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Non-Democrat Professors Address Faculty Intellectual Diversity
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Non-Democrat Professors Address Faculty Intellectual Diversity

An exclusive Beacon investigation reveals the experiences of Republican and Independent professors at Yale in light of the stark political imbalance amongst faculty. Branford College gate on High Street in New Haven. (Credit: Owen Tilman) Brett MellulStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon Last December, the Buckley Institute released a report on faculty political diversity at Yale, uncovering a stark imbalance along partisan lines. Using voter registration data from thousands of professors across degree-granting undergraduate departments and two graduate schools, the School of Management and the Law School, the report found that 82.3% are registered Democrats, compared to 15.4% who are unaffiliated or independent and just 2.3% who are Republicans. Of Yale’s 43 undergra...
Immigration Experts Debate Mass Deportation at Buckley Firing Line Debate
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Immigration Experts Debate Mass Deportation at Buckley Firing Line Debate

David Bier and Chad Wolf clashed over the hotly contested issue on Tuesday, arguing over ICE tactics and targeting, sanctuary cities, and legal immigration. David Bier (left) and Chad Wolf (right) at the debate. (Source: Jason Cao) Jason CaoStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon On Wednesday afternoon, former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and Cato Institute Director of Immigration Studies David Bier debated the resolution “Mass Deportation is Necessary” at the Buckley Institute’s first ‘Firing Line Debate’ of the semester. Chad Wolf, who served as acting Homeland Security Secretary between 2019 and 2021, argued in the affirmative. During his tenure in the Department of Homeland Security, Wolf was the architect of the first Trump Administration’s cont...
Iran Is Bleeding — and We Are Barely Talking About It
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Iran Is Bleeding — and We Are Barely Talking About It

When people die in silence, the killing does not stop. It spreads. A woman lights a picture of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei. (Source: @melianouss via X) Shervin IssakhaniContributing Author I am an Iranian student at Yale. My country is experiencing one of the most violent and systematic crackdowns on civilians in its modern history, and most people around me do not know it is happening. Across Iran, peaceful protesters — students, women, workers, elderly people — have gone into the streets demanding the most basic rights: freedom, dignity, and the ability to live without fear. They are not armed. They are not extremists. They are ordinary people asking for a future. The regime’s response has been bullets. Security forces have fired live ammunition into cro...
Bosnian President Calls for Small States to Challenge World Order
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Bosnian President Calls for Small States to Challenge World Order

The Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs hosted Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Željko Komsić, for an event titled “The World from the Periphery: Bosnia and Herzegovina in an Age of Spheres of Influence.” Željko Komsić (left) and David Simon (right) during the event on Monday. (Credit: Emily Akbar) Emily AkbarCampus Reporting Editor, The Buckley Beacon On Monday, Bosnian President Željko Komsić discussed the evolving international order and its effects on smaller states. David Simon, Yale’s Assistant Dean for Graduate Education, moderated the conversation, which was held in Horchow Hall.  Komsić is currently the Croat standing Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The country operates on a tripartite presidency, with each ...
Yale Ranks First Among U.S. Universities in New Time Magazine Ranking
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Yale Ranks First Among U.S. Universities in New Time Magazine Ranking

Time Magazine partnered with Statista to release a new ranking of the world’s top 500 universities last week, placing Yale at the no. 2 spot globally.  Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University. (Credit: Owen Tilman) Jack EhlertStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon On January 28, TIME Magazine published a new ranking of the world’s top universities. Oxford, Yale, and Stanford took the top three spots, with MIT and The University of Chicago rounding out the top five. Yale ranks higher in this list than it does in comparable rankings for 2026, including those of the U.S. News & World Report and The Wall Street Journal where Yale took the fourth and third spots, respectively. TIME’s list, created in collaboration with Statista, used a methodology that scor...
New Report Sheds Light on the Yale Corporation’s Politics
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New Report Sheds Light on the Yale Corporation’s Politics

The Buckley Institute published a report yesterday which reveals that 13 out of 15 trustees of the Yale Corporation are registered Democrats and trustees have donated 50 times as much to Democrat candidates than to Republicans. The Schwarzman Center at Yale University. (Credit: Owen Tilman) Emily AkbarCampus Reporting Editor, The Buckley Beacon On February 5th, the Buckley Institute published a report on the political affiliations of the Yale Corporation, the supreme governing body of the university. The report found that 13 out of 15 trustees on the Corporation are registered Democrats, with the other two being unaffiliated.  It also found that Yale trustees have donated 50 times as much to Democrat candidates as they have to Republican candidates. More than $...
William F. Buckley on American Aesthetic Culture
Arts, Culture, & Scholarship, Featured

William F. Buckley on American Aesthetic Culture

Did William F. Buckley believe that political processes could render a nation culturally affluent? Jeth FoggArts, Culture, & Scholarship Editor, The Buckley Beacon In a 1966 essay called “The Politics of Beauty,” William F. Buckley ‘50 explores the aesthetic quality of architecture and why aesthetics is a matter of political concern. For Buckley, the “repose of [one’s] soul” necessitates an aesthetic experience of “external harmony.” Buckley offers childhood memories that reveal encounters with beauty as constitutive experiences for his personal development.  In the 1960s, “affluence” came to epitomize American society as politicians were coming to terms with what it meant to cultivate human flourishing in various areas of political relevance. Buckley, while he...
Former Education Secretary Defends Beleaguered Department at the YPU
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Former Education Secretary Defends Beleaguered Department at the YPU

Miguel Cardona justified the Department of Education’s existence by characterizing it as a civil rights agency. Miguel Cardona speaks at the YPU on Feb. 3. (Credit: Michelle Zheng) Michelle ZhengManaging Editor, The Buckley Beacon On the evening of February 3, the Yale Political Union hosted the 12th Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona. He argued in the affirmative for the proposition: Resolved: Save the Department of Education.   The Department of Education’s existence has been called into question under the Trump administration, with the president signing an executive order directing the current Education Secretary, Linda McMahon, to dismantle the department with the eventual goal of closing it. The administration has reportedly disrupted over $12 billion o...
So Some Yale Professors Are in the Epstein Files
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So Some Yale Professors Are in the Epstein Files

The moral characters of David Gelernter and Nicholas Christakis are better judged by every other aspect of their respective careers. Professor Nicholas Christakis (left) and Professor David Gelernter (right). (Credit: Yale School of Medicine; Yale Engineering) Ari ShteinOpinions Editor, The Buckley Beacon On Friday, January 29, the US Department of Justice released millions of pages of new documents related to its investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. According to reporting in the Yale Daily News, somewhere in those millions of pages, correspondences between Epstein and two Yale professors could be found: David Gelernter '76 of the computer science department, and Nicholas Christakis ‘84, a Sterling professor with his primary appointment in sociology. Gelernt...
The Fastest Man On Earth
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The Fastest Man On Earth

In a world where brashly advertising your exploits on social media is a staple of modern life, the unpretentious and inconspicuous B.C. Thomas offers a refreshing study on the merits of simplicity. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ B.C. Thomas stands in front of the SR-71 Blackbird. (Credit: B.C. Thomas via Youtube) Jack OlsonEditor-in-Chief, The Buckley Beacon If you examined everyone who has ever lived on Earth and averaged their individual speeds over their whole lives, you might be able t...