The Editors

Reflections on Christina Hoff Sommers

The Buckley Program’s recent guest speaker, Christina Hoff Sommers, gave a lecture on her vision for “freedom” feminism, and sparked an important conversation around campus about feminism and women’s rights. In the hopes of providing a small snapshot of this reaction, The Beacon features both an opinion piece of a current Buckley fellow, Karina Kovalcik, and an official statement issued by the Yale Women’s Center. It is our hope that these two responses foster additional discussion and reflection.

Opinion Piece by Karina Kovalcik

On Thursday night, Christina Hoff Sommers came to Yale’s campus and gave a talk on modern-day feminism. Since Yale is a breeding ground for motivated, driven, and strong, independent women, a feminist coming to give a talk doesn’t seem that out of place. However, this event was not a typical talk on feminism, and Christina Hoff Sommers is not your typical feminist (on the surface anyway).

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TWIB: Failed Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Editors’ note: This week, following President Obama’s recent “We don’t have a strategy yet” gaffe, we turn to WFB’s take on the foreign policy of a different president. As part of his syndicated column called On the Right, Buckley wrote the following piece with the title “Now Do You Understand?” and with a bit of his usual wit. Originally published on August 22, 1980, this piece criticizes President Carter for trying to resolve the hostage crisis in Iran by appealing to the Ayatollah through none other than Muammar Qaddafi.

We’ve added in some links for a few other figures as well. Take a look. 

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TWIB: Bill Buckley and Big Words

Editors’ note: Every week, the Editors will select an article by or a video of Bill Buckley as part of our “This Week in Buckley” series, or TWIB for short. We hope you enjoy!

In all his years of writing, Bill Buckley had a penchant for using big words, and this style of his did not go without criticism. In fact, an editor once wrote to him, saying that he assumed that Buckley used big words because “(1) you like to show off, and (2) you take delight in irritating people.” In response to these charges and others, Buckley defended his vast vocabulary in a noteworthy op-ed in The New York Times from 1986. 

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