The Russian Prosecutor General's Office declared one of the world's most prestigious universities — Yale University — an «undesirable» organization. The formal reason is the world leaders training program attended by Alexei Navalny. However, the longstanding academic collaboration between the two countries is affected: joint seminars, exchanges, research projects. As noted by «T-Invariant»*, Yale has longstanding collaborations with Russian universities: 15 years with St. Petersburg State University, 20 years with Kazan State University, and more than 30 years with Moscow State University.
Currently, many Russian universities are quickly erasing traces of joint programs, and information can only be found in web archives. Yale itself is also removing information about the collaboration.
Within hours of the Prosecutor General's announcement of Yale as an «undesirable» organization, the office responsible for working with foreign faculty and students (including Russian citizens) sent out a letter that began with the words: «Yale deeply sympathizes with you all». The letter included instructions that in future joint publications, colleagues in Russia should be reminded of potential dangers. There was also a reminder: before any Yale community member decides to publish any joint photo or video material or even a social media post, it must be coordinated with the Russian counterpart. It's better to delete posts about collaboration with Yale, even if it was long ago. In private conversations, there were even suggestions from program leaders to terminate contracts retroactively if it would be better for Russian participants, a Russian scientist who just completed a research program at Yale told the publication.
So far, informal student clubs exist in both countries. However, the Yale Club of Russia in the USA, as well as the Yale Alumni Club in Moscow, are quickly deleting pages from their websites and social media. At the time of the university's declaration as an «undesirable» organization, the club had about 50 members (for comparison, the Yale Club of Israel has 352 members, and the Yale Club of Ukraine — 17).
Meanwhile, the vice-president of the Russian Yale alumni club was Irina Vekselberg, the daughter of the heavily sanctioned billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. She resides in Russia but also holds US citizenship and works in the family business structures Renova and Trilogy Capital.
«For Yale itself, this means nothing, it's not even a mosquito bite. But for potential students, graduate students from Russia, it's a loss of a legal opportunity to study there <...> Studying there (at least publicly) — it's an administrative offense under Art. 20.33 of the Administrative Code for the first time when Russian authorities record it. If after punishment a person continues to «participate in the activities of an „undesirable organization“, then it's a criminal offense, which is considered a serious crime», noted media lawyer Galina Arapova* in a comment to «T-Invariant».
* Recognized as a «foreign agent» in Russia.