How Mental-health Care Entered the Debate Over Racial Inequality
Just before midnight on Thursday, November 12, nearly 200 students gathered outside the house of Peter Salovey, Yale University's president. Passing around a megaphone, they read him their demands. Among other things, they wanted mental-health professionals placed in each of the university’s four cultural centers, which serve black, Asian-American, Hispanic, and American Indian students. And in Yale’s Mental Health and Counseling Center, they wanted more counselors of color. "There is a preponderance of evidence," one of the students said, "that racist environments, like Yale, harm the physical and mental health of people of color, like us."