Our decision to endorse Alex W. Chen and Michelle Jimenez was based on the reasoning below.

Alex W. Chen ’28 and Brendan Kaminski ’28: When We Dare

Last year, Publius endorsed Andrew Boanoh and Jalen Bradley hoping they would serve as persuasive advocates for student interests and improve the YCC’s tepid engagement. Yet, after a year of administrative erosion of student life amid ostensibly dormant leadership, we are disappointed by their inability to meet the moment and enact the changes they proposed. As such, we initially harbored reservations about Chen and Kaminski — candidates who seemed to originate from the same establishment that has produced ineffective YCC leadership year in and year out.

Chen changed our minds.

What distinguishes him is not a difference in what he wants, but a clarity about how power within the university operates — and how it might be meaningfully leveraged. This is most evident in his strategy to tangibly pressure the administration. Whereas past YCC leaders have relied on ineffective internal channels like emails and statements, Chen exhibited a clear understanding that leverage against the administration can be found among donors, alumni, and the press. He spoke to us about his testimony in The Nation, which compelled several Yale administrators to proactively reach out to him. In casting doubt on Yale’s reputation, Chen is already making administrators think twice about future attacks on student life.

Chen also discussed how he spearheaded the ISA/SEA petition, the largest student government petition at Yale since the 1980s. Though we are skeptical that such efforts meaningfully impact administrative policies on their own, we applaud his innovative strategy of reaching out with the petition to Yale Clubs across the country, spreading awareness among alumni and donors.

We believe Chen is the candidate who can most effectively convert frustration into results. In our interview, Chen was able to offer a precise grasp of Yale’s internal architecture, ranging from how decisions are made within the Yale Investments Office to a specific category of administrators he would target to ensure that pressure is applied most effectively. His advocacy is distinguished by a level of preparation that moves beyond rhetoric: he was able to speak on prior engagement with the Yale Office of Development and alumni networks to create clear pathways towards donor attention, reputational risk, and hopefully, institutional response.

In contrast, we were less convinced by Kaminski. While broadly aligned on priorities, his answers too often retreated into generalities. When pressed on how he would navigate budget tradeoffs, he struggled to articulate a clear decision-making framework and defaulted instead to empty platitudes. Also, though his dining policy wins are admirable, his excessive emphasis on them overlooked more pressing student realities. Most importantly, Kaminski lacked his running mate’s clear understanding of the systems — namely, the Yale Endowment and bloated bureaucracy — that he seeks to influence. While we do not doubt that Kaminski is an effective communicator, his interview responses failed to reach the level of clarity, practicality, and insight that Chen provided.

Publius finds Chen’s campaign compelling because it treats advocacy as a deliberate, meticulous process rather than a set of lofty goals. We have faith in Chen’s leadership and his ability to leverage real, underutilized approaches — alumni and donor pressure, national media attention, strategic timing — to influence Yale’s administration if elected YCC President. At the same time, we challenge Chen to not let pragmatism preclude ambition. His success in breaking long-formed cycles of YCC stagnation will rely not simply on his ability, but also on an unrelenting commitment to use every possible tool at his disposal to fight for change.

John Robert Walker ’28 and Michelle Jimenez ’28: Respect Us Yale

John Robert Walker and Michelle Jimenez are a breath of fresh air, prepared to galvanize the student body and rally protests against a suffocating administration. When questioned about his motivations for running, Walker outlined his plan for collective action with a buzzing candor that made us truly believe. Walker and Jimenez think students and New Haveners have shared interests and can unite against an administration that willfully sows division in order to minimize collective response. In this, we believe they have the potential to engender a broader uptake in student organizing and activism.

In community organizing, Walker’s fervor is evident and his resumé undeniable. He has enlisted in student organizing efforts, including the Endowment Justice Collective (EJC), that have engaged a staggering proportion of Yalies. Walker maintains strong relationships with institutional and community leaders as an Advocacy Coordinator at Dwight Hall, as well as ties to Yale Farm that predate the most recent cuts to its funding. Beyond Jimenez’s experience as a YCC Senator, she serves the community as a Student Executive Committee member at Dwight Hall and a representative on the Public Safety Advisory Board.

Throughout our interview, Jimenez’s knowledge and levelheadedness complemented Walker’s impassioned idealism. It is conceivable that, once in office, they could pull in tow a unique range of community stakeholder interests to the administration’s front door.

Yet, Walker’s plans lack significant forethought on how the privileges and burdens of a YCC President can be incorporated into his vision. Nothing is more telling of this than his understanding of divestment. As a member of the EJC, it’s natural that mentions of Yale’s endowment and its contentious investments proliferate his ticket’s website. When asked, though, to elaborate on the mechanics of the endowment and devise a plan to effectively pressure administrators to divest from certain industries, Walker failed to provide an answer of substance, noting he “could give a vague explanation but [didn’t] want to even waste time doing that.” While his solution to this lack of understanding — a team of specialized experts to fill his gaps in knowledge — was clever, his answer greatly concerns us. He’s presented himself as a learned advocate, and of all topics, the endowment is the one about which he should be most informed. His answer indicates that his ambitious vision is not matched with a thorough understanding of the complex systems he will be facing.

Walker’s aims are presumptive of an inability to negotiate with the administration. He already envisions methods of coalition-based escalation that engender confrontation (e.g., a mass student boycott of Bulldog Days). While these goals are admirable, and possibly even effective, they may be obstructive to the increased face-to-face access with administrators and policy oversight for which the presidency is responsible. The Presidency may be helpful, but is not necessary, for his ambitions — and we urge him to continue attempting to realize them.

Jimenez stands out as the most impressive Vice President running in this race, and we believe she is a far stronger complement to Chen’s presidency than Kaminski. While Jimenez and Kaminski are both seasoned YCC veterans, Jimenez’s answers to our questions showed superior competence and conviction. She displayed a formidable ability to match both Chen’s reasoned understanding of the YCC and Walker’s passion. She was able to explain in great detail how she would manage the Senate, with specific references to the strengths and weaknesses of Boanoh and Bradley’s approach; her extended history organizing with Walker leads us to believe she is genuine in her passion for the issues on which she has campaigned. These traits position her well to lighten the bureaucratic load on Chen while challenging him to maintain energy and conviction in his endeavors. Most remarkably, when we asked each presidential candidate which Vice President besides their own they would most like to work with, every single one chose Jimenez.

Sahra Wahedi ’27 and Cemre Keles ’28: Empower Yale

Sahra Wahedi and Cemre Keles exhibit a deep understanding of the YCC and what is necessary to turn ideas into policy. Wahedi has served the YCC in various capacities over the last three years, while Keles has been a Senator and member of the Financial Policy team. With a track record of successfully implementing pragmatic policy proposals such as the Flex Plan point increase, extending dining hours, and an increase in funding for prayer spaces around campus, Wahedi and Keles argue that they can actually get things done.

Yet Wahedi and Keles seem to find themselves in an uncomfortable middle ground between the visions presented by Walker and Chen. When asked how they would compel the administration to respect the YCC, Wahedi and Keles proposed to protest, build coalitions with faculty, and appeal to the administration’s motivations to match peer institutions. With a lack of clear commitment to either embracing confrontation or prioritizing internal negotiation, Wahedi and Keles gesture to many strategies without elucidating the granular details of a single one.

Even if this ambiguity reflects a desire to balance ambition with realism, it raises questions about coherence. Without a clear hierarchy of solutions or a tangible plan for change, it is difficult to envision how these tactics would translate into sustained leverage over the administration. Though we commend Wahedi and Keles’s ideas and experiences, they risk leaving the student body feeling more confused than empowered.

Paul Park ’27 and Briana Dubon ’27: CARE for Yale

Paul Park and Briana Dubon strive for a transparent, accountable Yale. They approach administrative issues from the bottom up — a method that focuses on transparency and spreading awareness among the student body. Park’s experiences as KASY President and service on the Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior class councils empower him to understand what students and clubs need. Dubon brings an extraordinary vigor and competence to the team, describing herself as “a doer.” Her leadership on campus, especially through the Yale Entrepreneurial Society and Yale Alumni Association, speaks to her abilities to coordinate and execute. It is clear that both Park and Dubon are devoted to the Yale community and seek to improve support for students.

That said, we are unsure if their platform, given recent attacks on student life, is currently appropriate. During their interview, Park and Dubon listed their top three priorities as creating resource hubs, reforming the Credit/D/F system, and restoring to-go boxes. They spoke only briefly about ISA/SEA cuts and the termination of summer storage funding for low-income students.

While Park and Dubon certainly care for Yale, their emphasis on less immediate concerns is drastically overshadowed by a year of administrative disregard for student life. In this election, we need candidates who present pragmatic solutions to the contentious problem of managing student-administration relations. Park and Dubon fall short.

Regardless of the outcome of this election, we believe that the next YCC administration will serve our student body with commitment and care. We are confident, though, that our endorsement of Alex W. Chen and Michelle Jimenez is the right choice to truly represent and effectively advocate for the student body.

A Note on Campaigning

We have become increasingly aware of certain tactics that some candidates may have used over the course of their campaigns. While we are currently unable to substantiate any of the claims about which we have been notified, we’d like to note that Publius does not condone unethical campaign practices or coercion of any sort. Our decision was based entirely on candidates’ platforms, our interviews with them, and the YDN debate, with a focus on what each candidate and ticket might contribute to the Yale community if elected to lead the YCC.

Publius is the only joint opinion publication at Yale. Formerly the Yale Daily News Editorial Board, we publish articles on a range of topics, from political discourse to college football. If you want to learn more, visit our home page.

To prepare this endorsement, Publius internally disclosed conflicts of interest within its membership in order to approach the endorsement process in an unbiased manner. Members then attended the annual YCC x YDN debate. From there, they conducted 30-minute interviews for each ticket. After the interviews, members deliberated on each ticket and candidate independently. The final endorsement passed with a majority of the members present.

You are welcome to submit Letters to the Editor, suggestions, and comments to the publication by emailing publiusatyale@gmail.com.

Personalities churn within an unthinking matchmaking algorithm. Red flags and attachment styles abound as romance filters through the twisted sieve of modern language. We hail our crushes with text messages, rather than quill pens and parchment. Courtship has been subjected to the cold apathy of the swipe. The great abominable horror that is modern dating — or so the majority alleges. Yet we find that this indictment says more about the machinations of a powerful nostalgia than it does about the state of modern love.

The majority levies a number of charges against the present dating landscape, one of which concerns the level of intimacy we forgo by “hiding behind our screens” and curated social media profiles. But an undue nostalgia seems to beam through here. Undoubtedly, there is a charm that comes from an uncalculated stumbling upon “The One” — whether it’s the person collecting all our papers that we just so happened to drop at their feet, or the peer who just so happened to adore the book we publicly read in the cafe. We recognize the appeal of these scenarios that could come straight from a 2000s romcom. Our point is simply that intimacy does not itself come from meet-cutes.

In each of the above scenarios, authenticity was not found in the circumstances of the meeting, but in the genuine, human conversation that was struck up afterward. When the majority balks at the superficiality of ‘love languages’ and dating algorithms, they focus their criticism imprecisely. Sure, perhaps a person’s most unvarnished self does not fully translate in the “carefully compiled moments” they highlight on social media — but what about the connection that follows?

We won’t deny that nowadays we entertain more blasé, arm’s-length exchanges than ever over social media, and that many of them do not turn into love stories. But they don’t all need to. It would be absurd to similarly condemn in-person dating on the basis that select few first impressions turn into marriages. The relevant measure is not whether each encounter is immediately saturated with meaning, but whether the landscape as a whole makes meaningful connection possible. So when the majority claims that “we hear of few success stories” in the modern dating landscape, maybe they are looking for “success” in the wrong place.

A related criticism is that romance has been stripped of its “inimitably human” quality. But what exactly is meant by this? The majority seems to read imperfection into humanity and lament its absence in a world of overly-polished digital courtship, a world particularly appealing for Yale’s bountiful crowd of perfectionists. But if what they miss are the offbeat jokes, the unguarded idiosyncrasies, the unscripted rhythms of a first encounter, then it’s hard to see how dating nowadays is especially devoid of this sense of humanity. First impressions have always been incomplete and often inaccurate. When we meet someone new, whether in a café or through a screen, we rarely, if ever, present our most unfiltered selves. That instinct is not some corruption of a new age, brought on by dating apps and a culture of aestheticized self-branding. It is a deeply human impulse: we always have, and always will, want to be liked.

Perhaps the most problematic argument raised, however, is the idea that this attitude towards dating reveals a modern tendency to flee from “real,” true, emotional vulnerability. But this premise also rests on thin foundations. If anything, gamified lingo and social media seem to make a rather poor refuge from vulnerability. Far from concealing desire, they are a public admission of it, a willingness to openly declare that one is trying their best to find love, even if just by listing green flags, or putting their interests and quirks into a dating algorithm. Launching into the world of modern dating means risking rejection again and again and again — arguably with a regularity far beyond what earlier generations ever saw. That kind of rejection is hardly trivial; even if it looks different, it stings just the same.

And that is the point that the majority misses. Times have changed. Language has evolved. Introductions have accelerated. But love is still love — a trembling leap of faith, a distillation of humanity into its most stripped-back form, and one of life’s most terrifying, yet rewarding, gambles.

Publius is the only joint opinion publication at Yale. Formerly the Yale Daily News Editorial Board, we publish articles on a range of topics, from political discourse to college football. If you want to learn more, visit our home page.

We are interested in hearing your thoughts and responses to our writing. Please feel free to email us at publiusatyale@gmail.com. With your permission, we may publish your letters and our responses at a later date.

Icks. Red flags. Love languages. Astrology. Attachment styles. Blood types.

Whether thumbing through our For You pages or weighing romantic prospects with friends, countless online metrics pervade our vocabularies and mindsets. We turn to code words to demystify the labyrinthine search for love, to shortcut the arduous process of finding “The One.” And it doesn’t end there.

From the classic Marriage Pact, which boasts the use of “Nobel Prize-winning economics,” to Date Drop and its weekly matches, Yale’s online match-makers promise to find us our soulmates with just a ten-minute survey. Our personalities and romantic values are reduced to a 1-7 Likert scale that is ostensibly enough to weed out the incompatible and calculate our perfect matches.

In reality, we hear of few success stories. These algorithms fuel the fantasy that dating can be reduced to statistical compatibility. The fact that more and more versions roll out each year reflects a persistent market at Yale: one founded on the hope that a computer science major can successfully code a connection for us.

Dating apps are no less reductive. We hide behind our screens, curating the most appealing versions of ourselves for thousands of people to click or swipe or super like. We wind highlight reels of our lives that depict our most attractive qualities through carefully compiled moments. When we constrict ourselves to the rubric of an effective dating profile, we neglect the idiosyncrasies, the complexities, and the real flaws that make us inimitably human.

In this pageant, we are not just contestants, but judges expecting the same of others. These dating apps and algorithms encourage us to settle for nothing less than the “perfect” person, a Frankensteinian amalgamation of traits — of measurable, tangible qualities.

As Yalies, we are especially susceptible. Our lives have been built around maximizing our odds at success in all that we do — our clubs, our careers, and even our romances. If our current talking stage doesn’t exactly embody the image of our ideal partner, we get this nagging feeling that maybe we could just swipe to find the next. Surely there’s a better option out there, one who more perfectly checks those boxes we’ve imagined and filtered for.

But that isn’t how love works. In truth, there is no perfect person; there’s only a perfect feeling. And when we develop that connection, that spark, superficial traits like “height” and “hotness” blend into the background. We come to love that person who’s right in front of us.

Choosing to search for emotional connection requires a daunting level of emotional vulnerability. When we forego the countless options of a digital market and attempt to find a meaningful connection in the confusing mess of our daily lives, we embrace our unknowing, our inability to rationalize our love, and thereby become vulnerable to failure — heartbreak, disappointment, rejection. Yet it is within all of this failure and all of this unknowing that we are given what is most essential to our search for love: the space we need to simply try.

We must stop treating love like a shopping list and accept that there is no perfect equation that can solve for “the One.” This Valentine’s Day, instead of asking whether someone fits neatly into the boxes we’ve constructed, we should turn to a simpler question: how do they make you feel?

Publius is the only joint opinion publication at Yale. Formerly the Yale Daily News Editorial Board, we publish articles on a range of topics, from political discourse to college football. If you want to learn more, visit our home page.

We are interested in hearing your thoughts and responses to our writing. Please feel free to email us at publiusatyale@gmail.com. With your permission, we may publish your letters and our responses at a later date.

Many Yalies espouse moral judgements at every turn, from protests, to essays, to seminar discussions. We hold people and institutions to high standards. We question and protest figures we deem problematic, especially those directly related to campus life. But when it comes to our social lives, how consistently do we hold ourselves to this standard?

Scandals and misconduct haunt the Yale social scene. In 2018, Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) lost its lease to widespread complaints of sexual misconduct, following a previous ban in 2010 when a hazing video showing pledges shouting misogynistic phrases went viral. In 2018, a Yale sophomore brought a formal Title IX complaint against SigEp, now rebranded as the co-ed Edon Club, following another complaint the previous year; four years earlier, two lawsuits were brought against the members of the fraternity for a fatal accident in 2011. There have been repeated concerns, from both students and sororities, over Sigma Nu’s culture and members’ inappropriate conduct. In 2023, several sororities suspended mixers with LEO following a rape allegation against a past vice president. Moreover, accounts of drink tampering at Yale frats have become unfortunate afterthoughts in our nights out, unaddressed and largely untraceable.

Many of us also have our own stories of alarming experiences at fraternities, whether firsthand or through friends. We sensationalize the shocking headlines that get media or Fizz attention, overlooking what happens not just once in a blue moon, but every weekend. Frats say they’ve changed, that they’ve become “better places for women,” but time and time again, we find evidence to the contrary. The above scandals, and the countless other offenses that go unreported, stem from a frat culture that obscures culpability, minimizes accountability, and encourages collective amnesia.

And non-frat-affiliated Yalies aren’t mere bystanders to this culture. Look at your last Friday night out: the bustling throngs of partygoers lined up on frat row, with those who once scorned the scandals and allegations now begging to get in at the door. Our physical presence on High Street misaligns with our moral convictions. The frats once shut down by Title IX allegations have self-proclaimed feminists on their dance floors, just as SigNu has Fizzers who voted to “demolish” its house eager to enter its premises. What happened to their righteous demands to hold sexual offenders accountable, to reimagine fraternity culture? How quickly did our anger dissipate? Was it all a performance? A virtue signal?

There must be some explanation as to why Yalies, in all their moral righteousness, continue to show up to these muddy backyards packed with questionable company and eroded principles. Maybe it’s the illusion of anonymity, the promise of drunken chaos, or the collective suspension of judgement making cramped dance floors feel more alive than a night in with friends. To that end, frats are some of the most accessible venues to decompress after a long week filled with p-sets and essays. We focus on this potential for fun without consciously thinking of the implications of our actions. And so we tolerate a state of cognitive dissonance, where we knowingly enter morally fraught spaces — despite knowing all their histories.

Our tendencies should trouble us. The culture we build through our actions runs so contrary to the one we imagine through our words, yet it is the former that defines campus life and the latter that remains purely aspirational. In continuing to attend frats, we seem to have accepted their flaws as an unfortunate, but necessary evil in our pursuit of weekend fun. But our moral compasses should guide us not just in theory, but in practice. So, if we are ready to surrender our morals for something as minor as going out on a Friday night, then we need to ask ourselves how much those values truly mean to us in the first place.

Publius is the only joint opinion publication at Yale. Formerly the Yale Daily News Editorial Board, we publish articles on a range of topics, from political discourse to college football. If you want to learn more, visit our home page.

We are interested in hearing your thoughts and responses to our writing. Please feel free to email us at publiusatyale@gmail.com. With your permission, we may publish your letters and our responses at a later date.

Why did you apply to Yale? What did you write about in your admissions essays? Why did you spend all those nights in high school maximizing your “spike?” Yale admits some of the most ambitious and talented; it selects students who aspire to become astronauts, archaeologists, philosophers. Yet this very place which purports to collect bold visionaries seems to temper them in no time. So we ask: Where have they gone? Where have you gone?

Most children who dream of charting a journey to Mars eventually come back down to Earth. Adulthood inevitably arrives, its reality checks in tow. A dulling of dreams, a craving for stability. So often these are taken as markers of a necessary “maturing.” It comes as little surprise that by the time graduation approaches, we see our classmates trade in paintbrushes for slide decks, fossils for spreadsheets. We step onto campus ready to change the world, only to discover, as so many young adults do, that our dreams are best pared down to the safer vision of maximizing shareholder value.

Yalies are not alone in this respect. But we do seem to exhibit this tendency with a particular intensity. We were trained to dream big — that’s how we got here, after all. Those ambitions distinguished us, propelled our work, and governed our lives. Yet somewhere along the way, the rug was pulled out from under our feet. Those passions we were once encouraged to cultivate? Now they’re pipe dreams, impractical indulgences. To forsake Yale’s established pipelines into consulting or finance in order to chase the passions which once defined us is no longer courageous, but foolish.

There’s another element that seems especially acute at Yale. In high school, our imaginations ran wild, unburdened by consequence, motivated by our youthful determination. But now, to try to turn those visions into reality is to confront the possibility that we might fall short. And if we fail, it might mean that we’re no longer extraordinary, that we aren’t the success story that was always within reach but never in our hands. Perhaps to circumvent this possibility, we console ourselves with the thought that choosing stability now is a comfortable in-between. Our dreams are not abandoned, but simply deferred. We endlessly await the moment when the pursuit will feel safer and failure will feel further.

And so, when you ask a fellow Yalie what they want to do when they graduate, you’ll too frequently hear that uncomfortable chuckle, followed by “consulting” or “quant” or “finance.”

Or, more sadly, “I’m selling out. Ha!”

This is not to say that desires for financial stability are shameful. For those of us without the luxury of generational wealth, it can represent a noble, even necessary, grounding of our own aspirations for the sake of family. It is just that, too often, the chase for esteemed professional milestones—titles that reassure parents and impress peers—can narrow the horizons we once claimed for ourselves. If long hours in investment banking are genuinely what excite you, then pursue them without apology (indeed, this is hardly a case of “selling out”). But for many of us, the draw of those careers lies less in the work itself than in the validation and security. Selling out, in this sense, is about more than the size of a paycheck; most Yale graduates will be financially stable (and debt-free) regardless. It is about letting our fears of risk and of failure eclipse our greater dreams.

The reality is, at Yale, we are afforded the rare privilege to take risks. We came to this school because it invests in us—inexperienced undergraduates—and enables us to pursue imaginative projects that add something to the world or allows us to learn for the sake of learning. Yale can uniquely bring dreams to reality. Yale can help fund your startup or connect you to peers with similar passions. Yale can finance a year of writing poetry full-time or learning Korean in Seoul. Yale gives us these opportunities because it knows we are capable of doing something with them. Why pass up on these chances? You could seize them all, pivot, and find financial stability anyway.

If Yale has given us anything, it is the freedom to fail and have the opportunity to try again. We believe that this privilege calls us to test the boundaries of our ambition while we are most empowered to do so. We owe it to ourselves, and all those who have invested in us, to treat these dreams not as deferred possibilities but as present duties. We might never again have this moment, this extraordinary opportunity to chase the visions that impassion us. To do less, even in the name of maturity, is to squander this precious gift we’ve been given: the chance to chase the dreams that first carried us here.

We are interested in hearing your thoughts and responses to our writing. Please feel free to email us at publiusatyale@gmail.com. With your permission, we may publish your letters and our responses at a later date.

Of course the Trump administration has come for Columbia and Harvard. Of course it’s framed as a culture war. And of course there’s an instinct, especially among academics, to reach for the most catastrophic label available. Jason Stanley and others have called it fascism, have claimed it part of a broader attempt to gut nongovernmental institutions and consolidate power.

We don’t entirely disagree. But we also don’t think crying “fascism” is the appropriate response. The deeper challenge that elite universities face is born not from evil characters in scary offices, but from democracy. Swaths of the American public have lost faith in elite institutions of higher learning. They have no desire to see their tax dollars allocated to campuses rife with vaulted ceilings, Parades of Comestibles, and academics calling dogs “prejudiced.”

Confidence in institutions of higher education is plummeting. This is bad for Yale not only because it puts our federal funding in jeopardy, but also because the whole point of our project is to improve the world. It’s hard for Yale to do that when members of the public, the media, Congress, and even the judicial branch write off our scholarship and students as “woke.”

Panicked, some Yale faculty want President Maurie McInnis to “speak up,” though no one really has any clue as to what that means. In April, over 1000 faculty members signed a letter urging university leadership to “defend the values and ideals of higher education” and to “resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands that threaten academic freedom and university self-governance.” Conveniently, the letter offered no blueprints.

The most specific course of action was proposed by Professor Daniel HoSang, who said in an interview, “If behind the scenes, what we’re saying is, ‘here’s the critical research that’s done on our campus and why [higher education] needs to be protected,’ why would we not say that publicly?”

Professor HoSang makes a fair point, but what exactly does he want? News articles from Yale about the work we do? (Done that.) Free online courses from Yale? (We have those.) A committee? (Sure thing.) Statements from Maurie McInnis? (Who’ll read those?) Our very bright, very distinguished university is aware that it has lost much of the public’s trust and favor, but is fumbling for answers about what we can do differently to earn it back.

We, too, worry that the public has lost faith in places like Yale. And, oftentimes, we give them reason to. The tabloids have a field day with our absurdities — some of them well-earned. But this place is flawed, not forsaken. Yale still admits America’s most talented writers, scientists, and economists, and puts them in a suite together. Our classrooms and laboratories are a confluence of brilliance that have led to breakthroughs in quantum information processing, RNA, and financial crises.

Someone’s got to make the case for the university; YaleNews is certainly not that someone, and neither is President McInnis, nor is Professor HoSang. Who’s left? It just so happens that Yale has very close ties with tens of thousands of American leaders: politicians beloved by rural constituencies, teachers adored by students, and doctors trusted even by anti-vaxxers. We’re speaking of Yale’s many alumni and students who know what Yale really means, what Yale really does.

It’s too bad that many of those who know the university most intimately are not great ambassadors of Yale. For decades, we’ve been criticizing the university through mainstream platforms, from New York Times essays to popular books (e.g., God and Man at Yale). And it’s not that we see the critic as evil or their job as unimportant—that’s why we write for Publius, after all—but we cannot help but wonder if Yale affiliates (ourselves included) have overdone the criticism, and in so doing, have painted an incomplete picture of the university. It’s not clear to the public that when we write about Yale students tearing down the American flag, we know that most of our friends were horrified. Nor is it clear that the people who say that Yale is full of “complete bots” (see: Fizz) are the same ones who genuinely love this place, who cry heartily at graduation.

For every thing we don’t like about Yale, there is something about it that we love more. There’s a reason we applied. There’s a reason we’re still here. But we don’t communicate our love in our op-eds or our conversations because we assume that our appreciation is obvious — and, because appreciation tends to be less interesting.

A lot of the work done at Yale is not tangible—this place produces bright minds, research papers, and other quiet contributions to human knowledge—but it’s still vital. Yale is a special place. It’s a place worth aspiring for, a place we are so proud to have ended up in. Most of all, it’s American excellence, and worth defending.

If we want to recapture the trust of those skeptical of us, of people who aren’t on board with Yale and its ethos, then we need to play our part in earning it back. That doesn’t mean every Yalie needs to pen a sharp op-ed, or deliver some sweeping public defense against claims that this place is nothing but a bastion of excess, a black hole for taxpayer dollars. Sometimes, it just means speaking candidly in the spaces we already inhabit — saying out loud, without irony or apology, what’s for so long gone unsaid: why we love this place deeply.

You are welcome to submit Letters to the Editor, suggestions, and comments to the publication by emailing publiusatyale@gmail.com.

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This was a difficult endorsement to make. During our interview, Andrew Boanoh and Jalen Bradley convinced us with clear policy proposals and a strong vision for the YCC’s future. At the same time, Brian Moore’s genuine commitment to New Haven greatly inspired us, and we wish there were more people like him in the YCC. Unfortunately, we can only endorse one candidate for each position. Our decision was based on the reasoning below.

Andrew Boanoh ‘27 and Jalen Bradley ‘27: Yale4You

What sets Andrew Boanoh and Jalen Bradley apart isn’t just their policy platform, though it’s impressively comprehensive. It’s that they understand the nature of the YCC, and thus how to most effectively reform it. Amid a student government often characterized by stubbornness and a Yale administration known more for silence than solutions, their campaign feels like a genuine attempt to carve out meaningful change, to do something different.

It is no secret that the Yale administration is slow to respond to student advocacy. Yet Boanoh and Bradley appeared undeterred. In our interview with the pair, and especially in a mock meeting with “adversarial” administrators that we led, Boanoh proved tremendously thoughtful and intentional, inspiring us most among the presidential hopefuls. He quickly mapped out key campus stakeholders, pressing firmly and respectfully on issues like Yale shuttle access to Tweed Airport. He spoke with a poise and deliberateness that felt truly unique. In conversations with actual administrators, we are confident that not only will Boanoh be well-prepared, but persuasive — necessary traits for the student body’s “Principal Liaison” to the Yale administration.

What is plain in both Boanoh and Bradley is the serious thought they have given to what the YCC can and should be. They have no illusions regarding the sorry state of student engagement with the YCC, an issue they seem dedicated to addressing. Bradley, in particular, put the impetus on the YCC to rebuild student trust, proposing an “arms-out” approach that includes a variety of student engagement efforts, such as actively inviting student organizations to meetings. Their flashiest policy goal—to create an AI “Cloud,” which rapidly receives and responds to student feedback—is emblematic of how far they’re willing to go to make the YCC “a partner people can trust.” To us, these proposals represent more than just ideas: they’re signals that the duo sees leadership as listening, not lecturing.

Boanoh and Bradley were also candid about the YCC’s reputation as a nebulous, ineffective body. They plan to meet this problem with realism and honesty. Part of not disappointing the student body is setting realistic expectations in the first place. For example, given the current stance of Yale’s administration, they said, “We can’t promise free laundry” — so they didn’t. In lieu of gimmicks and pollyannaish promises, Boanoh and Bradley guarantee their stalwart advocacy for the policies that matter most to students.

This doesn’t mean they lack ambition. Indeed, one of their most compelling ideas, “The Courtesy Principle,” asks that administrators provide students with explanations for significant decisions affecting student life. As we see it, the likelihood of this principle achieving far-reaching administrative success is minor. Nevertheless, the problem which they diagnose—the opacity of Yale’s bureaucracy—deserves scrutiny. So, whether or not their Cloud comes to life, or The Courtesy Principle gains traction, Boanoh and Bradley will provide what the student body has long been denied: a YCC rooted in clarity, accountability, and a confident vision.

Brian Moore ’26: You Deserve Moore

Brian Moore is not like the other candidates. Where others tread lightly, he charges forward. Where others campaign on the procedural, the possible, the palatable, Moore centers on justice — specifically, justice for the city that Yale calls home, yet often neglects. He is raw, fiercely principled, and occasionally unpolished. When his VP dropped out just hours before the deadline, he didn’t waver. He stayed in the race, solo. That alone speaks volumes.

Driven by his unabashed conviction, Moore leads two Dwight Hall initiatives, founded Link New Haven from scratch, and spends Sundays at the Church on the Green offering tangible aid to residents in need. He doesn’t talk about New Haven with detached perspective; he has spent long hours building an intimate connection with the city. It makes sense, then, that endowment justice is central to Moore’s platform.

In a room with top Yale administrators, we don’t just hope Moore would push hard —we’re certain that he would. There are many issues on campus and beyond which require more than polite conversation and procedural finesse. In Moore’s own words, he is not above “badgering,” and that matters.

However, the very things that make Moore electrifying also make his candidacy complicated. For all his passion, Moore lacks experience with the YCC, and it shows. He stumbles on delivery, his passion sometimes outpacing his clarity. When prompted on how he would address administrators during our interview, he hesitated, improvised a hyper-specific request, and struggled to adapt when met with administrative evasion. Unfortunately, the administrative web that surrounds the YCC presidency cannot be cut through with conviction alone. Moore frames his outsider perspective as a strength, but what he misses is that YCC presidents don’t unilaterally do things — they ask for them from higher-ups. What’s more, this advocacy is on behalf of the student body, not just according to the President’s own passions. That’s a frustrating truth, and one that Moore’s leadership style doesn’t seem to reckon with fully.

University budget decisions, federal funding anxiety, and the fiercely protected endowment are all forces far beyond the reach of any one student, even a student body president. And with the day-to-day of YCC leadership grounded in student affairs (e.g., mental health, housing, dining, financial aid), Moore’s laser focus on Yale’s obligations to New Haven may end up being unfeasible.

So, while we are not endorsing Moore for the presidency, we are grateful for the urgency he brings to the table. That’s why we believe Moore would be extraordinary as the New Haven Engagement Chair, a position squarely aligned with his passions and skill set. We implore the next administration, if he is not elected, to make that happen.

There’s also a lesson here for other candidates. The YCC, and the Yale community more broadly, can learn from Moore’s dedication to his principles, his unwillingness to sit quietly. While others might excel in diplomacy, Moore’s strength is in disruption. And sometimes, that’s precisely what’s needed.

Diego Paz ‘27 and Emily Nguyen ‘27: Better Yale

Diego Paz and Emily Nguyen have been closely engaged with the Yale College Council since their first year. In Fall 2025, they hope to amplify their on-campus impact to greater lengths. With a background working with Yale’s admissions office, Paz has significant knowledge of the university’s external presence. He advertises a leadership approach that revolves around student visibility and inclusion, which lends itself to the President’s more outward-facing role. Nguyen comes to the race having served in a variety of policy- and event-related positions in the YCC, and she has exhibited a keen awareness of the logistical demands of student government. Her work on academic policy and Dwight Hall initiatives reveals her organizational skills and aptitude for navigating internal YCC processes — qualities that render her a strong Vice Presidential candidate. As such, the two complement one another.

While Paz and Nguyen are undeniably experienced, we were not convinced by their vision. For instance, during our interview, they identified free laundry as one of their top three priorities (accompanied by menstrual equity and retroactive Credit/D/Fail). Without a doubt, these are important areas of student concern. But in a time of sweeping institutional change, heightened uncertainty, and growing tension between students and the administration, this ticket’s focus on largely surface-level YCC staples suggests that they might be missing the forest for the trees.

After all, the very obstacles that have long stalled progress on these initiatives—presumably the same ones that hampered Nguyen’s efforts to address Credit/D/Fail policy during her tenure as Academic Policy Director—continue to plague the YCC, and the pair offered few new strategies for overcoming them. Their advocacy, though earnest and well-meaning, establishes itself firmly within a status quo that has routinely failed to deliver. By contrast, the other candidates demonstrate more of a willingness to interrogate what student government can and should be. We don’t question that Paz and Nguyen envision a “Better Yale.” We’re just not sure what, exactly, that looks like.

No matter which candidates win this upcoming election, we are confident the next administration will serve the student body with dedication. Nevertheless, we are sure our endorsement of Andrew Boanoh and Jalen Bradley is the right one at this pivotal time.

Publius is the only joint opinion publication at Yale. Formerly the Yale Daily News Editorial Board, we publish articles on a range of topics, from political discourse to college football. If you want to learn more, visit our home page.

To prepare this endorsement, Publius internally disclosed conflicts of interest within its membership in order to approach the endorsement process in an unbiased manner. Members then attended the annual YCC x YDN debate. From there, they conducted 25-minute interviews for each ticket. After each set of interviews, members deliberated each ticket and candidate independently, without reference to other tickets or candidates. The final endorsement passed with a two-thirds majority of the members present.

You are welcome to submit Letters to the Editor, suggestions, and comments to the publication by emailing publiusatyale@gmail.com.

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A quiet, sunlit cafeteria. A man and a woman sit separately. Do they look lonely to you?

They “appear miles apart, each lost in their own thoughts,” said President McInnis in her convocation speech to the Class of 2028. She perceived a “sense of isolation and loneliness,” an early “evocation of [the] modern loneliness” that has only gotten worse. Indeed, ours is a “generation of loneliness.” But don’t fret — according to McInnis, Yalies are uniquely situated to navigate this struggle.

Yale, to her, is a refuge from the “national epidemic of loneliness.” We have residential colleges, dining halls, butteries, and countless other third places, spaces designed for connection and spontaneity. On some level, she’s spot on: we do have community and busyness and serendipitous encounters.

On a deeper level, she’s wrong. A unique strain of loneliness pervades our campus. We see it in the GCal Warrior, whose days are planned to the second: schedules chock-full of meals with strangers, club meetings with proto-consultants, coffee chats with LinkedIn connections. The GCal Warrior never says no — driven by FOMO, allergic to empty time. Their calendars are crammed with colorful blocks, not just to stay busy, but to stay full. What they fear most isn’t missing out, but the silence that follows. And let’s be honest — there’s a little GCal Warrior in all of us.

Make no mistake: the GCal Warrior is far from alone. They’re lonely. Loneliness is often misconstrued as physical solitude, but it’s more than that. It’s a dearth of meaningful connection. We can be surrounded by people, yet feel disconnected. Or we can seclude ourselves in our rooms, yet feel as though we have more friends and companions than we ever thought possible. And this is a distinction we tend to forget.

Sure, part of the solution is to spend our time with a certain deliberateness. This can mean making time for close friends; other times it can mean saying no to lunch with an acquaintance, or even giving up a club. Just the simple acknowledgment that one is overextended can lead to positive change.

But loneliness isn’t just poor planning. Yalies can’t type-A our way out of loneliness, no matter how meticulously we craft our lives. We try (and fail) to fill the void by following our GCals to the letter, by balancing a perfect mix of friendships, by pursuing the bright college dream of a tight-knit, ever-present social circle. But even then, loneliness will play catch-up, lingering just a step behind. Loneliness is a fixture of life.

Sometimes this point is lost because these unrealistic social expectations appear tauntingly within reach amid Yale’s abundant opportunities for social connection. But Yale won’t save us. Certain days, loneliness—and no, we don’t mean being alone—will press in a little more. Loneliness shows up mid-meeting, post-party, mid-laugh. And when it does, you can chase the illusion of perfect connection — or admit that even here, with everything in place, you still might feel lonely.

“Consider how different it would feel if rather than retreating from one another,” said McInnis in her speech, “the two strangers in Hopper’s painting were seated together, engaged in lively conversation.”

Instead, consider how different it would feel if, rather than perceiving loneliness in this image, we saw two people in a busy world enjoying solitude. And even if they do feel a little lonely, that’s only natural.

Publius is the only joint opinion publication at Yale. Formerly the Yale Daily News Editorial Board, we publish articles on a range of topics, from political discourse to college football. If you want to learn more, visit our home page.

This editorial was published with the approval of at least two-thirds of the group’s members. You are welcome to submit Letters to the Editor, suggestions, and comments to them by emailing publiusatyale@gmail.com.

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First, it was the tangerines. The student body grumbled at the prospect of a fruitless Commons, but nothing was done. Then, it was the senior-priority housing lottery and still, despite widespread student dissent, nothing was done. And now it’s the de facto expansion of our college.

Yale has been changing since its founding. Yet today, the bulk of change increasingly comes not from innovative leaders nor from impassioned student movements, but from a distant, bloated bureaucracy. It’s not just that our tangerines and housing priority were taken from us; it’s that a removed and impersonal middle management now leads the charge on policy and funding decisions.

So, the insult is twofold: first come the changes, hastily instituted and poorly communicated, and second come the implausible justifications, if any come at all. Case in point: last year, Melanie Boyd, the Dean of Student Affairs, became concerned with the uneven distribution of summer storage space between colleges. Her solution? Take away everyone’s summer storage space, in the name of some strange, unexplained definition of “equity.”

Consider also the announcement released on Tuesday, February 4, revealing Provost Scott Strobel’s and Dean Pericles Lewis’s plans to expand the size of the College. Their rationale vaguely gestures to a “strategic plan” which seeks to “enhance the student experience.” This messaging neither clarifies what this broader “strategic” vision of Yale entails, nor how a larger undergraduate body contributes to its success. In effect, all we know is that change is underway, and that we, clueless of its purpose, must simply ride out the consequences. Sure, we acknowledge their nod to making Yale more “accessible” by opening its doors to 100 more students per year, but we are also aware of what happens when an unprecedented percentage of admittees wish to enroll. In attempting to optimize every facet of Yale individually, the administration misses the forest for the trees, and in doing so, forsakes the very people and values that give Yale its luster.

Whether it’s five-sentence replies to pressing questions, or appeasements like the Good Life Center, the concerns of Yale students, the beating heart of our university, are consistently met with vague statements and temporary solutions. What really gets us is not just the inconvenience, which we can stomach; rather, it’s the fact that we do not know what our university’s vision is, nor to which pasture the bureaucrats are leading us. All we know is that it will be decorated with mis-defined and misapplied buzzwords.1

We understand that times are changing: threats like a jacked-up endowment tax and the loss of federal funding loom large in the shadow of a Trump presidency, and elite universities are under pressure to cut costs in anticipation. But as long as administrative responses to the aforementioned issues are opaque and accompanied by unsatisfactory justifications, if any at all, they will keep failing to resonate with the student body. The reality is that Yale’s bureaucracy has swelled to epic proportions. Administrators now outnumber undergraduates — when just two decades ago, the opposite was true, by a two-to-one margin. This ever-expanding bureaucracy only widens the gulf between students and university officials — a gulf which their empty platitudes cannot bridge.

In the end, this is about more than just Commons tangerines. It’s about a university that keeps peeling away student agency until all that’s left is the sour aftertaste of bureaucracy.

Who, exactly, is Yale for? If our voices are mere background noise to efficiency and cost-cutting metrics, then the answer is clear — and it isn’t us.

This editorial was published with the approval of at least two-thirds of the group’s members. They can be reached at publiusatyale@gmail.com.

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It’s Harvard-Yale. November 23, 2030. The scoreboard reads 42-0, Harvard, at the end of the fourth quarter. Yale alumni dejectedly turn off their TVs; Yalies who made the trek to Cambridge pack their bags in rooms full of celebrating Harvard students. As members of the Yale community commiserate with one another, they ask: Why do we keep losing? 

The answer is simple: Yale axed recruitment, athletics program be damned.

The majority assumes that Yale could get rid of its recruitment process and the athletics program would fare just fine: the worst that could happen, in their words, is “a few athletes would be lost in a shift away from selective recruitment.” This is naive at best, dishonest at worst.

Good sports teams don’t just spontaneously appear on campus when you admit 1,600-odd students based on their Common Apps. Recruits need to complement their would-be teammates and fill the gaps that appear with each new season. It takes time, effort, and most of all expertise to fill rosters, which coaches can dedicate to potential athletes but general admissions officers simply can’t. And if we want the best athlete-scholars, we need coaches to identify them and attract them to Yale. Of course, coaches shouldn’t be making admissions decisions, and they don’t. They only help admissions officers make informed decisions.

The majority, meanwhile, seems to believe that recruitment is the name of a magic wand that coaches wave to whisk athletes straight through Phelps Gate. Somehow, though, it’s the dissent who “demeans” athletes by supporting recruitment. It’s true that admissions rates are significantly higher for recruited athletes than for other applicants. But to be a recruited athlete, a coach has to identify you not only as extremely talented on the sports field, but also as a competitive applicant who meets Yale’s standards as an entire package. Just like any other part of the holistic admissions process, recruitment gives talented applicants a chance to present themselves at their best. It does not, contrary to the majority’s belief, reduce athletes to their athleticism or cast them as one-dimensional ogres.  

But the majority is not content with simply ripping into the recruitment process. They contend that Yale no longer really needs a cohesive athletic program. Let’s set aside the obvious fact that athletic excellence is a kind of excellence, that Yale historically sought it and still today prizes it. Let’s forget that there were twenty Bulldogs at the Paris Olympics, and that one of the greatest men’s figure skaters of all time graduated in May — let’s pretend that Yale’s days of world-class athletics are confined to the past. Even then, you cannot understate the value individual athletes bring to Yale, nor the sense of community and cohesion that the program helps to foster.

Athletes get up before sunrise nearly every day, build bonds with teammates from disparate backgrounds, and persevere in the face of countless injuries. They develop physical prowess, interpersonal skills, and character traits–including grit, discipline, and the capacity to consistently perform under physical and mental strain–that are just as valuable as purely “intellectual” competencies. Variety is critical to every community, and athletes help to provide it here.

Also, how else does Yale compete with its peer institutions in such a visible manner? Our victories are symbolic of the strength of our school, and our losses, our weakness. Furthermore, in a conference where all schools uphold a similarly exceptional standard for academics, we should want to excel in sports. And, yes, we excel in other disciplines, from debate to orchestral music to artistry, but sports have a broader and more visceral appeal. Our wins in football, basketball, and soccer are celebrated on campus, on Fizz, and on national media. When Yale wins The Game, any casual observer can sense the joy and enthusiasm that pervades our community. Even students who don’t know what a touchdown is, or “don’t attend to watch any particular athlete,” will storm the field after a win against our archrival. 

Athletics don’t just bond current Yale students — they tether alumni to the institution, creating connections between Yalies of past, present, and future. At 12:00 PM today, dozens of watch parties will commence across the country. Alumni of all ages will come together and rejoice as Yale (hopefully) scores its winning touchdown, and we’ll celebrate with them from Harvard Stadium. And when our own bright college years are behind us, we too will come back for Harvard-Yale, to reminisce and reconnect.

We concede that Yale has become less focused on athletics over the years; Yale abolished its mandatory physical education requirement over sixty years ago, for one. But that does not mean students have become less dedicated to following sports on campus. In fact, with the advent of technology that provides sports data in real time, students and alumni might feel more of a connection with athletics than ever before. The majority ignores the role of athletics in forming and maintaining an institutional community that spans generations and continents.  

We implore the majority to support athletics at Yale. Attend matches so the bleachers are no longer “mostly empty.” Wear face paint and cheer, and post jubilant messages on Fizz when we win today. But please don’t ignore the critical role that athletics plays in Yale’s culture and community when you’re partying at MIT frats because of the opportunities our recruitment process provides.

Lean in, don’t bow out. 

This editorial was written by a dissenting minority of at least three members of Publius. They can be reached at publiusatyale@gmail.com.

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Student-athletes at Yale don’t have it easy. They have to balance a full course load while attending practices and games that often require rising at the crack of dawn. We admire them and have no doubt they’re exceptional in much the same way as their peers — which is why we are unconvinced that Yale should maintain specialized recruitment for student-athletes. 

Despite sharing so much in common with their peers, student-athletes regularly gain admission through a distinct recruitment process. No other extracurricular is afforded this same privilege. So, that begs the question: what’s so special about athletics? In our opinion, nothing. We worry, then, that specialized recruitment is not only unjustified, but worse, it pigeon-holes student-athletes and erodes the integrity of Yale’s holistic admissions process.    

Make no mistake: we do not seek a Yale free of sports or athletes. We, too, enjoy attending the occasional football game and are glad to celebrate athletic excellence among our peers. We just do not believe that the elimination of the specialized recruitment process would render Yale athletics obsolete. As it stands, most athletes are not selecting Yale because of its athletics. If this were their top priority, the most skilled student-athletes would set their sights on a state school with a stronger sports program that improves their chances of going pro. They choose Yale for the same reason we do—the quality of education. This fact is irrespective of any recruitment process. 

And it's not that high-quality athletes wouldn’t get in. Their hard-earned awards in football or crew would still be taken into consideration, but the weight of input would shift from a recruitment coach to an admissions officer. We believe Yale student-athletes when they speak of the sheer effort and dedication they pour into their craft and the recruitment process. It is in recognizing the hard work of student-athletes, in understanding that Yale’s admissions process specifically selects for talent and drive, that we are assured an end to recruitment would not herald an end to Yale athletics. 

To assume otherwise is to demean student-athletes and diminish their accomplishments. If we doubt the ability of top-level athletes to stand the test of holistic review without recruitment, we implicitly buy into conceptions of athletes as simple in character and lacking substance beyond their sport. It is those who affirm recruitment that effectively cast student-athletes as one-dimensional and undeserving of their spot at Yale save for their athletic prowess. Were the most skilled athletes subject to the same traditional admissions cycle as their peers, it seems plausible that this reductive view of athletes would lose force. People would have to regard athletes with the same deference as students of every other extracurricular leaning, which we worry is not the case already because the specialized recruitment process allows their peers to write them off. 

We understand that our proposal would likely result in a weakening of sports to some degree. While talent would be retained for the most part, it’s conceivable that a few athletes would be lost in a shift away from selective recruitment. But we think Yale—like the Ivy League at large—has become less athletics-focused and more intellectually driven across the centuries. Our campus culture only echoes this point. The average Yale sporting event sees mostly empty bleachers, peppered with the occasional sports fanatic: compare that to Yale Symphony Orchestra concerts. Even at Harvard-Yale, the University’s most popular and lucrative sporting event, most people don’t attend to watch any particular athlete. The Game is really just an outlet for our school pride. 

Even if the success of sports at Yale were to falter with recruitment gone, we expect campus morale to remain plenty high. Sure, we might lose some ticket sales, and we might alienate some alumni. But, such factors should not hold our admissions process hostage. 

It’s time to rethink Yale’s specialized athletic process, not out of disdain for sports, but out of genuine respect for our student-athletes and the values Yale upholds. By eliminating this outdated practice, we would be affirming that athletic talent, like any other exceptional skill our student body possesses, deserves recognition through a holistic admissions process. Let’s let the scoreboard reflect excellence, not special treatment.

This editorial was published with the approval of at least two-thirds of the group’s members. They can be reached at publiusatyale@gmail.com.

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We live in a very progressive space. In a survey of our peers, the Yale Daily News found that 82% of respondents intend to vote for the Harris-Walz ticket. The picture is only starker amongst the faculty, 98.4% of whose contributions went to Democratic-affiliated entities. 

Conservatives are confined to a glum minority. We hear often about how they have it tough, facing ostracization, mockery, and pressure to conform. There may be a little truth to this, but even then, we don’t pity our conservative peers. We envy them. While liberal students are cushioned by a sense of majority, conservatives are compelled to grapple constantly with difficult questions. They are forced to interrogate their own beliefs and arguments in ways their liberal peers need not. It’s challenging, but it cultivates resilience, critical reflection, and the capacity to engage in community despite serious disagreement.

It’s not always easy to engage, but exposure alone has its advantages. Just by listening to arguments contrary to their beliefs, conservatives are forced to subconsciously square their beliefs with those to which they are diametrically opposed. They likely emerge from college better versed in progressive ideas than when they entered, whether through posters around campus or Instagram infographics. Conservative viewpoints, on the other hand, are more tucked away from the public eye, relegated to spaces like the Buckley Institute or the Federalist Party. Exposure to conservative voices requires more effort.

Put through a gauntlet of ideological opposition, conservative students are met with the need to more deftly articulate their opinions. For liberal students, throwing out broad, sweeping statements like “healthcare is a human right” in discussion sections is unlikely to provoke debate. They can get away with the minimal nuance that accompanies those buzzwords and slogans more commonly accepted within the Yale political orthodoxy. Our conservative peers are not afforded the same argumentative safety net. Instead, they must brace themselves for the pushback they fear they will face, oftentimes by framing their contentions in more palatable and precise ways. This pressure to accommodate and compromise can lead to refined self-expression.

Additionally, conservatives on campus may graduate better equipped to respond to liberal ideas. Far too often, students—especially those unfamiliar with an opposing ideology—engage in “strawmanning,” reducing complex ideologies to their most extreme or immature iterations, without making an effort to truly understand the nuances of the opposing perspective. If conservative students were to choose to take advantage of the vast classes, clubs, and voices offering extensive explanation and analysis of theories on the left, they would wield the power to more accurately critique them. For liberals, on the other hand, there are far less opportunities at Yale to become well-versed in conservative ideas.

Of course, we don’t want to oversell the amount of engagement that takes place. If you picture an average Ethnicity Race & Migration class, it’s likely deplete of right-leaning students and their input. Maybe they’re uninterested, or perhaps they're afraid of grade penalties for speaking up. Regardless of the reason, though conservatives are more exposed to the “other side” than liberals, they too fall victim to the comfort of creating self-assuring bubbles. 

And we think the exposure that does exist on campus stands to be improved. Ad hominem attacks are far too normalized in today's political sphere, and they are never constructive to the actual content of discussion. In fact, beyond oversimplifying ideologies, this kind of superficial dialogue can have personal ramifications. Before you know it, these generalizing retorts transform the human before you into a political rival, who can only be characterized by a series of defamatory epithets. And while one might attempt to assert that such conduct is absent from Yale’s intellectual bubble, this seems a difficult position to maintain. The lengthy Fizz threads anonymously attacking and slandering opposing political opinions serve as a reminder that Yale students are no stranger to skin-deep and hostile treatment of dissenting voices.  

As for liberal students, it’s not true that they are completely deprived of exposure – they just have to look a little harder. They also have to overcome the temptation to generalize on the basis of a couple interactions. It’s easy to strawman nuanced ideology into some laughable form when you’re exposed to only a few of its representatives. 

Improving the quality of our engagement with the other side necessitates a level of self-reflection and humility. This journey could begin by exploring controversial ideas with friends whose political leanings diverge from our own. Or maybe a shift in mindset is all that is required: to assume that all individuals, not just those with whom we share a connection, do not harbor ill will. A debate against an antagonist is one with limited room for growth. In contrast, a conversation entered in good faith by both sides is not only constructive but necessary in our increasingly polarized climate. 

Comfort in politics is dangerous. Perhaps even more detrimental is superficial and ill-intentioned engagement. Intellectual growth demands healthy conflict in the form of real, meaningful discussion, not self-congratulatory arguments or Twitter wars with faceless foes. It matters how and why we choose to interact. So, let us all strive to feel as challenged as a conservative student navigating Yale on this Election Day. 

This editorial was published with the approval of at least two-thirds of the group’s members. They can be reached at publiusatyale@gmail.com.

Let's take a stroll through the Good Life Center. Passing through the tranquil hall, you spot a dimly lit napping area at one moment and a cart stocked with herbal teas the next. The walls are lined with bright HomeGoods-style art, and the cabinets are decked with jigsaw puzzles meant to soothe student anxiety. Finally, you think, a spot for relaxation. Where work is an afterthought and students can bond. Where chaos settles into calm.

Yet this picture is incomplete. Even in the so-called “Offline Oasis,” a room meant to promote connection with peers rather than technology, the average Tuesday afternoon sees students sat distances apart, hiding their faces behind MacBooks and ThinkPads. In another nook, sweaty CS majors toil away, slumped on sunken bean bags. An oversized set of Connect Four, naively placed in the center of a room, divides the space into Bass cubicles. 

According to the Yale Schwarzman Center’s website, the Good Life Center “encourages students to slow down and figure out just what wellness means for them, personally.” The people have spoken: wellness means working on your PSET on the floor on a sunny day. So, who’s to blame? 

Maybe it’s on the University. The Good Life Center entertains the fantasy that student mental health can be improved simply by changing the ambiance—swapping out “cold light” from harsh fluorescent tubes for “warm light” from thoughtfully selected, clinically approved LED bulbs. But soft lighting or fake plants alone can’t right what’s wrong. No matter how Pinterest-worthy it may be, the Good Life Center feels like an artificial solution—an aesthetic band-aid that the Yale administration has slapped onto a mental health crisis.

Perhaps this superficiality is intentional, a calculated attempt by the University to bat away deeper scrutiny of how it handles student mental health. It conveys an administration that cares, that provides students with ample space to unwind and seek refuge from the pressures of their coursework and extracurriculars. To the broader public of prospective students and doe-eyed visitors, the message is plain: the University has the issue of student mental health on lock. It seems no stroke of pure coincidence that the mountain of money poured into the Center happened to assume such a highly visible form. 

A more charitable explanation is that the University’s misguided approach stems from good intentions lacking sufficient foresight. Students lamented poor mental health at Yale. The administration responded with what they genuinely believed we needed: a space to decompress and disconnect. If this is the case, then their wellness project has only fallen short in the sense that it did not end up serving the role they envisioned. Despite grandiose hopes, the impact on mental health was unfortunately shallow. Of course, it would be reductive to suggest that the University’s approach to mental health is entirely superficial, given that the Center is but one part of a broader set of initiatives. Yet, the Center is perhaps emblematic of the University’s approach, providing resources and naively believing they–and they alone–will solve our mental health crisis.

Or maybe we’re to blame. Of course we’d like to think of the ever-churning gears of Yale work culture as powered by some broader force—something purely “institutional.” But might we, ourselves, be the  real engines of this academic toxicity?

After all, it is students, not administrators, who have converted the plush Good Life nooks into chambers of productivity. We choose to park ourselves for hours on comfortably padded seats, beside stacks of adult coloring books, and proceed to chip away at the impossibly long to-do lists we’ve created for ourselves. No Yale higher-up whispers in our ears the importance of achieving a near-perfect GPA or attaining that prestigious internship; these are attitudes which come from within. For many, this line of thought, this deep-seated drive and motivation, is what got them to Yale. It should not come as a surprise that this never-satisfied perfectionist slant does not miraculously vanish upon matriculation.

Culture is a sum of the people who live in it. There is an argument to be made that this epidemic of stress, never-ending and ubiquitous throughout campus, is a direct reflection of the Yale student’s mentality to work themself to the bone. Maybe we have the time that we claim to lack, but we fill it trying to catch up with that one friend who always seems to be working harder than us. Maybe in this respect, the Good Life Center, despite Laurie Santos’ best efforts, was doomed before its inception. It’s up to us to reckon with our culture, to grapple with our incessant need to compare ourselves and receive validation. Only then can the Good Life Center become more than just another Sterling reading room.

We asked the University for more mental health resources. They gave us a space with plush seating and colored pencils. A space which we’ve co-opted as yet another study spot to frequent. But we would be remiss to attribute blame solely to the University or to students themselves. The truth likely lies somewhere in between.

Though culpability remains blurry, what’s clear is that the issue runs deeper than we, or the administration, would like to admit. So, what next, Yale? Is it finally time to rip off the band-aid and face the damage that lies underneath?

This piece was written and voted on by the existing members of Publius at the time. These members are listed below:

Justin Crosby, Silliman ’25
Middleton MA

Hannah Figueroa Velázquez, Berkeley ’26
Portland, OR

Ami Gillon, Saybrook ’27
New York, NY

Adam Tufts, Berkeley ’26
Livermore, CA

Other writers of this article wish to remain anonymous. 

Members of the body include:

Leadership
Yenjay Hu, Silliman ‘28
Westfield, NJ

Chloe Ratner, Silliman ‘27
Sarasota, FL

Members
Aruna Balasubramanian, Saybrook ‘26
Bala Cynwyd, PA

Hannah Figueroa Velazquez, President Emeritus, Berkeley ‘26
Portland, OR

Alex Geldzahler, Pierson ‘28
Denver, CO

Kelly Kong, Morse ‘28
Newtonville, MA

Megan Lee, Davenport ‘28
Hong Kong

Abhinay Lingareddy, Davenport ‘26
Memphis, TN

Adam Tufts, President Emeritus, Berkeley ‘26
Livermore, CA

Other members of the group wish to remain anonymous.

Alumni Advisory Board
Violet Barnett, Grace Hopper ‘25
Miami, FL

Nikhe Braimah, Branford ‘25
Brentwood, CA

Justin Crosby, Silliman ‘25
Middleton, MA

Ami Gillon, Saybrook ‘27
New York, NY