> It sounds like Yale's instead engaging in curriculum by controversy avoidance, which incidentally is one of the worst ways of designing a curriculum and most

> It sounds like Yale's instead engaging in curriculum by controversy avoidance, which incidentally is one of the worst ways of designing a curriculum and most certainly "taking a position" - the position of trying to avoid controversy. I don't see the phrase "taking a position" in the OP, and your point seems to rest on that phrase. But to your point, you're interpreting "taking a position" to be so broadly that it's meaningless. There's definitely a phenomenon of activists trying to co-opt prestigious institutions to further their activist goals, but that has a way of debasing the institutions' other goals. It seems like these measures are meant to counter that problem. Activists tend to have a kind of monomania, where they're so focused on their activist goal that most other good things lose their value in comparison, so they're willing and eager to sacrifice those things. That's often a warped perspective, and the people who value those other good things need to labor to keep the activist impulse in check.