1:00 PMWhen it comes to the concept of town and gown relations, New Haven, Connecticut, is one of the most stratified cities in the United States. Surrounding one of the most prestigious universities in the country is a population and region whose demographic trajectory followed that of many others: After the second World War, black folks flocked to the coastal town for jobs. Then, white people decided to leave.

The last time I was there — to speak to a group of college journalists — the only black folks I saw were cab drivers and school employees. That included everyone on the panel I was participating on and the students in the program. The tension between the school and the city is still apparent and unavoidable.

In the 1960s and ’70s, it was a full-blown political hotbed. In the ’50s, conservative demigod William Buckley lived there. Then came local “urban renewal” — more popularly known as negro removal, in some parts of the world. The fallout from the New Haven Black Panther Party trials served as a window into how race relations were developing on a local and national scale. It also led to Yale’s decision to become a closed campus. By the ’90s, outsiders considered the city a straight-up violent place once you stepped off school grounds.

So, when Corey Menafee, a 38-year-old dishwasher at Yale University decided he was going to destroy some stained-glass windows that depicted slaves carrying cotton on his way home from work, he wasn’t just some randomly fed up dude that popped off. He grew up in New Haven. He’s got a degree from Virginia Union University and is supporting two kids.

“It’s 2016, I shouldn’t have to come to work and see things like that,” Menafee told The New Haven Independent. “I just said, ‘That thing’s coming down today. I’m tired of it.’ ” It’s worth noting that the word “racist” is in quotes for the headline of this story.

The easiest way to understand just how deep the institutional connection to discrimination is at Yale, all you need to know is that these images were featured at the residence hall of Calhoun College, named after John C. Calhoun, the seventh U.S. vice president who believed strongly in slavery.

“The Ivy League in particular is a bastion of Americana and its often troubling idols,” Doreen St. Felix wrote at MTV.com. “It’s a powerful aesthetic, providing an apolitical zone for the patriotic to profess their love of country. And it seems harmless, a quirk of history filtered primarily through art. But Confederate memory can be found throughout Americana, whether the symbol is a flag or the windows in an Ivy League residential college.”

Separately, Yale’s black student body population has been charging the proverbial establishment gate in the past year or so over a range of issues. Here are three stories from The New Journal, a student-run publication that can catch you up on that.

Perhaps most shocking is that it worked. The university announced Tuesday that it is prepared to reinstate Menafee to his position. “We are willing to take these unusual steps given the unique circumstances of this matter, and it is now up to Mr. Menafee whether he wishes to return to Yale,” Karen Peart, director of external communications, said in a statement. Menafee agreed to return.

“There is a bit of regret, because, as a grown adult with a sound mind and able to think, you know, you don’t never want to resort to those type of tactics, as far as bringing change about,” Menafee told the radio program Democracy Now! last week. “You want to sit down, and you want to talk to people, and you want to — you want to use your intellectual skills. You’re not — you don’t want to physically just destroy something. I don’t encourage anybody to just go ahead and destroy another person’s or another entity’s property because you don’t like it. There’s better ways to resolve it. However, the action that I did, obviously, there is a plethora of people who believe the same thing, who felt the same thing. So, in that way, I think my actions were justified, because other people — a lot of other people feel the same way I feel.”

Lux et veritas is the school’s motto, which translates loosely to: truth through enlightenment. “None of this would have been possible without the efforts of the community and the media. I can’t say it enough: Thank you so much,” Menafee said Tuesday.

Sometimes, speaking up makes a difference.