OPINION
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AMAR & LIPKA: Our house

Yale is prioritizing individual student housing choice over the health of the residential college system. But the numbers make it clear: Yale cannot have it both ways. And we say that given the choice, Yale should make good on its bold claims and enable the Colleges restoration to their proper place as one of the glories of Yale.

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SUSSMAN: For Country

We’re not some global university that exists in a bubble where it’s utopia. We serve the United States.” In short, we are for Country. Let us strive that ever we may let these words our watch-cry be.

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BARISH: Better political conversations are possible, if we know how

In most political conversations, dialogue is only a first step — a necessary but not sufficient condition for coming closer together. The issues we care about have profound consequences for our lives, so we still need to argue and debate about them. We need to challenge our opponents, to point out facts they are not aware of and reasons — for or against — they have not thought of. But, in politics, as in families, it matters how we argue.  

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GRINSTEIN: Is Yale ashamed of JD Vance?

Indeed, Vance’s success demonstrates the continued relevance of institutions like Yale amid a cultural shift away from the Ivy League. Yale’s policy of institutional neutrality goes on to indicate that statements on the issues of the day might be permissible when they “directly implicate the university’s core values or concrete interests.” If Yale’s mission really is to “educate leaders worldwide who serve all sectors of society,” as we hear so often quoted by administrators, then Vance’s election surely serves the University’s concrete interests — making it fair game for institutional recognition.

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MARKOWITZ: A doctor’s orders: Connecticut needs a child tax credit

As a pediatrician, my commitment is to the health and well-being of my patients. A child tax credit is a proven strategy to improve the lives of children and families — and it’s time for Connecticut to take action.

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WITT: Mobster politics and American loneliness

A political movement needs a story to tell about itself and the one Kamala Harris told wasn’t particularly moving. Winning back the seats of power in Washington will require a story that appeals to ordinary Americans — and, above all, an ethos.

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BURTE NADKARNI: Bubble trouble

To me, the beloved Mumbai streets seemed noisy, a sound I tried to drown out with the handy noise-canceling feature of my AirPods. But if you really zoom in and focus, each person sings their own tune. And each tune is worth knowing.

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DANZIGER: Have more kids

Birth rates have declined in the United States for a number of reasons: the high cost of raising children, delayed marriage and child-bearing, housing affordability costs and changing societal norms. At the center of this crisis is a simple fact: it’s too expensive for many to have many kids. 

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MEYERS: A serious response to racial idiocy

I suppose I am shocked that collegians, including Yalies, were shocked and maddened to hear a speaker at Yale's Political Union on the topic of free speech use the word “n****r.”

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SILVERGLATE: On free speech and evasive language

The bottom line is that the Yale Political Union should not have invited me to talk about free speech if, without warning me, it had set a limit on what I could, and could not, say.

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GEORGE: Free speech isn’t hate speech

I hope, in the future, we continue to foster a space of discourse: speech that pushes past our limits of thought, in service of community instead of division. I believe we will.