NEW: A Report on Faculty Political Diversity at Yale

Since its inception, the Buckley Institute has been dedicated to promoting free speech and intellectual diversity at Yale. We are constantly working to complete the Yale education in a way the administration can’t, or won’t. And while we have strived to provide alternatives to the campus orthodoxy, Yale seems to be doing little to expose its students to a diverse array of perspectives.

The Buckley Institute is proud to present a new publication: A Report on Faculty Political Diversity at Yale. This report details the first step in Buckley’s effort to understand the extent to which Yale’s faculty lounge has skewed toward one side of the aisle at the expense of the other side and the center. 

The research found that among 4 relevant departments and the law school, 83% of faculty are registered as Democrats or have conducted political activity that heavily or exclusively supports Democrats; only 3.5% are Republican. According to a recent Gallup survey of Americans conducted in March 2023, only 25% of Americans identify as Democrats versus an equivalent 25% who identify as Republicans. Independents too are cheated. They comprise 49% of Americans but only 13% of Yale faculty researched. 

With a ratio of nearly 24 Democrats to every 1 Republican, the Yale faculty’s political makeup diverges dramatically from that of the rest of the country. America’s future leaders are sadly leaving New Haven poorly equipped to lead the half of the country not represented in Yale’s faculty lounge. 

Yale’s free speech principles, as embodied in the Woodward Report, call for “the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable.” Some semblance of ideological balance among the faculty, administrators, and students alike would help further this ideal.