The Tragedy of the Yale Commons

The Tragedy of the Yale Commons

ByJim Sleeper

Editor’s Note: In the Comment below the article, classmate Jim Sleeper announces his retirement from the Yale faculty, highlighting the times he’s criticized the University’s corporatism (and, in this Op-Ed from the New Republic, reminding us why he protested Steve Schwarzman’s speech at the Reunion).
When 18-year-old Stephen A. Schwarzman, the son of a Philadelphia dry-goods store owner, entered Yale in 1965, he took his meals, like all freshmen, in the Commons, a vast, baronial dining hall in a cluster of beaux-arts [,,,]

Dogmatism and Truth

Dogmatism and Truth

ByJim Sleeper

Shortly after he watched White House Counsel Pat Cipollone tell the Senate on Saturday that “the president did absolutely nothing wrong,” a friend sent me an archived copy of Yale President Kingman Brewster Jr.’s 1969 baccalaureate address. Somewhat surprisingly, Brewster’s response —and Yale’s — to the crisis of that time is as urgently needed now as it was then.

Why I Interrupted Schwarzman

Why I Interrupted Schwarzman

ByJim Sleeper

Classmates, Those of you who attended our reunion dinner heard me interrupt Steve Schwarzman’s rambling, self-aggrandizing talk by shouting, “That’s enough Steve: You’ve dispossessed tens of thousands of people out of their homes…” Undoubtedly I should have risen magisterially from my seat and addressed a few more temperate but still-critical words to him and the…

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James Sleeper – 50th Reunion Essay

ByJim Sleeper

James Sleeper jimsleep@aol.com Spouse(s): Seyla Benhabib, (1998–present), Rachel Gorlin, (1988–1996) Child(ren): stepdaughter Laura (1986) Education: Yale BA, Harvard EdD (1977) National Service: Alternative-to-Military Service, 1971–1973 Career: writer, journalist (Newsday, New York Daily News); college instructor (Harvard, Yale, Queens College, New York University) Avocations: Reading and writing about American civic-republican traditions, including old New England. College:…

Bribery is only the tip of the elite-college iceberg: An interview with Jim Sleeper
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Bribery is only the tip of the elite-college iceberg: An interview with Jim Sleeper

ByJim Sleeper

This is a quiet, thoughtful conversation about what’s happening to higher education. I was interviewed by Prof. Matthew Frye Jacobson, an historian who was the chair of Yale’s American Studies Department until recently and is the director of Historian’s Eye Project (historianseye.org). This interview was conducted at Yale well before the current bribery scandal at selective colleges, including Yale. It pretty much predicted the whole thing but put it in necessary perspective.

Jim Sleeper’s Yale Class Helps Find New National Story

Jim Sleeper’s Yale Class Helps Find New National Story

ByJim Sleeper

Many Americans want a new national story: How about this one? by Jim Sleeper,  salon.com |  Feb. 25th, 2019 The 18 Yale students who crowded into a seminar room one September morning in 1999 for a course entitled “New Conceptions of American National Identity” didn’t know what they were in for. Nor did I, their…

I’m Seeking Names Of Some Draft Resisters

I’m Seeking Names Of Some Draft Resisters

ByJim Sleeper

Classmates, do any of you remember or have information about a small anti-draft demonstration on Beinecke Plaza one wintry morning in early 1968, our junior year? Three seniors handed their draft cards to Bill Coffin in an act of civil-disobedience, stating that they would refuse conscription into the Vietnam War. I came across the gathering…

A Misbegotten Candidacy for the Yale Corporation

A Misbegotten Candidacy for the Yale Corporation

ByJim Sleeper

This time, character matters as much as ideology. I’m very sorry to have to open up a controversy on our class website, but some classmates’ obviously well-intentioned support for Jamie Kirchick’s write-in candidacy to become a trustee of Yale deserves a substantive response. Exercising my freedom of speech (Remember the Woodward Report?!), I’ll unload a…

Tom Wolfe (RIP) And New York

Tom Wolfe (RIP) And New York

ByJim Sleeper

Editor’s Note: This is the first “Memories and Observations” post. The NCAA Lacrosse story was the second one. Hey, all you folks out there with memories and observations … share them here!
Author’s Note: The recent death of Tom Wolfe (Yale ’57 PhD, American Studies) brought up a bunch of memories, some of which are in an article I wrote for LEAR’S magazine in 1990, and republished recently on Salon.