Not Recommending Someone's Daughter for Yale.

 

Tenured Yale Professor Linn Tonstead

Education 

B.A. La Sierra University
M.A.R. Yale Divinity School
Ph.D. Yale University

Biography 

Professor Tonstad is a constructive theologian working at the intersection of Christian theology with feminist and queer theory. Her first book, God and Difference: The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude(link is external), was published by Routledge in 2016 and was named both as a best new book in ethics and a best new book in theology in Christian Century in the spring of 2017. Her second book, Queer Theology: Beyond Apologetics (link is external)was published by Cascade in 2018 and translated into French in 2022. She joined the Yale Divinity School faculty in 2012. Her teaching interests include Christian theology, queer theory, philosophy of religion, and theological method. Professor Tonstad has made contributions to various journals, including Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, and Theology & Sexuality. She is co-chair of the Theology and Religious Reflection unit of the American Academy of Religion. She is currently working on her third book, tentatively titled The Impossible Other: Theology, Queer Theory, and the Politics of Redemption. 

A friend was asked to write a recommendation for his daughter who is applying to Yale.  Worth a read.

Dear         ,

I am unwilling to write a letter of recommendation in support of your daughter's application to Yale.  I no longer do that.  It is not that I don't believe that she is qualified, on the contrary it is because I do.

You wouldn't ask me to write a letter of recommendation for her admission to Hamas.  But Yale is no different than Hamas, a cult that abides no disagreement, and a cult certain of its purpose and mission beyond reflection.  Yale is potentially even more dangerous. Hamas will be defeated shortly.  Yale will continue to send its graduates into positions of power for years.

A recent study at Harvard found that roughly 50% of the students and professors wouldn't discuss "uncomfortable" topics.  An essential life skill is the ability to change your mind. She won't learn that at any Ivy league school.  Their reputations are still so strong that their faculty, staff and graduates all possess the arrogant certainty of religious fanatics.

I am sorry to disappoint you.  I wish her the best in her search for a school,

Signed