Yale Law continued its 31 year run atop the U.S. News Law School ranking.

Yale Law Cancels In-Person Alumni Weekend

Yale Law School is canceling a previously planned in-person alumni reunion due to the COVID-19 delta variant.

Yale Daily News reports that the university will be canceling a number of in-person events, in addition to the alumni reunion, that attract large crowds to campus. Major events, including the Yale College family weekend and Yale’s Capital Campaign Launch, will be hosted online in lieu of the in-person cancellation.

“I write to you with the heartbreaking news that the Law School must cancel Alumni Weekend 2021 due to the delta variant surge,” Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken writes in an email to Yale Law alumni. “In order to ensure that the campus can continue with on-campus teaching and learning — which is core to the magic of this place — the University has had to shift plans for several highly-anticipated visitor events, including making its Campaign launch in October virtual … While we are deeply disappointed with the news, we appreciate everything the University has done to keep our community protected and to ensure we can hold in-person classes safely.”

The law school had originally planned to host two alumni weekends in-person this year with reunions for class years ending in 5s and 6s on October 21 and class years ending in 0s and 1s on November 4. The Yale Alumni Association plans to welcome alumni to campus for events in May and June of 2022.

“As for Yale College Reunions, we are at this time planning to hold in-person reunions in the spring,” Cheng wrote to the News. “We very much miss hosting our alumni back on campus. Of course, we will closely monitor the situation and make adjustments as warranted and as circumstances dictate.”

VACCINE MANDATES

Across the country, thousands of students got their COVID-19 vaccine in order to return to campus this fall. Nearly half of the law schools in the U.S. required proof of vaccination, including all T-14 elite law schools.

At the University of Pennsylvania, the vaccine mandate originally required only students to receive the vaccination, but later was expanded to include all university employees, according to Reuters. For the most part, school officials say, students have been supportive in the school’s decisions over the vaccine mandate.

“The students at Penn have greeted this with really open arms, because for them, as successful as remote education was, I don’t think anyone feels like it was anywhere near as successful as the education we can offer in-person,” Eric Feldman, a health policy expert, and professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, tells Reuters.

Sources: Yale Daily News, Reuters