Catherwood LibraryILR School

The normally uneventful process of electing an alumnus of Yale University to the university's top governing board, the Yale corporation, has become a hot political topic on the campus and among alumni as Yale's clerical and custodial unions have taken a stake in the elections. The two unions have donate a combined $60,000 to Minister W. David Lee---a Yale alumnus who grew up in a housing project in the New Haven area, and is conducting an aggressive campaign as a candidate who will give a greater voice to Yale's workers, students, and members of the New Haven community. Lee's campaign has raised some concern among university officials that transforming the usually routine elections into a politicized event will deprive alumni of the voice in university affairs that the process was designed to give them, and will cause the Yale corporation to become a forum for the discordant relations between Yale and its workers.