Yale Law School dean asks for look into party controversy

NEW HAVEN — Yale Law School is looking further into a controversy over a student’s emailed party invitation, after the student was urged by administrators and other students to apologize for what some considered racially insensitive language.

Trent Colbert, a secondyear law student from Seattle who is part Cherokee, sent the email Sept. 15 to about 20 members of the Native American Law Students Association, most of whom he said are friends.

But he said someone then posted a screenshot of his invitation on a chat board seen by all second-year law students, and several complained to the administration.

Colbert’s email began, “This Friday at 7:30, we will be christening our very own (soon to be) world-renowned NALSA Trap House … by throwing a Constitution Day Bash in collaboration with FedSoc,” referring to the conservative and libertarian Federalist Society. Colbert is vice president of membership in the Yale chapter. The email went on to refer to Popeye’s chicken, among other food and drink.

A.J. Hudson, a secondyear student and member of the Black Students Law Association, said “Trap House,” which originated as a description of a place to buy drugs, is another way of saying crackhouse and is used colloquially among Blacks, but was racially insensitive in an email.

Rather than sending out an email protest, Hudson said, he and others started “a teaching campaign where multiple people explained why they word trap house in the context of that email was offensive and hurtful to people of color.” The intent was “really giving people a chance to talk about it and start a conversation.” But he said Colbert wouldn’t participate or apologize.

Colbert said he received just one email from students and that he offered to speak to anyone individually. “I said my DM’s [direct messages] were open and no one DM’d me,” he said. When administrators asked him to apologize he refused because “the way they were framing that apology, it sounded like they would want me to admit that it was a racist email, which isn’t something that I admit.”

“I still didn’t understand what people were offended by and no one would answer me when I asked,” Colbert said of his first meeting with Associate Dean Ellen Cosgrove and Yaseen Eldik, director of diversity in the law school’s Student Affairs Department.

“So part of that was them telling me to the effect that people were offended by the term trap house and they explained to me in this longwinded form about frat boys in the South listening to trap music and putting charcoal on their faces,” he said.

Colbert said he did not intend any racial overtones to his email, using “trap house” to refer to “a party house … kind of like saying frat house but without the frat.” He said he and two male housemates hold a lot of parties and that Popeye’s is among the places they order food from because it’s near their residence.

Colbert said his major concern is that the administration still is looking into the issue, after implying to him “that the legal community is really small and that they wouldn’t want this to have to go beyond Yale and to have a lingering effect on my reputation,” he said.

On Monday, law school Dean Heather Gerken sent out a message saying she had asked Deputy Dean Ian Ayres and others “to assess the situation, to listen to the views of members of our own community, and to help us think how best to move forward.”

“For all I know they haven’t considered it resolved even now,” Colbert said.

Colbert said there also is a movement “to have me impeached as student rep,” which, while not close to a threat to his career, “isn’t nothing.”

When the story broke Oct. 13 in the Washington Free Beacon, Gerken issued a statement that said, “Yale University and Yale Law School have strong free speech protections, and no student is investigated or sanctioned for protected speech.” She said discipline was not considered and “the Law School has a longstanding policy of reporting only formal disciplinary action to the Bar Association.”

Law school spokeswoman Debra Kroszner said, “There will not be any action against the student as our statement last week made clear. This is protected free speech.”