The Buckley Institute is committed to advancing free speech and intellectual diversity at Yale. As the data in this report demonstrates, Yale provides its students with a faculty whose ideological and political outlook falls well short of the diversity of the American public.
This year, the Buckley Institute built on the progress of last year’s effort and examined the political leanings of 1,666 faculty members across all 43 undergraduate degree-granting departments, as well as the law school and school of management.
The Buckley Institute’s research found that in undergraduate departments and the law and management schools, 82.3% of faculty are registered Democrats or primarily support Democratic candidates. By contrast, only 15.4% are independent and 2.3% are Republicans. 27 of 43 undergraduate departments had no Republicans at all.
Among the general public, annual data put independents at around 40% of the electorate for the last 15 years, while Democrats and Republicans have hovered around 30%. In Yale’s home state of Connecticut, independents (44%) and Republicans (21%) likewise outstrip their shares of the Yale faculty. By contrast, only 35% of Connecticut voters are registered Democrats. Yale’s principles on free speech, as encapsulated in the Woodward Report, recognize that for
Yale to fulfill its core function, the “free interchange of ideas is necessary not only within its walls but with the world beyond as well.” The monolithic ideological lean of the Yale faculty indicates that the university is falling short in that regard.