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14Nov By No Comments
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Buckley Essay Contest Winners: The Greatest Threat to Free Speech

High School Contest Winner: Kai Sherwin, Grade 11, Greenwich High School "What is the Greatest Threat to Free Speech" “If the freedom of speech is taken away then the dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to slaughter.”1 George Washington, amongst the other Founders of our nation, recognized how crucial free speech is to a successful democracy. Our contemporary society has no defined limitations on the freedom of speech; however, there is an insidious undertow threatening to erode this sacred principle: political correctness. To comprehend how political correctness is shaping the privilege of free speech, one must first understand several major aspects of this concept: The basic premise is that if the pundits and intellectuals can influence how individuals think and act, then they...
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14May By No Comments
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Suicide of The West

Editors’ note: Last fall, the Buckley Program sponsored an essay contest open to student Fellows and others within the Yale community. The topic, tied to our annual conference, was James Burnham’s 1964 book, Suicide of the West. Judged by three Yale professors, the following essay was written by Theresa Oei, member of the Class of 2015 and a former Buckley Fellow. She won the first-place prize of $1,000. The removal of ignorance is at the heart of the mission of education and rightly should be. However, it is the conception of how education is defined that liberalism has gotten wrong. Rationality embodies the human capacity to remove ignorance through a gain of knowledge, but human beings are not purely rational. An education that capitalizes only on a human capacity for reason neglects...
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14May By No Comments
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Beyond Economic Education

Editors’ note: Last fall, the Buckley Program sponsored an essay contest open to student Fellows and others within the Yale community. The topic, tied to our annual conference, was James Burnham’s 1964 book, Suicide of the West. Judged by three Yale professors, the following essay was written by Thomas Hopson, a Buckley Fellow and rising senior in Trumbull College. He won the second-place prize of $500. When most Americans discuss education reform, they use the language of economics. Their goals are quantifiable: higher test scores, more scientists, better factors for future growth. Their means are commensurate: more testing at younger ages, a rigid national curricula, and greater “product supervision.” As such, although their proposed reforms are well suited to increasing productivity,...
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14May By 1 Comment
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Liberalism and Death of a Diverse Education

Editors’ note: Last fall, the Buckley Program sponsored an essay contest open to student Fellows and others within the Yale community. The topic, tied to our annual conference, was James Burnham's 1964 book, Suicide of the West. Judged by three Yale professors, the following essay was written by Adrianne Elliott, a Buckley Fellow and rising senior in Saybrook College. She won the third-place prize of $250. In our society today, liberalism and progressive politics often point toward private sources of education as fountains of ignorance. According to these arguments, traditions passed to children through family or spiritual beliefs delivered through religious institutions and churches often impede societal progress toward equality and harmony. However, these ideals are based not in the p...
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1Oct By No Comments
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Prof. Kagan on Democracy & Education

Donald Kagan, Sterling Professor of Classics at Yale and a member of the Buckley Program's Board, recently penned an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. In his piece, Prof. Kagan explains the importance of instilling civic values through school curricula. His argument comes in the wake of multiple protests by students and faculty in Colorado opposing changes in a school district's history curriculum that would promote citizenship, patriotism and respect for authority. Prof. Kagan underscores the need for "justified and informed patriotism" through a historical analysis of ideas about education. The civic sense that America needs can come only from a common educational effort. In telling the story of the American political experience, we m...
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14Sep By No Comments
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This Week’s Update

This week has been a long one for members of the Buckley Program. Here are a few links to some of the Program's media coverage, as the lecture with Ayaan Hirsi Ali nears: First there's Rich Lizardo's op-ed in the Yale Daily News, as well as the National Review's editorial on the subject. Additionally, Megyn Kelly's show on FOX News, The Kelly File, featured the Buckley Program on Friday night's show. See here. Some other articles that may be of interest: - National Review: Yale's Buckley Program Under Fire for Inviting Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Campus  - Yale Daily News: Groups embroiled in controversy over speaker - Breitbart: Yale Buckley Program to Continue With Hirsi Ali Lecture Following Pressure to Withdraw Invite
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3Sep By No Comments
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Yale Daily News Writes about our Latest Efforts

Today, the Yale Daily News published a story on the Buckley Program's latest efforts. The piece includes descriptions of some of our fall programming, as well as quotes from our Executive Director and several of our board members. It also discusses the origins of the Buckley Program, and the mission that continues to guide our work to this day. We encourage you to check it out!  
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31Aug By No Comments
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Rob Ford and Conservatives in Toronto

A strange thing is happening in my hometown of Toronto: After a summer of record lows, Rob Ford, our infamous mayor, is seeing an upswing in his poll numbers. If you're anything like me, then you probably suspect that there's an interesting trend driving the change. It's possible to dismiss this as just an insignificant fluctuation as frustrated, disenfranchised voters shift their support between candidates ahead of the late-October election. Even if that's all it ends up being, there are still a couple of pretty interesting electoral trends that are worth considering, and a pretty counterintuitive fact that underlies it all. (more…)
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30Aug By No Comments
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Violating Antitrust Laws in China

We so often hear of the Chinese export market. Following a controversial ruling in China on antitrust laws, Tom Mitchell in the Financial Times provides an interesting look into the inner workings of a rather foreign-dominated industry within China: the automobile industry. Mitchell focuses on the investigations into some foreign automobile companies such as BMW, Audi, and Honda. And he sheds light on their questionable violations of Chinese antitrust laws—violations of fixing the prices of spare parts and those of repair and maintenance services. (more…)
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