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  • Thin Yale Student Battles University Over Weight

    Frances Chan, a Yale University student, has had enough of eating ice cream and cookies in order to gain weight. After months of medical tests and even a psychological assessment, Yale University finally agrees.

    Over the past several months, Chan, a 20-year-old history major, has sparred with the University over what it perceives is unhealthy low weight. Chan is 5’2” and 92 lbs. and contends she’s always been very thin, just as her parents and grandparents were at her age.

    That didn’t satisfy Yale, however. Until this past Friday, Yale had been telling Chan that if she didn’t put on some pounds, she would be forced to leave school.

    “I ate ice cream twice a day,” Chan told the New Haven Register. “I ate cookies. I used the elevator instead of walking up stairs. But I don’t really gain any weight.”

    On the Huffington Post, Chan details her struggle with Yale Health officials in a piece titled “Yale University Thinks I Have an Eating Disorder.”

    “In the past three weeks alone, I have spent ten hours at Yale Health, our student health center,” she wrote. “Since December, I have had weekly weigh-ins and urine tests, three blood tests, appointments with a mental health counselor and a nutritionist, and even an EKG done to test my heart. My heart was fine — as it always has been — and so was the rest of my body. So what was the problem?”

    According to Chan, they think she has an eating disorder but would not look “past the numbers on the scale, to see the person right in front of them.”

    What followed was a medical circus—a lot of tests, mental health evaluations, nutritionists, and more. She would “load up on carbs for each meal” and eat “3-4 scoops of ice cream twice a day with chocolate, cookies, or Cheetos at bedtime.”

    Eventually the scale went up two pounds but that still wasn’t enough.

    The real culprit, Chan said, was the University doctors’ reliance on BMI or Body Mass Index to determine a healthy level of weight for an individual. Finally, Chan said that she had had enough.

    “I was scheduled to have a mental health appointment at 9:00 a.m. and a weigh-in at 10:30 a.m. this past Friday,” she wrote. “But I’m done. No more weigh-ins, no more blood draws. I don’t have an eating disorder, and I will not let Yale Health cause me to develop one. If Yale wants to kick me out, let them try — in the meantime, I’ll be studying for midterms, doing my best to make up for lost time.”

    And on Friday, her new physician relented and said that BMI wasn’t the only significant measure of proper health. The new physician trusts that Chan doesn’t have an eating disorder and that they’ve made a mistake.

    As for Chan, she’ll continue to go to the Yale health center—but only once per semester.

    Image via Facebook

  • Stolen Van Gogh Painting Stays At Yale

    A Vincent Van Gogh painting called the The Night Cafe said to be owned by a family who claims it was stolen from them by the Russian government during the revolution, wants it back.

    “The family of Pierre Knowaloff claims that their grandfather, Ivan Morozov, purchased the painting in 1908, but when the communist regime took over Russia they nationalized every citizen’s personal property and later sold it off.”

    The Knowaloff family, however, would settle for damages in the form of $120 to $150 million instead, which is what the Van Gogh painting is estimated to be worth.

    However, Yale University was given the painting by alumnus Stephen Carlton Clark who claims he purchased the Van Gogh painting from a New York City art gallery in either 1933 or 1934.

    The lawyers for the Konowaloff family argued that the purchase of the Van Gogh painting amounted to “art laundering” since the Soviet government unlawfully seized the artwork. They called upon the United States to deem this act a theft and a violation of international law.

    But Yale argued that the communist’s nationalization of personal property did not violate international law. They also pointed out that invalidating previous actions by the Russians could create further tensions between the US and Russia, when Vladimir Putin and President Obama are already in strong disagreement about Ukraine. They also believed that siding with the family’s position would cast doubt over the ownership of artwork all over the world.

    Knowaloff’s lawyer, Allan Gerson, denied that Russian authorities were concerned about the case affecting Russian paintings:

    “There’s never been another case in which act of state has been invoked where the state — here, Russia — that the court is ostensibly trying to protect from embarrassment has actually cooperated with the court.”

    However, Judge Alvin Thompson on Thursday granted Yale’s request to deny the claims to the painting by Pierre Konowaloff, Yale’s lawyer Jonathan Freiman commenting on their win:

    “We’re pleased that the court has dismissed Konowaloff’s claims. The Night Cafe is a timeless masterpiece that the public can see free of charge, and in this suit Yale has worked to make sure it stays that way.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Van Gogh Painting Will Remain At Yale After Lawsuit

    A judge has ordered that a famous painting by Vincent Van Gogh will remain at Yale rather than given to a man who claims he should be the rightful owner because the artwork was stolen from his family.

    Pierre Konowaloff says his great-grandfather bought the work in 1908, but it was stolen during the Russian revolution. It was later sold by the Soviet government and has been on display at Yale University for the last fifty years. According to Yale–who sued in 2009 in an attempt to keep Konowaloff from claiming the work–allowing someone to take ownership of the painting in such a manner would be detrimental to the state of millions of dollars worth of art in other parts of the world.

    “We’re pleased that the court has dismissed Konowaloff’s claims,” said Jonathan Freiman, attorney for Yale. “The Night Cafe is a timeless masterpiece that the public can see free of charge, and in this suit Yale has worked to make sure it stays that way.”

    The Night Cafe is valued between $120 million and $150 million and was a bequest to the university from alumnus Stephen Carlton Clark, who purchased it from a New York City gallery in the early ’30s.

    The case isn’t the first one involving a stolen painting claim and a university; earlier this year, the University of Oklahoma found themselves at the center of a dispute over a work by Camille Pissarro titled Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep when Holocaust survivor
    Leone Meyer claimed the work belonged to her family, but it had been taken by the Nazis.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons