Buckley Institute Announces Winners of the 2025 National High School and Yale Undergraduate Essay Contests
The Buckley Institute is delighted to share the winners of this year’s National High School and Yale Undergraduate Essay Contests.
In honor of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s centennial, student writers were asked what it means to “stand athwart history yelling stop” in today’s world. The submissions impressed us with their range and thoughtfulness. From warnings about a Brave New World-style future that commodifies humanity to calls for steering technological change in places like Major League Baseball, these essays illustrate how Buckley’s call still resonates with students decades later.
High School Winners
The first place winner of the high school contest was Nathaniel Marks, a senior at Regis High School in Manhattan. Using a metaphor of a car rolling past a stop sign, Nathaniel’s essay argues that modern American conservatives must end passivity—stop merely saying “stop”—and instead mobilize political and cultural power to restore traditional values:
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The ultimate answer now is that merely yelling “stop” is not enough; the car that is America has already rolled through the sign, as well as a thousand others stretching miles and decades back. It is time to hit reverse…If the Supreme Court opens up a path for pro-life legislation, and conservatives stand for the absolute dignity of life, then we have to realize that a single heartbeat bill is worth a thousand Marches for Life. If conservatives believe in the duality and immutability of sex, then we have to realize that using preferred pronouns out of “courtesy” is self-defeating.
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Read the full essay here.
Svetlana Reznikova, the second place winner, is a senior at Wando High School in South Carolina. Her essay draws upon Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to argue that progress, when defined in terms of efficiency and utility, turns people into objects for use. Standing “athwart history,” in Svetlana’s argument, refers to grounding society in justice, self-discipline, and the full breadth of human life:
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In Brave New World, Huxley paints a society where science has come to a pinnacle of progress: aches, pains, illness, and old age no longer exist; there are no disruptions to the status quo of society, and everyone is “happy” even. Progress yields comfort and stability but at what price?
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“Progress” itself is a loose term. If progress is to be measured by the objective benefit that it brings to human-kind, it may seem positive. Yet when measured by efficiency or market expansion, it risks turning humans and values into commodities.
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Read the full essay here.
Third place winner Ephraim Blair is a sophomore at Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland. His essay argues for a return to Buckley-style grounding of the conservative movement:
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Like in Buckley’s time, conservatives continue to squabble over various policy prescriptions. However, as Russell Kirk wrote, true conservatism is much larger than debates about trade, tax brackets, and foreign policy. More so than it is an ideology, conservatism “is a state of mind, a type of character, a way of looking at the civil social order.
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…Increasingly, many, including conservatives, are tempted by the ideal of an “open society.” But, as Buckley so eloquently responded to Leo Cherne in an episode of Firing Line, we should not “want society to be open to certain ideas…you can make certain exclusions, and those exclusions don’t have to be reconsidered” (Buckley quot. in Knowles, lxxii).
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Read the full essay here.
Yale Undergraduate Winners
Our first place Yale Undergraduate winner is Jeth Fogg, a junior from Colorado majoring in History. His essay posits that Buckley’s call to “stand athwart history, yelling stop” is a spiritual and philosophical push to resist a modern culture that has traded transcendental truths for materialism:
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The Bucklian proposal calls for a paradigm shift. Rather than acquiescing to mere self-interest, one should capitulate under the yoke of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Adhering to these forms might appear burdensome and unnecessary in a society that is markedly materialistic.
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Temper the restlessness of the human heart with a gentle “Stop,” asking what someone sees to be Good, True, or Beautiful in this or that. This will force an introspection, and perhaps reconsideration on your interlocutor’s behalf.
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Read the full essay here.
In second place, Benjamin Rosenthal, a senior from New York City pursuing a BA in History and Certificate in Ancient Egyptian, argues that progress cannot be stopped, but it can be steered. Drawing on MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s major changes to professional baseball, he asserts that, rather than trying to freeze history in place, stakeholders should help guide how traditions adapt and endure:
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But do not confuse me for a proponent of unfettered progress, though I am a progressive. Society and progress are evolutionary, and the products of this evolution tend to be good by the simple law that the more beneficial something is, the more likely it is to be culturally reproduced.
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I will one day lament to my children the National League’s adoption of the designated hitter and will shake my head in memory of the good old days when a pitcher could throw a complete game. Yet by then, baseball will not be just my own sport—it will be theirs as well. The game I grew up watching was different from that of my parents, and many new rules (the challenge system, for instance) are genuine improvements. The players are different and will always be different each year, as will the fans.
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Read the full essay here.
Lukas Koutsoukos, the third place winner, is a junior majoring in History and Ethics, Politics, & Economics, with a certificate in Spanish, originally from Connecticut. His essay examines technology and suggests that “yelling stop” in the digital age doesn’t mean rejecting innovation, but reclaiming humility, attention, and dialogue so that we can hear—and be heard—through the noise:
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Our society has lost a certain humility in how we debate with one another, and in a time of clickbait articles and eye-catching reels, we often prioritize being the loudest in the room over being the most respectful.
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Even before we can consider the question of whether social institutions or sacred historical values will survive this current age, we ought to ask ourselves whether we as a society can even functionally coexist and communicate enough to begin preserving these traditions.
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Read the full essay here.