OPINION: Yale’s orientation coerced students to participate in ‘spell’
Yale’s Divinity School coerced students to read from a “spell” written by a “witch” as part of its Before the Fall Orientation.
The three-day orientation between Aug. 21 to 23 saw a series of talks and activities preparing incoming students for the year ahead, interspersed with small group discussions.
One of these small group periods was the first activity of orientation. Participating as an incoming student in one of these circles, I saw how the discussion opened with a set of “Restorative Circle Rules.” These rules boiled down to a warning to be open minded: all viewpoints were expected to be heard, that you only have to take what you want from the circle and participate as wanted – at least nominally.
After this show of inclusion, we as students were led to read aloud, line by line and one by one, from Adrienne Brown’s “Radical Gratitude Spell.”
Brown (pictured) has been described by Meeting of Minds as a “mixed-race Black queer American writer, community organizer, facilitator, witch and- may I say- goddess.”
Brown herself ascribes to witchcraft, and it informs her public work. Her website describes her as someone who “grows healing ideas in public” through “her writing, which includes short- and long-form fiction, nonfiction, spells, tarot” and “her music, which includes songwriting, singing and immersive musical rituals.”
This context of Brown, her work, and her particular spiritual inclinations was not given to students before participating in the reading. As such, the group reading of the spell took on an undeniable coven-like feeling, with students unable to fully consent to the pseudo-ritual knowingly, despite the Circle Rules.
A second-year student, who requested to remain anonymous, expressed to me a deep concern over this act by the orientation staff. The student called the provided spell “bizarre,” and “gross,” especially for students to not be told of the author or intentions behind the spell before being led to participate.
MORE: University to offer master’s degree in witchcraft
Other recent Yale College graduates and members of the campus Catholic community commented to me in conversation, in a simultaneously tongue in cheek, yet serious manner, that “the very campus of the Divinity School needed prayer.”
They were unsurprised at the inclusion of the spell into orientation. Apparently, it is a popularly known fact amongst more conservative and religious circles in the Yale community that there is little still “divine” about the Divinity School.
As a student who experienced the “Radical Gratitude Spell” first hand, it was a deeply concerning experience for the state of higher education.
Under the name of inclusion, acts of pagan spirituality are being blindly normalized in educational spaces, Yale Divinity School being a prime example of such.
Conversely, the preference for diversity comes at the expense of the sanctity of other students’ faith. While it was proclaimed that “you only have to take what you want from this circle,” personally I did not feel safe to opt out of the spell, being all too aware of the power imbalance and the risk of social stigma against me in this completely new environment. I cannot imagine myself being the only one to feel this way.
Diversity and nominal comfort come at a cost. Its inclusion in orientation raises deep concerns over the boundary that exists between said diversity and the religious rights of individual students.
This worry is especially poignant in the nearly blind way which the spell was integrated into our first moments as students at Yale.
MORE: Classes on witchcraft abound this fall
IMAGE: TED/YouTube
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