Gays, bisexuals outnumber conservatives in Yale's freshman class, survey finds

Gay and bisexual freshmen outnumber conservative freshmen at Yale College, according to a survey of first-year students conducted by the school's paper, the Yale Daily News.

While a Gallup poll conducted in 2017 found that only 4.5 percent of Americans identify as LGBTQ, nearly 5 percent of Yale freshmen identify as gay and a little more than 9 percent identify as bisexual or transsexual, the paper's survey found — around 14 percent total.

But only about 10 percent of Yale survey respondents identify as conservative, with less than 9 percent saying they're "somewhat conservative” and a less than 2 percent saying they're “very conservative.”

Hostility

One of those conservative freshmen, Texas native Carson Macik, told the paper he was concerned about personal interactions upon joining the New Haven, Connecticut, campus — and said his chats with fellow students have proven his concerns justified.

“My professors have been very welcoming of discussing certain topics that wouldn’t otherwise be discussed,” Macik told the Daily News. “But the student body is different; there are some students who I’ve run into where our conversations have quickly devolved into them yelling at me, and I just wanted to escape.”

Nearly three-fourths of freshmen identify as “very liberal” or “somewhat liberal," the survey found.

Cameron Koffman, president of the school’s William F. Buckley Jr. Program, told The College Fix that Yale's overwhelmingly liberal student body is “not surprising."

“The best thing the University can do is make sure that conservatives on campus feel comfortable voicing their opinions and ensuring that students understand that the administration firmly supports free speech and intellectual diversity,” Koffman added to the outlet.

More from The College Fix:

A 2016 Yale Daily News survey found that 95 percent of conservative students on campus thought that their conservative views were unwelcome. One respondent was quoted as saying “I just get the general vibe that Republicans aren’t respected for their beliefs as much as maybe the liberal people are.” Overall, 75 percent of respondents said that Yale “does not provide a welcoming environment for conservative students to share their opinions on political issues.”

Other Yale freshmen survey numbers

About three-fourths of freshmen identify as straight, the survey found, while 8 percent identify as "asexual, ace spectrum or questioning their sexual orientation."

When it comes to matters of religious faith — or no faith — the biggest single group, according to the survey, encompasses agnostics; they account for 23 percent of respondents. Tied for second place are atheists and Protestants at 16 percent each, the survey said, while Catholics came in third at 15 percent. The rest? Other Christian denominations — 6 percent; Jewish — 10 percent; Other — 6 percent; Muslim — 3 percent; Buddhist — 2 percent.

“I’m more just personally religious. I don’t attend church; I just read from my Bible,” freshman Andrew Bellah told the Daily News. “I don’t think it feels out of the ordinary. One of the things that comes with going to a very liberal school like Yale is that people let you do what you want to do.”

The paper sent the surveys to 1,578 incoming freshmen and reported that 864 responded to the survey.