An "Ivy Montrealer" recently informed us of a juicy bit of hypocrisy: Canadian and McGill graduate Padraic Scanlan, whom we covered last November for penning a damning critique of Yale and other privileged American universities in the McGill Daily, is now going for his PhD in history at Princeton. To refresh everyone's memory, here are a few excerpts from Scanlan's column:

New Haven reminded me vividly of Detroit - class and race are lashed together in a widening spiral of systemic oppression in both cities. Both cities are scarred with bombed-out buildings and condemned lots. In both cities, black and Hispanic Americans are crushed by the combined weight of a decimated economy, mounting personal debt, and pervasive, systemic racism. The only difference between Detroit and New Haven is that in New Haven, Yale sits, gleaming and gated.

Likening New Haven to Detroit is legit, and surely Yale is "gleaming" compared to the city that abuts it, but saying New Haven is filled with "pervasive, systemic racism" seems, well, a bit hyperbolic. Scanlan continues:

You have to visit to really appreciate how obscene the divide is between the rich and the poor in New Haven, Connecticut. Yale is vastly wealthy - I can see now (having never actually visited an Ivy League school before) why McGill's administration slavers after the prestige and wealth of that select clique of New England universities. It is enormous, full of granite and sandstone, gleaming new electronics, and huge College Gothic piles.

One final quote by Scanlan and some commentary after the jump.

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This past Monday Padraic Scanlan (McGill '08) prophesied for the McGill Daily that, "when the class war comes at long last, it will begin in New Haven, and Yale's undergraduates will be first against the wall." Such sentiment was the outcome of a visit Scanlan paid to Yale the previous weekend, a visit he probably would have enjoyed more were he not tormented by "how obscene the divide is between the rich and the poor in New Haven, Connecticut."

Scanlan has this to say about the social scene at Yale:

The whole atmosphere was one of sexist, predatory relationships between men and women and total contempt for the surrounding community. 

I mean, he says says that like it's a bad thing. After going through the motions of white guilt ("In New Haven, white and young means Yale, and Yale means hatred."), seething resentment ("If anyone wants a non-theoretical, non-academic reason for supporting the redistribution of wealth, visit Yale."), and sophisticated sociological observation (Yale is mostly white, and Asian. Inner-city New Haven is mostly black and Hispanic."), Scanlan comes to the crux of his complaint:

"I was walking around the city, just outside of Yale with a bunch of other McGill students, and we were cat-called by bystanders. I can honestly say that that has never happened to me, ever, in Montreal. I have always felt completely safe, and I have never felt a shameful feeling of nervousness around people who have a different ethnic background."

You poor thing. Go back to Canada.

After the jump -- the article in full. 

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