Opinion

Reflections on former associate attorney general Vanita Gupta’s visit to Yale. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Vanita Gupta and Dr. Beverly Gage answer an audience member’s question at a Committee on Trust in Higher Education event on December 2, 2025. (Credit: Corinne Cowan) Ari ShteinStaff Writer, The Buckley BeaconOn Tuesday, the Committee on Trust in Higher Education held an event with Vanita Gupta (YC ‘96), a civil rights lawyer and former associate attorney general. She was to speak on “The Future of Higher Education.”Something ...

At Buckley’s annual conference, scholars explored how conservatives honor the past while restraining utopianism. Even so, they revealed that restraint carries its own utopian impulses. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ A panel during the Buckley Institute’s annual conference at the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale on November 14. (Credit: Buckley Institute/Bill Morgan Media) Raleigh AdamsOriginal Reporting Editor, The Buckley BeaconLast week, the Buckley Institute’s fifteenth annual conference opened with a lunch plenary on the question, “What Defines Conservatism?” Moderated by Buckley Program president William Barbee (YC ‘26), the conversation brought together Dr. Peter Berkowitz, the Tad an...

Are we ready to fight it? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Branford College at Yale University. (Credit: Owen Tilman) Ari ShteinStaff Writer, The Buckley BeaconOn October 26, the Board of Directors of The Harvard Salient, a conservative campus outlet, announced they were suspending the publication. It was the culmination of a weeks-long controversy, kicked off by a passage printed in The Salient’s September edition which had language echoing a speech given by Adolf Hitler in 1939.In the course of arguing that “Islam et al. has absolutely no place in Western Europe,” a contributor to The Salient...

An ode to Yale’s administrative bureaucracy. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Memorial Quadrangle Gate on High Street near Yale University’s Old Campus. (Credit: Owen Tilman) Ari ShteinStaff Writer, The Buckley BeaconPick one person, at random, off Yale’s New Haven campus. Keep your eyes closed—don’t peek!—and ask them what it is they’re doing here. Incredibly, it’s just about as likely they’ll tell you they’re an administrator as an undergraduate student.Yale has got a lot of non-academic staff on payroll. Some do important IT work, or clean the halls or feed...

The American university has never been more reviled. And the way we’re trying to fix it is wrong. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Pauli Murray College at Yale University. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Ari ShteinStaff Writer, The Buckley BeaconIn April, Yale University President Maurie McInnis convened a Committee on Trust in Higher Education, which would “undertake a process of reckoning and reflection … to better understand public perception and envision ways of strengthening trust.” Per an early-September report in the Yale Daily News, the Trust Committee had spent its summer “conducting background research and holding preliminary conversations,” but found itself unsure of w...

The recent wave of politically motivated attacks in America compels us to fear. It also compels us to unite. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ (Credit: © zimmytws/Getty Images via Canva.com) William BarbeeContributor, The Buckley BeaconAs I exited my apartment last Wednesday afternoon, I felt the vibrations of dozens of cell phone notifications harangue me from my pocket. I decided to take a peek at these messages, thinking they would be from friends making jokes about this thing or the other. My assumption that the buzzes came from friends was correct; that they were making jokes, however, was not.The news I received from my friends—that Turning Point USA co-founder and conservative activist Charlie Kirk had bee...

The new resolution S.J.35 provides no new protections, but rather uses extreme language to prevent any compromise on some of the most controversial cultural topics of our time. Kylyn SmithContributing Author, The Buckley BeaconOn Friday, February 7, I logged on to the Connecticut Government Administration and Elections' Public Hearing at noon to testify against Senate Joint Resolution 35, or S.J.35.For decades, the Equal Protection Clause of Connecticut’s state constitution has prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex, to include workplace rights for pregnant women. The new bill seeks to modify the definition of “sex” to include “terminating a pregnancy; sexual orientation; gender identity and expression; and related he...

Our response to Publius. Buckley Beacon StaffThe Buckley BeaconPublius, the now-defunct Yale Daily News editorial board, took Yale by surprise with their Election Day special, “We’re Jealous of Our Conservative Peers.” To their credit, they managed to do something quite impressive: Frame liberal hostility to conservative opinions as a perk, not drawback, of conservatives’ experience at Yale.Constant criticism and social ostracization, Publius argues, affords conservatives a unique chance to cultivate their beliefs, and refine their presentation to an audience eager to cancel them. We admit, this is a compelling spin on what might otherwise be considered an odious excuse for censorship, intolerance, and exclusion. Conservativ...

"The Buckley conference encouraged students to consider what it means to be challenged—consider what it means to get the most out of their Yale education. Should students take action, speaker after speaker pointed to a promising future: one where ideological friction in the classroom actually makes students sharper. A future where embracing the free speech principles laid out in the Woodward Report will give students an edge in life and, in turn, make Yale degrees more valuable." Fiona BultonsheenStaff Writer, The BeaconIn December of 1974, a group of free speech advocates and administrators at Yale put together the Woodward Report, which contains lines that 81% of the student body support, according to the Buckley Insitute annual s...