, Columnist
Yale Surrenders to Technology
Whatever the rules, technology will always find a way around them. Just ask Yale, or Obama, or Target, or ...
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Yale University ran up the white flag this week in its battle to keep seniors Peter Xu and Harry Yu from creating an easier-to-use and more informative version of its online course catalog. The school's real battle, however, was against technological change -- and so defeat was inevitable.
Xu and Yu, who are twins, invented an ingenious way to combine the catalog with course evaluations. The popular site soon had more than 1,800 student users. Yale tried to shut it down, partly on intellectual property grounds: It was, after all, Yale's data. Another student found a workaround, and techies and campus free-speech advocates lined up on the brothers' side.