. 

The events of the past several weeks exposed to the world a YU with an administration apparently missing in action. But while this may be the most visible and jarring example in recent memory of YU’s lack of communication with its students, faculty and community, it is regrettably not the only one. These events only allowed an issue that has vexed many a Commentator editor-in-chief over the years to burst forth into the public sphere.

Former Editor-in-Chief Yosef Lemel aptly diagnosed this problem in 2021, observing “a general trend of the university to not announce policy changes to students before they happen.” Even when changes are formally announced, the university often wishes to keep silent and avoid discussing them. In 2021, this lack of communication manifested in the abolition of in-person Hebrew or changes to the academic calendar, but similar issues persist. It is still not uncommon for articles in The Commentator to contain the line bemoaned by Lemel: “X did not respond to The Commentator’s request for comment.” In other articles, the lack of information accessible to the authors is apparent.

In the very issue that this editorial is set to be printed in, we’re running an article about the university’s decision to apparently indefinitely commandeer the two-building, ostensibly all-women’s Beren campus on behalf of the coed (now over 1000-student strong) Katz graduate school. The Beren campus wasn’t established as a separate women’s campus on some sort of random whim; it was a decision intended to foster a particular religious educational atmosphere and is a feature of YU that us at The Commentator are sure has been the decisive factor for many students to choose to attend YU.

If the growth of YU’s graduate schools necessitates the abolition of YU’s women’s campus that would be an understandable — if unfortunate — decision, but we don’t know if that is what has taken place. The last time students received an email apprising them of the situation (and explicitly asserting it was a temporary arrangement) was in August 2023, and — despite a promise of more information to come — Beren students are still unaware of what the long term plan is. Despite inquiries with multiple administrators over the course of months, The Commentator has been time and again denied definite word on whether this is the new permanent state of affairs; and so long as The Commentator is not in the know, neither are students.

Here’s a third example taken from this issue. Recently, The Commentator had been working on an article about construction on Furst Hall, which had been ongoing during school hours and causing several classes to be disrupted or move to other buildings. Until the scaffolding collapse changed the subject of that article, we had received no comments from the administration about the ongoing construction. Even after a YU student and her child were put in grave danger, we merely received a perfunctory quote presciently observing that “a section of sidewalk scaffolding fell on the Amsterdam side of YU’s Belz Building this morning,” and making several other generally known observations, with the causes of the collapse left unaddressed.

It isn’t just students who are routinely caught off-guard by the university’s often unpredictable moves either. Even faculty are occasionally blindsided by information that apparently should’ve been known to them. Last year, The Commentator ran a story about how the political science department knew nothing about YU’s new Lieberman Center for Public Service and Advocacy before it was announced. We were able to write a whole — rather lengthy — article about distrust and lack of communication that existed between the administration and faculty. 

My intention is not to criticize any individual or department within YU. Indeed, The Commentator is glad to have a good relationship with so many members of the administration. It is impossible not to admire the hardworking and committed attitude of the administrators I have been so lucky to get to know throughout my time at The Commentator (and I intend to give them full credit in our closing editorial). Nevertheless, administrators often feel constrained in what they can tell students, and sometimes appear to not necessarily have all the essential information themselves. The purpose of this article is rather to criticize a pervasive culture of secrecy and silence at YU. As the past two weeks have demonstrated, far from protecting the university, this culture of keeping things from students, faculty and staff and of avoiding the need to stand behind tough leadership decisions merely serves to sow conflict and distrust.

From an individual student’s perspective, YU’s administration can often seem to be a vast, impregnable, impersonal bureaucracy. I’m very proud of the fact that The Commentator can so often serve as a conduit between administration and students. Nevertheless, at the moment — despite The Commentator’s best efforts — many things remain hidden and many concerns remain unallayed. By fostering a culture of transparency, responsibility and open dialogue with students, faculty and all members of the YU community, YU can remedy and avoid the mistakes of the past weeks.