Yale University: the story on HearLore

Yale University

In 1701, ten Congregationalist ministers met in the study of Reverend Samuel Russell in Branford, Connecticut, to donate books and establish an institution that would eventually become Yale University. This group, known as The Founders, included Samuel Andrew, Thomas Buckingham, Israel Chauncy, Samuel Mather, James Noyes II, James Pierpont, Abraham Pierson, Noadiah Russell, Joseph Webb, and Timothy Woodbridge. All were Harvard alumni who sought to create a school that would maintain Puritan religious orthodoxy, a reaction to the growing liberalization of Harvard under its sixth president, Increase Mather. The institution opened in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson, who lived in Killingworth, before moving to Saybrook in 1703 when Nathaniel Lynde donated land and a building. By 1716, the school had relocated to New Haven, where it would remain for over three centuries. The original charter, An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School, was passed by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut on the 9th of October 1701, aiming to educate ministers and lay leaders. The school was initially known as the Collegiate School, and its early curriculum focused heavily on theology and sacred languages, reflecting the religious priorities of its founders.

The Name And The New Divinity

The institution received its current name in 1718 after Cotton Mather contacted Elihu Yale, a Boston-born businessman who had made a fortune in Madras while working for the East India Company. Yale, who served as the first president of Fort St. George, donated nine bales of goods that were sold for more than £560, a substantial sum at the time. The name Yale is the Anglicized spelling of the Welsh name Iâl, which had been used for the family estate at Plas yn Iâl, near Llandegla, Wales. This donation allowed the construction of a new building and marked a turning point in the school's development. However, the intellectual landscape of the college shifted dramatically in the early 18th century when undergraduate Jonathan Edwards discovered John Locke's works and developed his new divinity. In 1722, a group of students and a rector announced they had abandoned Calvinism, become Arminians, and joined the Church of England, eventually returning to the colonies as missionaries for the Anglican faith. This theological shift created tension with subsequent presidents like Thomas Clapp, who attempted to return the college to Calvinist orthodoxy but could not close the library, which continued to house Deist books and other radical ideas. The name Yale College was officially adopted in 1718, and the institution continued to evolve through these intellectual and religious transformations.

The Report And The Expansion

Common questions

When was Yale University founded and by whom?

Yale University was founded in 1701 by ten Congregationalist ministers known as The Founders. The group included Samuel Andrew, Thomas Buckingham, Israel Chauncy, Samuel Mather, James Noyes II, James Pierpont, Abraham Pierson, Noadiah Russell, Joseph Webb, and Timothy Woodbridge. The institution opened in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson, before moving to Saybrook in 1703 and finally to New Haven in 1716.

Why did the Collegiate School change its name to Yale University?

The Collegiate School received its current name in 1718 after Cotton Mather contacted Elihu Yale, a Boston-born businessman who donated nine bales of goods worth more than £560. The name Yale is the Anglicized spelling of the Welsh name Iâl, which had been used for the family estate at Plas yn Iâl near Llandegla, Wales. The institution was officially renamed Yale University in 1887 under an act passed by the Connecticut General Assembly.

When did women begin studying at Yale University?

Women began studying at Yale from 1892 in graduate-level programs at the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The first seven women to earn PhDs received their degrees in 1894, including Elizabeth Deering Hanscom, Cornelia H. B. Rogers, and Sara Bulkley Rogers. The undergraduate class of 1973 was the first to have women starting from freshman year, and all undergraduate women were housed in Vanderbilt Hall.

What is the size and location of the Yale University campus?

Yale's central campus in downtown New Haven covers approximately 300 acres and comprises its main historic campus and a medical campus adjacent to the Yale-New Haven Hospital. In western New Haven, the university holds 1,000 acres of athletic facilities including the Yale Golf Course. The university also owns seven forests in Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire, the largest of which is the Yale-Myers Forest in Connecticut's Quiet Corner.

Which Yale-educated presidents have served since the end of the Vietnam War?

Yale-educated presidents since the end of the Vietnam War include Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Major-party nominees from Yale include Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman, and Sargent Shriver. Yale alumni were represented on the Democratic or Republican ticket in every U.S. presidential election between 1972 and 2004.

What happened to Calhoun College and why was it renamed?

In 2017, Yale University renamed Calhoun College to Hopper College after Grace Hopper because the original name honored slave owner and white supremacist Vice President John C. Calhoun. In 2020, the U.S. Justice Department sued Yale for alleged discrimination against Asian and white candidates through affirmative action admission policies, and the Justice Department withdrew the lawsuit in 2021 under the new Biden administration. In July 2025, Russian authorities declared Yale University to be an undesirable organization, banning its activities in the country.

The Women And The Lawsuit

In 1793, Lucinda Foote passed the entrance exams for Yale College but was rejected by the president on the basis of her gender. Women began studying at Yale from 1892, in graduate-level programs at the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The first seven women to earn PhDs received their degrees in 1894: Elizabeth Deering Hanscom, Cornelia H. B. Rogers, Sara Bulkley Rogers, Margaretta Palmer, Mary Augusta Scott, Laura Johnson Wylie, and Charlotte Fitch Roberts. A portrait of them in Sterling Memorial Library was painted by Brenda Zlamany. In 1966, Yale began discussions with its sister school Vassar College about merging to foster coeducation at the undergraduate level. Vassar, then all-female and part of the Seven Sisters, tentatively accepted but then declined the invitation. Both schools introduced coeducation independently in 1969. Amy Solomon was the first woman to register as a Yale undergraduate and the first woman at Yale to join an undergraduate society, St. Anthony Hall. The undergraduate class of 1973 was the first to have women starting from freshman year, and all undergraduate women were housed in Vanderbilt Hall. In the 1970s, a group of students and a faculty member sued Yale for its failure to curtail sexual harassment, especially by male faculty. The case, Alexander v. Yale, was partly built from a 1977 report authored by plaintiff Ann Olivarius and was the first to use Title IX to argue and establish that sexual harassment of female students can be considered illegal sex discrimination. The plaintiffs included Olivarius, Ronni Alexander, Margery Reifler, Pamela Price, and Lisa E. Stone, and they were joined by Yale classics professor John Jack J. Winkler. The lawsuit, brought partly by Catharine MacKinnon, alleged rape, fondling, and offers of higher grades for sex by faculty, including Keith Brion, Raymond Duvall, Michael Cooke, and Richard Kentwell. While unsuccessful in the courts, the legal reasoning changed the landscape of sex discrimination law and resulted in the establishment of Yale's Grievance Board and Women's Center.

The Presidents And The Politics

Yale-educated presidents since the end of the Vietnam War include Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, and major-party nominees include Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman, and Sargent Shriver. Other alumni who have made serious bids for the presidency include Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, Ben Carson, Howard Dean, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Brown. The Boston Globe wrote in 2002 that if there's one school that can lay claim to educating the nation's top national leaders over the past three decades, it's Yale. Yale alumni were represented on the Democratic or Republican ticket in every U.S. presidential election between 1972 and 2004. Several explanations have been offered for Yale's representation since the end of the Vietnam War, including the spirit of campus activism that has existed at Yale since the 1960s, and the intellectual influence of Reverend William Sloane Coffin on future candidates. Yale President Richard Levin attributes the run to Yale's focus on creating a laboratory for future leaders, an institutional priority that began during the tenure of Yale Presidents Alfred Whitney Griswold and Kingman Brewster. Richard H. Brodhead, former dean of Yale College and now president of Duke University, stated that they give very significant attention to orientation to the community in their admissions, and there is a very strong tradition of volunteerism at Yale. Yale historian Gaddis Smith notes an ethos of organized activity at Yale during the 20th century that led Kerry to lead the Yale Political Union's Liberal Party, George Pataki the Conservative Party, and Lieberman to manage the Yale Daily News. Camille Paglia points to a history of networking and elitism, suggesting it has to do with a web of friendships and affiliations built up in school. CNN suggests that George W. Bush benefited from preferential admissions policies for the son and grandson of alumni, and for a member of a politically influential family. Elisabeth Bumiller and James Fallows credit the culture of community that exists between students, faculty, and administration, which downplays self-interest and reinforces commitment to others.

The Controversies And The Future

In 2017, having been suggested for decades, Yale University renamed Calhoun College, named for slave owner, anti-abolitionist, and white supremacist Vice President John C. Calhoun. It is now Hopper College, after Grace Hopper. In 2019, Yale was one of several universities involved in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal. In 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the #CancelYale tag was used on social media to demand that Elihu Yale's name be removed from Yale University. Much of the support originated from right-wing pundits such as Mike Cernovich and Ann Coulter, who intended to satirize what they perceived as the excesses of cancel culture. Yale spent most of his professional career in the employ of the East India Company, serving as the governor of the Presidency of Fort St. George in modern-day Chennai. The East India Company, including Yale himself, was involved in the Indian Ocean slave trade, though the extent of Yale's involvement in slavery remains debated. His singularly large donation led critics to argue Yale University relied on money derived from slavery for its first scholarships and endowments. In 2020, the U.S. Justice Department sued Yale for alleged discrimination against Asian and white candidates, through affirmative action admission policies. In 2021, under the new Biden administration, the Justice Department withdrew the lawsuit. The group, Students for Fair Admissions, later won a similar lawsuit against Harvard. In April 2024, Yale students joined other campuses across the United States in protests against the Gaza war. The student protestors demanded that Yale University divest from military weapons companies with ties to Israel's war on Gaza. Over 50 people were arrested at protests in and around Beinecke Plaza, and protests continued during the summer and in the new academic year starting September 2024. Undergraduate students overwhelmingly voted in a December referendum to call for divestment. In July 2025, Russian authorities declared Yale University to be an undesirable organization, banning its activities in the country. According to the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, the institution's activities are aimed at violating the territorial integrity of Russia and destabilizing the socio-economic and political situation.