William Wan
The Washington Post
Originally posted 18 JAN 23
Here are some excerpts:
In interviews with The Post, several students — who relied on Yale’s health insurance — described losing access to therapy and health care at the moment they needed it most.
The policy changes announced Wednesday reversed many of those practices.
By allowing students in mental crisis to take a leave of absence rather than withdraw, they will continue to have access to health insurance through Yale, university officials said. They can continue to work as a student employee, meet with career advisers, have access to campus and use library resources.
Finding a way to allow students to retain health insurance required overcoming significant logistical and financial hurdles, Lewis said, since New Haven and Connecticut are where most health providers in Yale’s system are located. But under the new policies, students on leave can switch to “affiliate coverage,” which would cover out-of-network care in other states.
In recent weeks, students and mental advocates questioned why Yale would not allow students struggling with mental health issues to take fewer classes. The new policies will now allow students to drop their course load to as low as two classes under special circumstances. But students can do so only if they require significant time for treatment and if their petition is approved.
In the past, withdrawn students had to submit an application for reinstatement, which included letters of recommendation, and proof they had remained “constructively occupied” during their time away. Under new policies, students returning from a medical leave of absence will submit a “simplified reinstatement request” that includes a letter from their clinician and a personal statement explaining why they left, the treatment they received and why they feel ready to return.
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In their updated online policies, the university made clear it still retained the right to impose an involuntary medical leave on students in cases of “a significant risk to the student’s health or safety, or to the health or safety of others.”
The changes were announced one day before Yale officials were scheduled to meet for settlement talks with the group of current and former students who filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the university, demanding policy changes.
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In a statement, one of the plaintiffs — a nonprofit group called Elis for Rachael, led by former Yale students — said they are still pushing for more to be done: “We remain in negotiations. We thank Yale for this first step. But if Yale were to receive a grade for its work on mental health, it would be an incomplete at best.”
But after decades of mental health advocacy with little change at the university, some students said they were surprised at the changes Yale has made already.
“I really didn’t think it would happen during my time here,” said Akweley Mazarae Lartey, a senior at Yale who has advocated for mental rights throughout his time at the school.
“I started thinking of all the situations that I and people I care for have ended up in and how much we could have used these policies sooner.”
