HISTORY OF THE UNION
Yale Political Union, 1948-1952
Yale Events and Activities Photographs (RU 690). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
In the spring of 1936, a group of Yale students sat down with history professor Alfred Whitney Griswold in Jonathan Edwards College to discuss forming a new group on campus. Meant to be a “a stepping stone for those Yale men who would succeed as government heads,” the Yale Political Union was born.
The Union’s first debate was on January 28, 1935 with George Soule, editor of The New Republic. In the early years, debates resembled those of the Oxford and Cambridge Unions across the ponds, as well as the literary debating societies at Yale. Members affiliated with three coalitions, the Liberals, the Conservatives, and the Radicals, which later became the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, and the Labor Party.
Yale Activities and Events Photographs (RU 692). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Our debates drew attention from the New York Times and from figures such as Huey Long and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who remarked that “this Union can be of undoubted value to Nation and to the University, provided it maintains independence and voices the true thoughts of those participating…honest debates will help in the search for truthful answers.”
Throughout the next decades, parties rose and fell, wars went on, but still, the Union kept debating. Under the leadership of John Kerry, sometime Chairman of the Liberal Party and future presidential candidate, the Union became “The National Forum at Yale” in the 1960s. Political fervor across the country peaked in the turbulent decade, and student participation remained high.
Yale Activities and Events Photographs (Ybb 965). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Our leadership continued Kerry’s trajectory into the 1970s. Guests included presidents Reagan, Carter, Ford, intellectual Noam Chomsky, and Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Traditions from each party and the Union solidified, including Inquisition, which is a semesterly tradition the night before Union elections.
The 1980s were marked by major growth in the Union under the tenure of Fareed Zakaria, a member of the Party of the Right. Membership swelled to 1,200, over a quarter of the entire student body at Yale, as the Union hosted a nationally televised debate.
Yale Daily News Archive, 16 September 1988
The past thirty years have seen a greater entrenchment of the Union’s parties, as well as the creation and death of several parties. While the Union experienced a decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, the fall of 2024 term marked a Union revival. In just the past year, our debates have drawn national attention for guests, such as Senator Rick Scott and commentator Hasan Piker.
Credit: Adam Stempel ‘11
Union Alumni
William F. Buckley, Jr. ‘50
William F. Buckley, Jr. ‘50 was a prolific member of the YPU and a member of the original Conservative Party, now called the Independent Party. After graduating, Buckley founded National Review and defined the conservative movement in the post-war era. Buckley returned to his alma mater several times to argue motions before the body.
Fareed Zakaria ‘86
Fareed Zakaria ‘86 is a member of the Party of the Right and was also elected President of the Union. Zakaria guided the Union to its heights in the 1980s and is currently a journalist, political commentator, and author.
Steven Calabresi ‘79
Steven Calabresi ‘79 was a member of the Independent Party and the Party of the Right, and was elected President of the Union. Calabresi went on to Yale Law School, where he was one of three co-founders of the Federalist Society.
THE HISTORIAN’S DESK
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50 years ago, the famous British anthropologist Margaret Mead spoke at the YPU. Mead’s ethnographic research, in which she argued that sexual relations were shaped by local culture, greatly influenced second wave feminism. Much of the contemporary “nurture v. nature” debate owes a footnote to Mead—who would find herself in the camp of the former. The resolution for her debate at the YPU has, unfortunately, been lost.
On November 17, 1952, Simon Gerson, a top leader of the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), spoke at the YPU. Gerson had recently been indicted under the Smith Act, a law passed in 1940 that was used to prosecute Socialist Party leaders and other officials in the CPUSA.
As detailed in the article excerpt above, Richard Nixon spurned the Yale Political Union multiple times throughout 1978 and 1979. Nixon, having resigned from office in 1974, was hesitant to speak for fear of protest.
Above is the front page of The Political Forum, the now defunct journal of the Yale Political Union. This April 1979 edition detailed the YPU’s debate that week on divesting from apartheid South Africa. The debate would pit U.S. ambassador to the UN Allard Lowenstein for the affirmative versus South African ambassador to the United States Donald Sole in the negative. On the right was an article detailing potential CIA activity at Yale.
On April 6, 1984, the YPU held perhaps the largest event in its history: a Black Tie 50th Anniversary Party at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. The food budget alone was $20,000 ($125,000 today), the Whiffenpoofs performed, and the guests of honor, all former YPU members, included William Bundy (foreign affairs advisor to JFK and Johnson), Edwin Meese (Attorney General under Reagan), and William F. Buckley (National Review founder and Firing Line host).
In 1972, noted public intellectual Gore Vidal visited the Union. Vidal would briefly describe his visit to the YPU in his 2004 book, Imperial America: “When I started my tour at the Yale Political Union, the audience was packed with hot-eyed neocons-to-be, though the phrase was not yet in use, as the inventors of neoconnery were still Trotskyists to a man or woman or even ‘Bell Fruit,’ trying to make it in New York publishing.”
In this 1971 correspondence, John Kerry laments to YPU President Gary Christian that he cannot attend the YPU that semester. During his time at Yale, Kerry had been President of the YPU and the now extinct Liberal Party. Kerry, who served in the Navy from 1967 to 1978, came into the national spotlight with his anti-war activism in 1971—the year of this correspondence. Kerry has recently stepped down from his post as Biden’s top climate advisor to work on Biden’s reelection campaign.
President George H.W. Bush, then President Reagan's Vice President, met the Union members in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
President Carter addressed the Union during his 1976 campaign. Before his speech, he met with members informally at the Union House.
President Reagan addressed the YPU in the 1970s. In 1984, the Union debated his re-election in a debate featuring William F. Buckley Jr. and Senator George McGovern.