BREAKING: Buckley Institute Propels Yale to Higher Free Speech Ranking
Today, FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, released its new rankings of free speech at American’s campuses and universities. While Yale has traditionally done poorly on these rankings, the university jumped from the 234th out of 248 colleges and universities ranked last year to 155th out of 257 this year. That move was largely due to improvement on tolerance for speakers, conservative and liberal alike, and openness to differing perspectives.
“Though Yale is far from perfect, it is encouraging to see the impact that Buckley is having on Yale’s openness to differing perspectives,” said Buckley Institute Founder and Executive Director Lauren Noble ’11. “Buckley programming is the most consistent source of diverse speakers on campus, a fact that Yale leadership has acknowledged. These rankings, in addition to the hundreds of students who flock to Buckley events every year, demonstrate that Yale students truly want to engage with different perspectives.”
Yale Beats Its Ivy Peers
Yale did the best among its Ivy League peers in the FIRE rankings this year and was the only Ivy to rank in the top 200 for free speech. It is no coincidence that 11% of the Yale undergraduate student body has indicated their support for free speech on campus by becoming Buckley Fellows.
In this year’s FIRE rankings, while many of Yale’s rankings stayed relatively static or dropped, Yale demonstrated the most growth in student openness to conversations about difficult topics and student tolerance for controversial speakers.
In last year’s rankings, Yale placed 47th out of 248 colleges for student openness to discussing difficult topics on campus, up from 85th the year before. This year, Yale ranked 28th.
In terms of tolerance for controversial perspectives, Yale demonstrated even more marked improvement, ranking 11th overall for student openness to controversial speakers. Last year, Yale ranked 76th for tolerance of conservative speakers, and 29th for tolerance of liberal speakers. This year, Yale jumped to 41st for tolerance of controversial conservative speakers and 17th for tolerance of controversial liberal speakers.
This tracks with data found in the Buckley Institute/College Pulse 2023 Yale Student Survey, in which 87% of respondents said “Yale should allow people with controversial views on issues like politics, race, religion, or gender to speak on campus.”
