Opinion

Wokeness disappeared for a time, but it is endemic to Yale. Silliman College at Yale University. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Corinne CowanOpinions Editor, The Buckley Beacon This week marks two years since Trump won the 2024 presidential election. For many conservatives, the 2024 election ushered in the era of the “vibe shift” – when conservative and populist talking points came back into the mainstream. For conservative college students, 2024 marked a turning point in the culture of American higher education.  If I were to chart a history of the last fifteen or so years, 2014 would be the year that the cultural phenomenon of wokeness materialized. 2014 was the year that the Black Lives Matter movement became a national talking point, which was around the time when matt...

Leaders of the organization mask their true, far-left ideology behind popular, unoffensive slogans. Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Hannah Owens PierreOpinions Editor, The Buckley Beacon Look at the Democratize Yale website, or their protests, or the custom-made shirts that the group passes out, and you will see a picture of the May Day protests of 1970 that took place on Yale’s campus. Given that the demands of the student coalition are ostensibly for a greater student voice in Yale decision making, you might assume that the May Day protests were based on a similar theme. Perhaps they were about censorship, or academic freedom, or democracy?  Sadly, you’d be wrong. These protests were instead carried out in defense of members o...

Maurie McInnis has acted in the interests of Yale at every turn, yet still receives unfounded attacks from the left. President Maurie McInnis outside the Schwarzman Center. (Credit: Yale Office of the President) Hannah Owens PierreOpinions Editor, The Buckley Beacon Over the weekend, Yale’s President Maurie McInnis was taking photographs with parents arriving at Yale for Family Weekend when she was ambushed by a member of the Endowment Justice Collective (EJC), who pretended to take a photo with her before grilling her on her negotiation strategies with the Trump administration.  The next day before a morning panel event, McInnis was caught on a hot mic telling Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis that she was ambushed by a student who appeared “pissed off,” which to me ...

After 325 years of existence, why has it become so difficult for us to agree on the purpose of our university? Campus of Yale University. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Win MordecaiStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon As the Trump administration continues to investigate Yale for its allegedly discriminatory admissions practices, Yale administrators have employed diplomatic rhetoric to articulate the purpose of the university. Yale President Maurie McInnis, attempting to draw a through-line from Yale’s founding principles to its current mission, said in her 325th anniversary address that “Yale was founded in a spirit of freedom, with the idea that liberal arts education can foster unfettered thinking and learning.” Yale, she continued, initially set out to “prepare students … f...

Though ostensibly compassionate, when we lower our expectations for people suffering from addiction we fail to recognize their human dignity. Homeless encampment in Los Angeles, California. (Credit: Matt Gush via Canva) Audrey BaeStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon There is a phrase that has become increasingly common when discussing drug addiction and homelessness: “meet people where they are.” There is a compassionate impulse behind it. Harm-reduction programs, in particular, are responding to a current and brutal reality: people are using drugs, and withholding care does not necessarily mean they will stop. In fact, they may be more likely to die.  But meeting someone where they are at should not mean leaving them there.  Our response to drug addiction increas...

Dean Pericles Lewis, who is up for review this year, is the victim of mob outrage with no basis in the facts. Dean Pericles Lewis speaks to students at a Buckley Institute event in 2024. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Jason CaoStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon One of my earliest Yale experiences was stepping foot on cross campus as a freshman for the matriculation ceremony. Other than the dramatic collapse of a Berkeley College tree limb, the only part of that ceremony I recall is the speech of the Dean of Yale College, Pericles Lewis. Referencing William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus, a poem that famously inspired Nelson Mandela in his struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, Dean Lewis exhorted the young minds before him to be “the master of [their] fate” and the...

The YCC’s progressive activism is incoherent and blatantly partisan. Memorial Quadrangle Gate at Branford College on Yale's Campus in New Haven, Conn. (Credit: Owen Tilman) Corinne CowanOpinions Editor, The Buckley Beacon Following the Trump administration’s claims that the Yale School of Medicine’s admissions policies are racially discriminatory, Yale has spent the past several months negotiating with the federal government. Meanwhile, our student government, the Yale College Council, has emerged to demand that Yale stand up to the Trump administration.  Between the months of July and September, the YCC has hosted protests, teach-ins, press conferences, phone banks, and more to voice dissent against the Trump administration’s actions. The YCC’s latest and great...

We must continue American leadership in this increasingly volatile world. Left-wing political streamer Hasan Piker speaks at the YPU in April. (Credit: Sygne Stole) Milad DavaranStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon Last spring, left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker spoke at the Yale Political Union in favor of the resolution, “End the American Empire.” During Piker’s speech, he described the fall of the USSR as “one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century.” Soon after, a student further argued in favor of the resolution, disagreeing with the assumption that, if the United States ceased to be the world’s dominant superpower tomorrow, power would necessarily have to be transferred from one international hegemon to another.  Instead, the student argued that th...