Dear Trustees of the Yale Corporation,

The trusted charge of the university is to produce leaders who can recognize and pursue truth. Yale, an institution that takes as its motto Lux et Veritas, light and truth, has a special obligation to cultivate an atmosphere where truth can be found. 

Unfortunately, Yale, like many of its peer universities, has been delinquent in providing the tools necessary for its students to pursue truth in all its forms. The Buckley Institute’s recent study of the political leaning of the Yale faculty establishes that Yale’s educational staff is too ideologically homogenous to truly pursue Lux et Veritas as the university’s mission calls it to do: 

• Among surveyed departments and the law school, 77% of Yale faculty are registered as Democrats or have conducted political activity that heavily or exclusively supports Democrats, 20% are unaffiliated, and under 3% are Republican
• 16 departments—over half of those surveyed—have no registered Republicans 
• Across 14 departments in the social sciences and humanities, the ratio of Democrat faculty to Republican faculty is 78 to 1

Compounding the damage done by the absence of balanced views, the majoritarian dominance on campus stifles debate, the very method by which truth and facts often emerge. When faculty members overwhelmingly share the same political outlook, students are deprived of the wide range of perspectives necessary for critical thinking and meaningful intellectual growth. The prevalence of ideological conformity fosters an environment that doesn’t allow a fuller range of views to thrive, a detriment to Yale’s mission of education and scholarship. Students sense the pressure to conform and feel unable to express themselves freely in the classroom, with 39% reporting that they often self-censor in class. Alarmingly, half of students feel uncomfortable expressing disagreement with a professor about a controversial political topic and nearly a third say that faculty sometimes try to indoctrinate students with their personal political beliefs. 

Yale can and must do more to fulfill its educational obligations. We call on Yale to:

• Develop a plan to address the lack of intellectual diversity on the faculty 
• Conduct a thorough assessment of the politicization of the Yale classroom
• Recommit to educating graduates to lead a politically diverse landscape

If it is to truly pursue excellence, Yale must work to prioritize intellectual diversity on campus. This will build a Yale that better fulfills its mission to create graduates the world needs—leaders prepared to guide an ideologically diverse nation.

Sincerely,

Concerned alumni, students, and faculty

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