NEW: Faculty Political Diversity at Yale: Democrats Outnumber Republicans 28 to 1

The Buckley Institute is proud to present our annual Report on Faculty Political Diversity at Yale. This report examines the voting history and political affiliation of Yale’s faculty members as part of our mission to promote free speech and intellectual diversity on campus. Spanning 1,511 faculty members across 27 faculty departments and the law school, our research found a significant and widespread left-leaning political bias among faculty members at the expense of the center and the right. 

“It is disappointing but not surprising to see such a dramatic progressive political bias among Yale’s faculty,” said Buckley Founder and Executive Director Lauren Noble ’11. “Having a diversity of opinion among Yale’s faculty is key to upholding the Woodward Report ideal: ‘the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable.’” 

As our data demonstrates, among surveyed departments and the law school, 77% of faculty are registered as Democrats or have conducted political activity that heavily or exclusively supports Democrats; under 3% are Republican. 16 of the departments we surveyed, over 57%, have no registered Republicans at all.

These results not only uncover an overwhelming bias at Yale. They indicate that Yale’s faculty remains out of touch with the American public overall. According to a recent Gallup survey of Americans conducted in August 2024, only 31% of Americans identify as Democrats while 30% who identify as Republicans. Independents comprise 39% of Americans but just 20% of Yale faculty researched. 

The discrepancy was most apparent in the social sciences and the humanities. Across 14 departments in those two areas (as classified by Yale), the report identified 312 Democrat faculty (88%) and only 4 Republicans (1.1%), a ratio of around 78 to 1. Of those 14 departments, Buckley identified zero Republicans in 10, or 71% of the total, including American Studies, Economics, and Philosophy. Last year’s report, which examined a smaller sample of 306 faculty members across 4 departments and the law school, indicated that 83% of identified faculty members were Democrats and only 3.5% were Republican. 

With a current ratio of 28 Democrats to every 1 Republican, Yale is falling short in exposing its students to a diverse array of perspectives. This means the nation’s future leaders are leaving Yale ill-equipped to lead a politically diverse country.

Read the full report: