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The Yale Political Union, commonly referred to as the YPU, is a debating society at Yale University. Founded in 1934 by Alfred Whitney Griswold, it is the oldest and largest undergraduate debating union in the United States. It was modeled on the Cambridge Union and Oxford Union and the party system of the defunct Yale Unions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which were in turn inspired by the great literary debating societies of Linonia and Brothers in Unity. Members of the YPU enjoy reciprocal rights at sister societies in the United Kingdom and the United States.^[1] The union is an umbrella organization that currently contains seven constituent parties: the Party of the Left, the Progressive Party, the Independent Party, the Federalist Party, the Conservative Party, the Tory Party, and the Party of the Right.^[2]^[3] The Yale Political Union hosts a variety of speakers to participate in its debates, including notable past guests Ronald Reagan, Jesse Jackson, Noam Chomsky, Joe Biden, George H. W. Bush, Margaret Mead, Walter Cronkite, Lady Bird Johnson, and Milton Friedman.

History

===

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. — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1935^{[citation needed]}

Founded in 1934, the Yale Political Union originally had three parties: the Liberal Party, the Radical Party (reorganized as the Labor Party in 1937 - now defunct), and the Conservative Party (splitting in half in the 1970s into the Independent Party and the current Conservative Party). It has seen the rise and fall of others since. Over the years, the Union has played a key role on Yale's campus. It has had periods of flourishing, as well as less prosperous spells. Once the only organization devoted to political debate on campus, it remains a primary forum for oratory and political dialogue.[3]^{[citation needed]}^{[citation needed]} The YPU regained strength throughout the 1970s, during which period the Liberal Party was by far the largest, but then suffered a severe blow shortly after A. Bartlett Giamatti became the Yale President. Giamatti, violating numerous agreements and covenants established with the Union, "repurposed" the YPU building/debate hall. Today, it is used for office space and storage.^{[citation needed]}^{[citation needed]} After several years of rebuilding, the Union recovered its numerical strength. This recovery moved into rapid gear during Spring term of 1984 (under the presidency of Fareed Zakaria) when membership tripled to 900 during a term highlighted by a nationally televised debate. By the end of 1987, under the presidency of William Leake, active membership rolls comprised over 1,200 members, nearly 1/4 of the entire student body at Yale, and the YPU successfully launched a Model Congress; a magazine; an annual three-day visit to Washington D.C. for meetings with Cabinet Members, Supreme Court Justices, IMF and World Bank heads, foreign Ambassadors and the Director of the National Gallery of Art; and an on-topic debate team, which sent two union members overseas to the world debate championships. Then, the one-vote failure of an attempt to acquire the financially significantly stronger Yale International Relations (Model UN) program at Yale in Spring 1987 (which would have made for a political powerhouse on campus), and the earlier 1980s loss of the YPU's dedicated facilities slowed momentum, and membership declined after a poor recruit in the fall of 1988.^{[citation needed]}^{[citation needed]} In the early 1990s, membership reached another high point, but it then fell again, as a series of new political organizations on campus diverted politically active Yalies.[7] Though smaller, the parties were relatively stronger and tighter institutions during this period. Most have remained intimate organizations, though with somewhat larger membership, to the current day.^{[citation needed]}^{[citation needed]} One of the few enduring YPU spinoff publications, Rumpus Magazine, was founded by members of the Progressive and Tory Parties in 1992. For the first 3–4 years of its publication, Rumpus remained closely linked to the YPU. One of the more sordid scandals of the period, involving a member who misappropriated the YPU's long-distance phone access number for calls to a racy 1-900 number from his senior single, was broken by Rumpus in the Fall of 1994.^{[citation needed]}^{[citation needed]} As more and more Yale undergraduate organizations were founded, the YPU lost its offices under Bingham Hall. It managed to retain its small office on Crown Street, where it currently resides, although the Union has recently begun a capital campaign to raise funds for a new building.[6] During its various moves, irreplaceable historical archives were lost, although the YPU's collection of paraphernalia signed by noteworthy public figures is sizable. The YPU hit a low point in membership in the late 1990s. The YPU President, an Independent Party member, was impeached in the Fall of 1997, leading to the near collapse of the Independent Party. The effects of this crisis took some time to reverse, though by 2001 the Independent Party was largely restored and began a period of significant growth. Now, the Independent Party is consistently the largest party in the Political Union. Although membership remains roughly 30% of its last peak in the late 1980s, the Political Union remains one of the largest undergraduate organizations at Yale, with approximately 325 members.^{[citation needed]}^{[citation needed]} Although the Union has fluctuated in its influence over the years, membership has generally been in decline since the 1980s. This is the result of the increase in outside political and activist groups that compete with the Union for members. In addition, the intellectual rigor of the debates is generally considered to have decreased. ^[4] ===

Events

The Yale Political Union hosts debates on Tuesdays at 7:30 - currently, the Union meets in either the Sudler Recital Hall (within the William L. Harkness Hall) or Room 114 of Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall. Debates are led by the Speaker of the Yale Political Union and follow Robert's Rules of Order.

Party composition

The YPU is currently composed of seven constituent organizations, denoted as "parties." The seven parties, as ordered by the Speaker at the beginning of Union debates, are as follows

Party of the Left

The Party of the Left (colloquially referred to as the PoL), first founded in 1964 and admitted to the Union in its current iteration in 2006. The PoL traces its history to a splinter group of the now-defunct Liberal Party - some members considered the Liberals too complacent about issues including the American civil rights movement and opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, as well as by the election of Liberal Chairman John Kerry to the Presidency of the YPU for the Fall of 1964. The PoL traditionally hold debate caucuses on Wednesday evenings in the Athenaeum Room in Saybrook College.

Progressive Party

The Progressive Party (colloquially referred to as the Progs), first founded in 1962 and admitted to the Union in 2019. The Progs traditionally hold debate caucuses on Wednesday evenings in the Trumbull Room in Branford College.

Independent Party

The Independent Party (colloquially referred to as the IP), first founded in 1934 under the title of "Conservative Party." In 1976, this organization renamed itself the "Independent Party," allowing the IP to hold a claim of being the oldest continually operating party in the YPU - however, it is a matter of intense debate between the CP and the IP as to which organization rightly claims the history of the parent organization that existed from 1934-1976. The Progs traditionally hold debate caucuses on Wednesday evenings in the Armour Room in Trumbull College. The Independent Party is known for possessing a diverse talent of undergraduate thinkers, as exemplified by their motto: Hear All Sides.

Federalist Party

The Federalist Party (colloquially referred to as the Feds), first founded in 1946 and admitted to the Union in its current iteration in 2010. The Feds currently hold debate caucuses on Thursday evenings in 220 York Street. The Federalists are renowned within the Union for a deep knowledge of religious philosophy, American patriotism, and Roman Catholicism.

Conservative Party

The Conservative Party (colloquially referred to as the CP), first founded in 1890 and admitted to the Union in its current iteration in 1996. The CP traces its roots to before the current form of the Yale Political Union; the "Conservative Party" existed within the Yale Union (1890-1913), a precursor to the modern YPU. Controversially, the CP claims continuation of the lineage of the "Conservative Party" that met from 1934-1976, although the Independent Party vehemently disputes this notion. The CP traditionally hold debate caucuses on Thursday evenings in the William F. Buckley Jr. '50 Memorial Debate Hall. Distinguishing traditions of the Conservative Party include the adamant insistence of members and petitioners that the given name of their Chairman is The Chairman (even in non-YPU settings), a culture of secrecy denoted by the declaration that information is nebulous, and weekly luncheons with distinguished professors known as the Sir Thomas More Lecture Series. Within the Union, the CP is known for debates on political philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics.

Tory Party

The Tory Party (colloquially referred to as the Tories), founded in 1969 and admitted to the Union in its current iteration in 1970. The Tories traditionally hold debate caucuses on Thursday evenings in the Athenaeum Room in Saybrook College.

Party of the Right

The Party of the Right (colloquially referred to as the PoR), founded in 1953 and admitted to the Union in the same year. The PoR traditionally hold debate caucuses on Thursday evenings in their private debate hall near Pierson College.

Petitioning

While a student does not necessarily need to be a member of one of the parties to be considered a member of the Yale Political Union, it generally holds that undergraduates involved with the organization are either members of the parties or are in the process of "petitioning," the process by which parties initiate new members. The exact metrics of the petitioning process vary across the parties; some do not practice selective membership and grant membership to petitioners after they attend a select number of debates, while other parties practice extreme secrecy over their selection process and choose new members over the course of an academic semester. While it is possible to be petitioning multiple parties at the same time, it is generally considered to be rude or disingenuous for parties to actively recruit the petitioners of other parties or to insult the character of rival parties towards recruits.

Controversies and party rivalries

Disinvitation

Disillusion of the Liberal Party

Conservative Party - Independent Party Rivalry

Conservative Party - Party of the Right Rivalry

Party of the Right - Tory Party Rivalry

Notable alumni

Conservative Party

=

John Glenn Beall Jr. (Vice President, Fall 1949), United States Senator from Maryland
John Bolton (Floor Leader of the Right, 1968), former United States Ambassador to the United Nations
David Boren, (YPU Speaker), Governor of Oklahoma and U.S. Senator from Oklahoma
L. Brent Bozell Jr. (YPU President, Spring 1949), conservative activist and Catholic writer
James L. Buckley, U.S. Senator from New York and Federal Judge on the United States Court of Appeals
William F. Buckley, founder of National Review and host of Firing Line
Fred Krupp (YPU President, Spring 1974), President of the Environmental Defense Fund
Henry R. Luce, founder of Time (magazine)
John Watson Lungstrum (Party Chair, Fall 1964 and Spring 1965; Speaker, Fall 1966), Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Kansas
Edwin Meese (Party Chair, Spring 1951; YPU President, Fall 1951), United States Attorney General
George Pataki (Party Chair, Fall 1965), Governor of New York
Raymond Price (Party Chair, Fall 1949 and Spring 1950), speechwriter for President Richard Nixon
Whitelaw Reid II (Party Chair, Fall 1935), Chairman and President of the New York Herald Tribune
William Scranton, Governor of Pennsylvania and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Lyman Spitzer, theoretical physicist
Bob Taft, Governor of Ohio
Robert Taft Jr. (Party Chair), United States Senator from Ohio
William Howard Taft III, U.S. Ambassador to Ireland
James Harvie Wilkinson III (Party Vice Chair, Fall 1964; YPU President, Fall 1965 and Spring 1966), Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Patrick J. Bumatay, (YPU Treasurer, 1998), Federal Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Meghan Clyne (Party Chair, Spring 2001), White House speechwriter for the George W. Bush administration and Publisher of City Journal
Avik Roy (Party Chair, Fall 1996), editor of Forbes magazine and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute^[5] ===

Independent Party

=

John Avlon (Party Chair, Fall 1994), editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast
Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
R. David Edelman, advisor to President Barack Obama
John Wertheim (Party Chair, Fall 1987; YPU President, Spring 1988), former Chairman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico
Jonathan Zittrain, (Party Chair, Spring 1989), professor at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School ===

Labor Party

=

Samuel P. Huntington (Party Leader, Fall 1945), political theorist known for The Clash of Civilizations theory ===

Liberal Party

===

Akhil Amar (Party Chairman, Spring 1978), Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University
Peter Beinart (Party Chair, Fall 1990) editor of The New Republic
McGeorge Bundy (Party Chair, Spring 1939), United States National Security Advisor
William Bundy (YPU President, Spring and Fall 1938), advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
David P. Calleo (Party Chair, Fall 1953; YPU President, Spring 1954), intellectual and political economist
John F. Kerry (Party Chairman, Spring 1964; YPU President, Fall 1964 and Spring 1965), US Senator, United States Secretary of State and Democratic nominee for President in 2004
Marvin Krislov (Party Chair, Fall 1979), President of Oberlin College
Robert C. Lieberman (Party Chair, Spring 1984; YPU Speaker, Fall 1984), former provost of Johns Hopkins University
John J. O'Leary (Party Chair, Spring 1967; YPU President, Fall 1967 and Spring 1968), United States Ambassador to Chile
Richard Posner (Party Chair, Spring 1957), Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Kevin Ryan (Party Chair, Fall 1982), founder and CEO of Gilt Groupe
Potter Stewart, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
Katherine Tai, United States Trade Representative
H. Bradford Westerfield (YPU President, Fall 1945), Yale Professor of International Studies and Political Science
Evan Wolfson (Speaker, 1976), President of Freedom to Marry
Neal Wolin (YPU President, Fall 1981), Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury ===

Party of the Right

=

Richard S. Arnold (YPU Vice President, Fall 1955), former Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Richard Brookhiser (Party Chair, Spring 1975), author and Senior Editor at National Review.
William F. Buckley, founder of National Review and host of Firing Line (in 1967, as an alumnus, was inducted a member of the Party of the Right)
Brian Carney, member of the Editorial Board at The Wall Street Journal
Richard Cowan (Party Chair, Autumn 1960), Co-Founder of Freedom Leaf, Inc., editor in chief of Freedom Leaf Magazine, and former director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML)
Maggie Gallagher (Party Chair, Spring 1981), President of the National Organization for Marriage
Paul Gottfried, former professor at Elizabethtown College
Peter Keisler (Party Chair, Autumn 1979; Speaker), co-founder of the Federalist Society
Walter Olson (Party Chair, Spring 1974), Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute
Eugene B. Meyer (Party Chair, Autumn 1974), President of the Federalist Society
Robert Pollock (Party Chair, Autumn 1993), member of the Editorial Board at The Wall Street Journal
Grover J. Rees III (Party Chair, Spring 1971), United States Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of East Timor
Steven Calabresi (YPU President, Fall 1978), co-founder of the Federalist Society and Professor of Law at Northwestern University
Jerry Smith (Party Chair, Fall 1967), Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Matthias Storme, Professor of Law at Catholic University Leuven
Fareed Zakaria (YPU President, Spring 1984), editor-at-large of Time ===

Progressive Party

=

David M. McIntosh (YPU President, Fall 1979), U.S. Representative from Indiana and President of the Club for Growth
Dana Milbank (Party Chair), columnist for The Washington Post ===

Tory Party

=

Michael J. Astrue (Party Chairman, 1975; YPU President, 1977), former Commissioner of the Social Security Administration
David Frum, journalist, speechwriter, commentator, and author
Keith Ferrazzi (Party Chairman, 1985), author of Never Eat Alone
Michael J. Knowles, actor, author, and political commentator
Jim O'Neill (investor), speechwriter and co-founder of the Thiel Fellowship
Patrick F. Philbin (Party Chairman, Spring 1988), Deputy White House Counsel and Assistant Attorney General.
Lauren Willig (Party Chairman, Spring 1998), New York Times bestselling author of historical romance fiction novels ===

References

^ "TWO YALE GROUPS TURN TO POLITICS; New Union's Plan to Train an Intelligent Minority for Leadership Is Approved", The New York Times, December 9, 1934.
^ "Can the YPU bring back its glory days?" The Yale Herald, September 9, 2005 Vol. XL, No. 2.
^ "Party of the Left seeks to leave no leftist behind" The Yale Herald, March 31, 2006 Vol. XLI, No. 10.
^ "The Politic". thepolitic.org. Retrieved 2024-02-20."The Politic". thepolitic.org. Retrieved February 20, 2024.
^ Yes, Health Care is a Right - An Individual Right. Forbes (2013-03-28). Retrieved on 2013-07-15.

[1] "TWO YALE GROUPS TURN TO POLITICS; New Union's Plan to Train an Intelligent Minority for Leadership Is Approved", The New York Times, December 9, 1934.

[ReferenceA-2] "Can the YPU bring back its glory days?" The Yale Herald, September 9, 2005 Vol. XL, No. 2.

[3] "Party of the Left seeks to leave no leftist behind" The Yale Herald, March 31, 2006 Vol. XLI, No. 10.

[4] "The Politic". thepolitic.org. Retrieved 2024-02-20."The Politic". thepolitic.org. Retrieved February 20, 2024.

[5] Yes, Health Care is a Right - An Individual Right. Forbes (2013-03-28). Retrieved on 2013-07-15.

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