Yale Political Union - History

History

Founded in 1934, the Yale Political Union originally had three parties: the Liberal Party, the Labor Party (now defunct), and the Conservative Party (which membership reorganized into the Independent Party in Spring 1977), and it has seen the rise and fall of many others since. Over the years, the Union has played a key role on Yale's campus. Like most organizations, 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 unique and high-quality forum for oratory and political dialogue.

All sides agree that the Union is not as influential as it once was. Members note that this is the result of several factors. Many believe that it is simply one of the effects of Yale's metamorphosis from Old Yale into the vibrant modern Yale of the 21st century, which has notably included the rise of activism on campus. Eventually, Union debate came to be a combination of a keynote speaker and ensuing student speeches. This push and pull between outside speakers and student debate has characterized the Union for at least thirty years.

The YPU regained strength throughout the 1970s, during which period the Liberal Party was by far the largest, but then it 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.

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 1986, active membership rolls comprised over 1200 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 DC (for meetings with Cabinet Members, Supreme Court Justices, IMF and World Bank heads, foreign Ambassadors and even 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 much financially 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 1980's loss of the YPU's dedicated facilities slowed momentum, and membership declined after a poor recruit in the fall of 1988.

In the early 1990s, membership reached its peak in YPU history. It then fell again, as a spurt of new political organizations on campus diverted politically active Yalies. 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.

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.

As more and more Yale undergraduate organizations were founded, the YPU had the misfortune of losing 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. During its various moves, many irreplaceable historical archives were lost, although the YPU's collection of paraphernalia signed by noteworthy public figures is sizeable. 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 an impressive period of growth. Although membership remains roughly 25% of its last peak in the 1990s, the Political Union is nevertheless the largest undergraduate organization at Yale, with approximately 325 members (as of the end of 2007).