Yale Window Smashing

The Yale Window Smashing occurred on June 13, 2016, in the Thompson Dining Hall of Calhoun College at Yale University. Yale hospitality employee and dishwasher Corey Menafee shattered a stained glass window with a broomstick while on the job. He was motivated to break the window because of its depiction of slaves carrying cotton.
Corey Menafee
Menafee, an African American employee at Yale University was arrested at the age of 38 after smashing a stained glass window in Calhoun College, a residential college at the University. He is a New Haven native and a father of two children. He graduated from Virginia Union University with a degree in mass communications in 2001. His employment history includes working for a management services firm and a substitute teacher. He began working at Yale in September 2007. Although he self-identifies as a writer, he says he loved working at Yale. He claims not to own a phone or computer, therefore was unaware of the attention his story gained.
Window smashing
Stained glass window panels in the college depicted images of slavery. One showed a black man in shackles kneeling before Calhoun. Temple University professor and co-founder of the Yale Black Alumni Network Chris Rabb advocated for that panel to be altered. The alterations replaced the black man with blank white pieces of glass. The university had plans to change some additional stained glass windows in the dining hall in 2016, but, before that was done, Corey Menafee, an African-American dishwasher who worked there, knocked out the pane that showed black slaves harvesting cotton in the fields, because, as he related, he no longer wanted to be subjected to seeing the "racist, very degrading" image at his place of work, but also added: "There's always better ways of doing things like that than just destroying things." Manafee was initially arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges. Yale chose not to press charges which were then dropped and, after initially accepting Manafee's resignation, rehired him to work at a different location.
Aftermath
Menafee’s action did not occur in isolation; it followed a long debate at Yale regarding the historical legacy of John C. Calhoun, the namesake of Calhoun College at Yale. After considerable controversy and protest among Yale students and New Haven residents, the university decided to keep the name of Calhoun College on April 28, 2016. Within this larger context, Menafee’s actions have served to revitalize the naming debate at Yale.
According to a statement made by Yale Vice President for Communications Eileen O’Connor to the New Haven Independent newspaper, Menafee resigned from his position. She also said in her statement that charges would not be pressed against Menafee. Menafee told the Independent that he resigned from the position with the understanding that charges would not be pressed, but an officer responding to the scene that day, Seargeant Dan Rainville of the Yale Police, made the decision to press felony charges against Menafee. The Yale Police Department charged Menafee with a second-degree misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment and a first-degree felony charge of criminal mischief.
The New Haven Independent’s initial article, “Worker Smashes ‘Racist’ Panel, Loses Job,” set off a debate regarding the incident that resulted in many members of the Yale-New Haven community protesting the university’s decision to press felony charges and calling for the reinstatement of Menafee to his job at Yale. Menafee was vocal in his wish to return to his work at the university. In the wake of this firestorm of criticism, Yale ultimately dropped the charges against Menafee and offered him a return to employment at the university under the condition that Menafee make no further public comments regarding the case. Menafee currently works in Commons Dining Hall at Yale.
In the wake of the window incident and the protests demanding the university to rehire Menafee, controversy surrounding the name of Calhoun College was again brought to the forefront of campus discussion at Yale. Every Friday since the event, activists have gathered outside of Calhoun college, protesting the continued use of the Calhoun name. On August 1, 2016 Yale University President announced in an email the establishment of a “Committee to Establish Principles on Renaming” which would formulate guidelines to inform future decisions on renaming college buildings. Salovey also wrote in his email that following the work of this committee, Calhoun College could again be considered for renaming.

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