BREAKING: Yale’s Committee on Trust in Higher Education Releases Report

A year after its launch in April 2025, Yale’s Committee on Trust in Higher Education released its report on the cause of the decline of trust in American higher education and the steps the committee recommended to address it.

In her response, Yale President Maurie McInnis wrote that the report “calls on Yale to reflect on and take responsibility for our role in the erosion of public trust. I accept this judgment fully…We must acknowledge how we have fallen short.”

Read the full report and Yale President Maurie McInnis’ statement.

Statement from Buckley Institute Founder and Executive Director Lauren Noble ’11:

After reading the report and President McInnis’ response, two things stand out: Yale’s promise and the Buckley Institute’s impact.

Throughout the report there are numerous direct and indirect references to our efforts, a sign of how the Committee on Trust in Higher Education, and Yale leadership, faculty, students, and alumni are recognizing the importance of Buckley’s work. Yale is in a better place because it has Buckley on campus.

President McInnis taking ownership of Yale’s role in the loss of trust in American higher education is encouraging. While many education leaders deflect, resist, or hide behind political battle lines, President McInnis should be applauded for recognizing that the problems of trust are serious ones and for committing to take steps to address them.

However, long-term problems require long-term solutions, as President McInnis acknowledged. The history of the past few decades in American higher education has been a slide toward the nadir in which Yale and its peers currently find themselves. More important than words in an email is the action that does or does not follow them.

The report, while otherwise thoughtful and extensive, is silent on two critical pieces of the public trust question. First, the elimination of the Alumni Fellow petition process for the Yale Corporation, which disenfranchised alumni, is not discussed. President McInnis is completely correct that “Just as dissent is an indication of a healthy democracy, it is a sign of vitality at a university.” However, that principle merits broader application. How does Yale genuinely expect to earn back the trust of the public if it doesn’t even trust its own alumni?

Second, Yale’s DEI efforts aren’t addressed at all. Buckley’s recent report, which is listed in the report’s selected bibliography, found over 200 DEI staff still at Yale, almost a year after Yale supposedly ended its signature DEI program, Belonging at Yale. 75 of those staff were simply given different titles. DEI programs effectively function as tools of ideological enforcement, driving some of the very dynamics eroding the public’s trust. If Yale wants to be serious about restoring public confidence, it will need to confront rather than hide from the legacy of these programs.

Nevertheless, it’s heartening to see the report’s strong and unqualified embrace of the values of freedom of speech and intellectual diversity. The Buckley Institute looks forward to continuing to help Yale better live up to the ideals of light and truth.