Yale: Former art student's allegations of improper expulsion have 'no merit'
Osberg, 19, is suing Yale for breach of contract after claiming she was expelled for being 'too immature and too young'
University officials said there is “no merit” to the allegations made in a lawsuit filed two weeks ago by former School of Art student Annabel Osberg ART ’09, who claims she was unfairly expelled from the Master of Fine Arts program in painting and printmaking.
Over the past several weeks, Osberg, 19, has told media outlets, including the News, that she is being expelled from the program because Yale considers her “too immature and too young” to receive her degree and because she “listened too much to her instructors’ advice.” She was admitted to the program — which has an average...
Yale may or may not have been right in its decision to not promote her to the second year. However, not giving her any indication of her failing performance soon enough so that she could apply elsewhere is indeed, bad administration.
What's the point in coming back if she doesn't have a productive relationship with her teachers? Getting a degree requires more than just passing time. Correcting the admin error may result in wasting another year of her life that could be spent more happily and productively elsewhere. She wouldn't be the first person whom Yale has failed to educate.
The best candidate for expulsion would be that woman who keeps having abortions and calling it art.
I find it hard to know what's actually going on. For example, let's suppose that the student in question really deserved expulsion based on poor academics. In this situation, the student would be best served by spinning the story to make it sound like she didn't deserve expulsion. However, Yale would not want to counter this directly - it would be classless for a university to stoop to what is essentially a back-and-forth ad hom. So, you would expect Yale to react exactly the way it has.
Now, suppose the reverse is true - that there is no merit to the expulsion. The student would do the same thing, and the University would make the same claims, as well.
In other words, the responses that we see from the student and the University are stock, and tell us nothing about what's actually occurred. Where is the investigative journalism that could help us distinguish among the options?
I agree with James, this is poor reporting more than anything else.
typical Yale - totally untransparent administration. this is a fundamental issue with how the departments' administrations function, but it only gets the general public's notice when something absurd happens like expulsions without prior warning. this happened a few years back with about 10 architecture students - they were held back an entire year without any sort of warning from the administration.
she may have very well been a less than stellar student... but it still sounds like bad administration!