Opinion Archives - The Buckley Beacon

23Sep By Jack OlsonNo Comments

Are the Liberal Arts Possible Without God?

A secular liberal arts education struggles against itself. St. Mary's Church near the campus of Yale University in New Haven. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Corinne CowanOpinions Editor, The Buckley Beacon I have a vivid memory of a moment on my Yale tour for prospective students several years ago, when my tour guide took us through Sterling Memorial Library. While my father and I gaped at the beauty of the Sterling’s towering windows and stained glass, the tour guide told us about the building’s history. Sterling Memorial Library was designed to look like a cathedral, she said, but now it’s our library. Instead of a confessional booth, we have a circulation desk. Instead of an icon of Jesus, a personification of Wisdom is depicted at the aft of the grand entrance n...

17Sep By Jeth FoggNo Comments

Arts & Culture, Featured, Opinion

Yale’s Catholic Moment – and Its Future

Catholic life at Yale is experiencing a renaissance. How can it endure? St. Thomas More Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Jeth FoggArts & Culture Editor, The Buckley Beacon Catholicism has been capturing public discourse as of late. In February of 2025, Catholic convert and Vice President JD Vance employed the Catholic concept of Ordo Amoris in an attempt to justify the Trump Administration’s suspension of foreign aid programs and nationwide immigration crackdown, to the chagrin of Pope Francis. Mere months later, Chicago native Robert Prevost became the first American Pope, taking the name Leo. And earlier this year, now-Pope Leo XIV published his first Papal Encyclical entitled Magnifica Humanitas, in which he invokes Cathol...

16Sep By Hannah Owens PierreNo Comments

Featured, Opinion

Revisiting the Yale Report of 1828

200 years ago Yale found itself at an educational crossroads not unlike today— and we should learn from it. Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University (Credit: Owen Tilman). Hannah Owens PierreOpinions Editor, The Buckley Beacon It is often said that if the founding fathers were to be transported into the modern era, they would no longer recognize the nation they built. I, for one, am sympathetic to this view. The founders would certainly be shocked by the expansive bureaucracy and overarching reach of the executive branch that we see today. Less widely pondered is how shocked the founders of our university would be if they were transported to Yale in 2026. A university which was built by religious clergy for the purpose of cultivating the souls and minds of ...

11Sep By Corinne CowanNo Comments

Featured, Opinion

Are Professors Part of the Elite?

Americans don’t seem to think so, but they should. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Corinne CowanStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon Americans have always had a strange relationship with the concept of “the elite.” We are both obsessed with and disgusted by the elite. We admire and revere the Founding Fathers, yet we are sometimes uncomfortable with their educated and bourgeois backgrounds. At Yale, we desire both to partake in the traditions and aesthetics of the WASP upper class and also to tear down any sign of the old aristocracy. This summer, I stumbled upon an interesting poll in the center-left magazine The Argument. The poll suggested that Americans are comfortable designating three groups as the “elites:” billionaires, celebrities, and business leaders. Other ...

Why Yale’s Central Asia Initiative Should Think More Geopolitically

22Jun By Jack OlsonNo Comments

Featured, Opinion

Why Yale’s Central Asia Initiative Should Think More Geopolitically

Yale’s Central Asia Initiative, the centerpiece of its offerings on the increasingly important region, is falling short of its true potential. Luce Hall at Yale, which houses Yale’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Benjamin NulandContributor, The Buckley Beacon For many Americans, Central Asia remains a distant periphery, a vague space between Russia, China, and the Middle East. Yet this assumption misses its status as of the most consequential geopolitical laboratories of the 21st century. Yale’s Central Asia Initiative (CAI), one of the few institutions of its kind in the United States, is uniquely positioned to transform how students engage with the region, not simply as a historical and cultural relic, but as an...

26May By Jack OlsonNo Comments

Featured, Opinion

Yale College’s China Blind Spot

Why letting go of Professor Feng Zhang was a mistake. 46 Hillhouse Avenue at Yale, home of Yale’s International Security Studies program. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Benjamin NulandContributor, The Buckley Beacon Yale College has long shaped how Americans understand China, with generations of scholars like Professor Jonathan Spence training undergraduates like Joe Tsai and Tim Steinert who went on to influence business and policy. But at the undergraduate level, that legacy feels increasingly hollow, especially in the study of contemporary Chinese geopolitics. While peer institutions like Harvard and Brown have built accessible ecosystems like the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, at Yale, much of...

28Apr By Hannah Owens PierreNo Comments

Featured, Opinion

End ‘Safe Spaces’ on Campus

The Women’s Center purports itself to be a safe space on campus, but is it doing more harm than good? The Yale Women’s Center is located in the basement of Durfee Hall on Old Campus. (Credit: The Buckley Beacon). Hannah Owens PierreStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon Recently, the Yale Women’s Center has come under scrutiny by the Yale administration. According to the Yale Daily News, last December the Yale Dean’s Office offered the Women’s Center the option to either represent the political neutrality of Yale’s mission or become a purely student organization, rather than a campus-sponsored organization with a paid student staff. The first question one should ask is what is the Yale’s Women’s Center? If you guessed a space to uplift and represent all women at Yale,...

20Apr By Jason CaoNo Comments

Featured, Opinion

The Teetotaler Manifesto

Yale’s drinking culture is completely out of touch with reality. A Saturday night party on High Street. (Credit: Jack Olson) Jason CaoStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon Before Yale students step foot on campus as freshmen, all of them complete a mandatory “Work Hard, Play Smart” online course on the dangers of alcohol and the importance of drinking responsibly. Like all mandatory trainings, no one really pays attention to this course, and upon arriving on campus, students newly endowed with personal independence are largely left to fend off the temptation of intoxication by themselves. As the regular occurrence of ambulances and stretchers on and around Old Campus suggests, many of them fail. The danger of alcohol cannot be understated. Scientists classify alcoh...

Embrace Institutional Neutrality, Reject Partisan Advocacy

18Apr By Hannah Owens PierreNo Comments

Featured, Opinion

Embrace Institutional Neutrality, Reject Partisan Advocacy

Institutional neutrality is a common-sense policy, yet some students still don’t get the point. Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Hannah Owens PierreStaff Writer, The Buckley Beacon On Wednesday, President McInnis sent an email to the Yale community announcing findings from the Committee on Trust in Higher Education, a coalition she convened to examine “declining trust in higher education.” The results are damning: The committee admits that Yale bears responsibility for this lack of trust, due to rising tuition costs, lack of clear standards for admission, and, most importantly, promoting political bias and censorship. This last point has been the focus of much student discourse, from myself included. To combat the clear ...

The Government Didn’t Come. The Contractors Did.

9Apr By Shailen SharmaNo Comments

Featured, Opinion

The Government Didn’t Come. The Contractors Did.

Yale should adapt its international security education to reflect the realities on the ground in 21st century warfare. 46 Hillhouse Avenue, where Yale’s International Security Studies program is housed. (Credit: Buckley Institute) Shailen SharmaContributor, The Buckley Beacon In April 2023, Sudan collapsed into open gunfighting in the streets as the state authority evaporated. The U.S. State Department embassy in Khartoum announced that, “Americans should have no expectation of a US government-coordinated evacuation at this time.” Around 16,000 American nationals were left stranded in the gray zone: a lawless space where territory is controlled by armed gunmen, and the U.S. government is incapable or unwilling to intervene. Over two years later in October 2025,...