In mid-October, Aaron Sibarium reported in the Washington Free Beacon that Associate Dean Ellen Cosgrove and diversity director Yaseen Eldik pressured Colbert — a second-year student who is part Cherokee and is a member of both the Native American Law Students Association (NALSA) and the Federalist Society — “to apologize for a ‘triggering’ email in which he referred to his apartment as a ‘trap house,’ a slang term for a place where people buy drugs.” On Sept. 15, Colbert (he requested anonymity in the original version of the article for fear of retaliation) had used the NALSA listserv to email members an invitation to a Sept. 17 Constitution Day party organized in collaboration with the Federalist Society. In addition to using the term “trap house” — which has become common slang beyond its original meaning as a spot for doing drugs — Colbert wrote that Popeye’s chicken would be served. “Within minutes,” according to Sibarium, “the lighthearted invite had been screenshotted and shared to an online forum for all second-year law students, several of whom alleged that the term ‘trap house’ indicated a blackface party.”
Cosgrove and Eldik hastily summoned Colbert. At their Sept. 16 meeting, Eldik informed Colbert that his membership in The Federalist Society compounded the “trap house” offense and his mention of fried chicken, both of which invoked racial stereotypes. “The email’s association with FedSoc was very triggering for students who already feel like FedSoc belongs to political affiliations that are oppressive to certain communities,” according to Eldik. “That of course obviously includes the LGBTQIA community and black communities and immigrant communities.”
The aim of the meeting convened by the law school officials and of their subsequent communications with Colbert, however, was not merely informative. Cosgrove and Eldik urged Colbert to issue an apology, ominously suggesting that failure to do so would harm his reputation and interfere with his application to the bar. Eldik went so far as to draft an apology for Colbert; it was addressed to black law students, acknowledged “any harm, trauma, or upset” caused by his email, and stated that Colbert would “actively educate myself so I can do better.” After Colbert declined to send the ghost-written plea for forgiveness, Cosgrove and Eldik sent an email to all members of the second-year class that accused Colbert of using “racist language” and condemned his invitation “in the strongest possible terms.”
The Yale Law Journal should “not accept at face value the recommendations of YLS’s fringe advocacy groups,” one editor said. “A good rule of thumb for whether to invite a speak[er]: If that presentation were leaked, how would it reflect on the journal and its reputation?”