Yale University has been at the forefront of the nationâs cancel culture movement. In 2015, Yale made national news when professors Nicholas and Erika Christakis were surrounded by a threatening student mob after the professors sent out a memo about Halloween costumes to students in their residential college that some students deemed insensitive. Two of the students who helped attack the Christakis team were later astonishingly awarded Yaleâs Nakanishi Prize, given to âtwo graduating seniors who, while maintaining high academic achievement, have provided exemplary leadership in enhancing race and/or ethnic relations at Yale College.â Almost a decade later, Yale remains at the center of the cancel culture movement, this time for silencing dissent from Jewish students who were attacked and threatened for taking a stand against the Hamas terror attacks on October 7th, 2023.
Despite these awful examples of illiberal and intellectually dishonest student life in New Haven, Yale is improving its protection of free speech and viewpoint diversity. New data from the Buckley Institute reveals that, despite the vocal, social media savvy, well-organized students on the left that capture outsized attention on social media, in general, Yale students crave free expression and reject the toxic cancel culture that silences debate and harms their educational experience.
Certainly, the Buckley Instituteâs findings are not uniformly positive and show that many facets of the speech and political environment at Yale are imperfect. The Buckley Institute data show, for instance, that there is little ideological balance on campus. When asked to describe âthe overall political environment at Yale,â 80 percent of the students described the school as being either very or somewhat liberal, with just seven percent conservative in 2023. In 2024, the numbers look even worse; 89 percent of students report that the campus is liberal to some degree, and only three percent is very or somewhat conservative.
However, the Buckley Institute data reveal some hopeful findings about speech and expression emerging on campus. For example, most students at Yale believe that the Woodward Reportâa document from 1974 organized by historian C. Vann Woodward which argues that âthe paramount obligation of the university is to protect their right to free expressionâ and calls for âunfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeableââshould be Yaleâs free speech policy. Specifically, in 2024, students are more likely to agree (89 percent) that the Woodward report should be Yaleâs free speech policy compared to 2023 (80 percent), and first-year students (59 percent) are most likely to strongly agree that the Woodward Report should be Yaleâs free speech policy.
Relatedly, the data show that most students (60 percent) would support Yale adopting a policy of institutional neutrality. Moreover, these beliefs transcend party lines where majorities of Democrats (56 percent), Republicans (61 percent), and independent (64 percent) Yale undergraduates support institutional neutrality.
Turning to real behaviors about speech and expressions, while the Buckley data show that a quarter of students (25 percent) agree that it is acceptable to shout down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus, there is a bit more to this story. Only four percent strongly agree with the statement that âIt is acceptable to shout down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus,â while 21 percent somewhat agree. The remaining studentsâ75 percent and the overwhelming majorityâsomewhat or strongly disagree with the statement that it is acceptable to shout down speakers to prevent them from sharing their ideas. These numbers are better today than a year ago as well, where 66 percent found it unacceptable to shout down a speaker, and support climbed nine points in the past year.
As for other disruptions, which have been fairly common on Yaleâs campus and have impeded the educational process, Yale students have had enough. The numbers of those who strongly or somewhat agree with the statement, âYale should discipline students who deliberately disrupt classes or events to prevent the voicing of views with which they disagreeâ have increased from 2023 to 2024 from 50 percent of students to 67 percent of students in 2024. Whether liberal or conservative, large numbers of Yale students are rejecting the culture of disruption as acceptable and this is a significant, positive change in the past year.
Yale University is certainly not perfect when it comes to living up to its motto of âlight and truthâ and being a bastion of expression and dialogue. However, in spite of Yaleâs very public problems with free speech, it is very much the case that the schoolâs undergraduates want more dialogue and less ideology and this is a sign of real progress.
Samuel J. Abrams
January 17, 2025
aei.org