AECY Presentations at and around Yale
Mayah*, a senior at Yale, reflects on her and the AECY’s experience presenting at various events over the past semester.
*Mayah Monthrope‘25 (she/her) is an undergraduate studying the History of Science and Medicine.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Retreat
On September 27, 2024, the AECY presented at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology’s annual retreat. The retreat was a weekend-long event attended by faculty and graduate students in the department. Professor HoSang and I spoke about the history of Eugenics at Yale, the afterlives of Eugenics in current biology and genetics research, and our anti-eugenic work. This was an apt setting to talk about the AECY’s ongoing intervention in the undergraduate biology curriculum. For the past few years, students of the AECY have been investigating ways to teach the critical history of eugenics in the sciences, particularly within the context of Yale. The University had many science professors who contributed greatly to the Eugenics Movement.
The introductory biology sequence is a year-long series of courses that must be taken by all life-science majors at Yale – so is a great way to ensure our prospective scientists and clinicians do not reproduce eugenic logics in their future work. In the audience were several professors who teach the introductory biology courses and were eager to hear our ideas. Overall, the audience was extremely keen to learn about the legacies of eugenics and seemed to take seriously the implications it has for their work. Following the presentation, several PhD students and professors came up to us expressing gratitude for bringing this subject to their attention and asking how they could bring anti-eugenics into their discipline.
Race, Social Justice, and Democracy Plenary
On the morning of October 26, 2024, the AECY was a part of the “Race, Social Justice, and Democracy” plenary hosted by the Centering Race Consortium (CRC). The consortium brings together scholars from the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM); Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America; and Stanford’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. The plenary was a two-day event held at the Afro-American Cultural Center, attended by scholars from Brown and Stanford.
The presentation took the form of a 1.5-hour panel featuring Marco Cenabre, Tara Bhat, Daniel HoSang, Alana Slavin, and myself. In the first segment, Professor HoSang gave an overview of Eugenics at Yale and in New Haven. Tara and I then discussed the work of the AECY and our respective senior theses. This was followed by a short, interactive break where we encouraged audience members to discuss among themselves and ask questions.
The presentation continued with Alana Slavin, a Psychiatry Resident at the Yale School of Medicine, discussing the legacies of eugenics in her field. She discussed topics like child development and institutionalization in psychiatric care. She also challenged the way physicians are taught to view patients, at times devaluing their opinions and adopting a paternalistic position. Lastly, Marco Cenabre, a K-12 Educator and Lead Secondary English Teacher for New Haven Public Schools, presented his work teaching anti-eugenics in primary and secondary education. He discussed the legacies of Eugenics in schooling through standardized testing and student assessments – and then explained his work in disrupting it. He has been working to make K-12 education more capacious and redefine student success. The audience was particularly engaged while hearing Mr. Cenabre and Dr. Slavin speak and were attentive to the ways eugenics reproduces itself on the day-to-day and imaginative about anti-eugenic futures. Their expertise allows us to see more concrete ways that Eugenics still impacts our everyday lives.
We are grateful to have been a part of the Race, Social Justice, and Democracy plenary and look forward to continuing these important conversations!