English department said faculty have not been presented with petition

Petition claims the course is 'especially hostile' to students of color

The Major English Poets course has existed at the Ivy League since 1920

Yale University has found itself embroiled in controversy once again this year after English students complained that courses in the department were 'hostile' to students of color.

Under the most fire is the Major English Poets course, a prerequisite for undergraduates in the major to study the works of at least seven major poets, all of whom are white men.

An anonymous petition has demanded the department not only change the English 125/126 course, which has existed since 1920, but abolish it entirely. It also asks that the major's pre-1800/1900 requirements be changed to include literature relating to 'gender, race and sexuality'.

'A year spent around a seminar table where the literary contributions of women, people of color and queer folk are absent actively harms all students, regardless of their identity,' it reads.

English students at Yale University are demanding the department abolish a prerequisite course that requires all undergraduates in the major to study the works of seven major poets, all of whom are white men

Students have said the Major English Poets course creates a culture that is 'especially hostile to students of color' and makes them feel 'alienated'

'The Major English Poets sequences creates a culture that is especially hostile to students of color.'

'When students are made to feel so alienated that they get up and leave the room, or get up and leave the major, something is wrong.'

The Major English Poets course requires that students spend two semesters studying the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, as well as Edmund Spenser, John Donne, Alexander Pope and William Wordsworth.

The second semester seminar instructor, in addition, is also allowed to teach either the work of T.S. Eliot or 'another modern poet'.

The course, which regards itself as 'perhaps the most distinctive element of English at Yale', is described as an introduction to the 'English literary tradition' for freshmen.

But students and professors alike are now arguing that both the course - and major itself - are leaving out the work of women, people of color, and those who identify with the LGBTQ community.

Adriana Miele, who graduated this year, described her experience as an English major at the Ivy League to be a 'horrifying' experience.

'In my four years as an English major, I primarily was lectured by old, white men about rape, about violence, about death, about colonialism, about genocide,' she told the Yale Daily News.

'And I was repeatedly told by many of my professors that these evils were necessary or even related to spiritual enrichment. This was horrifying.'

Jill Richards, an assistant professor of English and the associate director of undergraduate studies at the department, has been an outspoken advocate of the petition.

'I think it's time to revisit our understanding of what is foundational to an English major,' she told the Daily Beast.

Richards cited the likes of Aphra Behn, Phillis Wheatley, Christina Rossetti, Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes and Derek Walcott as names she would like to see added to the syllabus.

Fellow professor Briallen Hopper, a lecturer in English, agreed that it was essential that English majors understand 'how vast and varied and complicated' literature can be in the very first year of their studies.

The Major English Poets course requires that students spend two semesters studying the works of Chaucer and Shakespeare (both pictured), Edmund Spenser, John Donne, Alexander Pope and William Wordsworth

Students and professors alike argue that the course leaves out the work of women, people of color, and those who identify with the LGBTQ community (pictured is John Donne, right, and Edmund Spenser, left)

'I think it’s critically important to teach literature in a way that recognizes the genius, brilliance, virtuosity, and world-transforming power of writers of color and women writers and doesn't seem to relegate them to a minor role,' she said.

But other professors have stood up for the course, which they claim is often a favorite among English graduates, and noted that the professor's eighth choice frequently includes diverse writers.

Professor David Bromwich, who has taught the course 13 times, said Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath are often picked for the second semester choice.

And Department Chair Langdon Hammer said in a letter on the major's website that the works of Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, Derek Walcott, and Louise Gluck were all taught this spring.

But its an experience Miele said she did not have, writing in an op-ed for the school newspaper that it is possible to get a degree at the Ivy League 'by exclusively reading the works of (mostly wealthy) white men'.

'This department actively contributes to the erasure of history,' she writes, noting that only seven of the 98 English major faculty members identify as 'nonwhite'.

Hammer said the English Department faculty has not been presented with the petition and noted that student evaluations for the course's spring semester 'were overall very positive, as is usual'.

The professor added that, just like every year, he is pondering how the course can be improved and how it relates to the rest of the major.

'What does a strong education in the discipline of English look like today? And what should it look like tomorrow? The English Department faculty is charged with asking those questions about all of our courses.'

If this English major does go through any changes, they won't be made until next year.

'We'll be in conversation with our students, who have a range of views,' Hammer writes.