Saturday, February 16, 2019

Ivy-League Exclusivity: Political Ethics in The Yale Political Union

When I was a student at Yale, I was a member of the Party of the Right (POR) in the Yale Political Union (YPU). I was pretty much a libertarian back then, and the POR consisted of libertarians and Burkean traditionalists. The Burkeans dominated the positions, and they had their little club within the club to protect their prerogative. John Kerry, who would go on to be a U.S. senator and a presidential candidate, had been president of the YPU in 1968.  At least as of my student years at Yale, the YPU has consisted of several “parties,” which are really little debating/drinking societies spanning the ideological spectrum.  This is merely the surface, however. Beneath, Yale's culture of exclusivity reigned. Getting into Yale is just the first of several levels of greater and greater exclusivity. 

The full essay is at "Exclusivity in the Yale Political Union."