Party of the Right (Yale)

The Party of the Right (POR) is a political organization founded in 1953, in the Yale Political Union. The POR was founded by conservative members of the Conservative Party, and is the third-oldest party in the Yale Political Union. Membership in the Party of the Right is elective, and is, as a quotation from the 1950s boasts, awarded on the basis on intellectualism, not ideology: "We care not what you think, only that you think." The PoR is also known for its insistence that members smoke cigarettes, cigars, or pipes at Party and YPU functions.

Its membership has traditionally been divided between libertarian and traditionalist camps, but the POR today is very ideologically libertarian. The POR has been described in a recent Yale Herald article as "at once flamboyant, intellectually elitist, aggressive, mischievously subversive, eccentric, and maniacally eager to challenge anyone and everyone."

Doug Henwood, a member who converted back to leftism, complained in the Nation: "Most Political Union members are perceived by outsiders as earnest and even dorky, but the POR is the only party that achieves serious levels of weirdness. Not the kind of weirdness famously catalogued by Orwell, who lamented socialism's appeal to "every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal wearer" and the rest. Members of the POR wear black tie, not sandals, and the surroundings are posher than Orwell had in mind. But a POR meeting is something truly extraplanetary."

Notable members

• M. Stanton Evans, Y 1955, journalist and author
• Alexander Tonio Ercklentz, POR Chairman, Fall 1956, partner, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
• Jared Charles Lobdell, POR Chairman, Spring 1957, writer, teacher of literary criticism,
• Karl Ziebarth, POR Chairman, Fall 1958, international rail and transportation consultant
• Charles Gardner Mills IV, Y 1962, attorney
• Daniel H. Lowenstein, Y 1964, professor of law UCLA
• Jerry Edwin Smith, POR Chairman, Fall 1967, Federal Appellate Judge, 5th Circuit
• William Marshner, POR Chairman, Fall 1968, Professor of Theology, Christendom College
• Anthony R. Dolan, Y 1970, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, principal speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan
• Grover Rees, III, POR Chairman, Spring 1971, former US Ambassador
• Walter Olson, POR Chairman, Spring 1974, author and legal critic, senior fellow at the Cato Institute
• Eugene Bown Meyer, POR Chairman, Fall 1974, President, Federalist Society
• Doug Henwood, Y 1975, now a leftist, editor of Left Business Observer
• Richard Brookhiser, POR Chairman, Fall 1975, senior editor at National Review
• Lee Liberman Otis, POR Chairman, Spring 1976, former deputy White House counsel, co-founder of the Federalist Society
• Andrew Redleaf, POR Chairman, Spring 1978, president Whitebox Advisors
• Peter Keisler, Speaker, POR Chairman, Fall 1979, co-founder of the Federalist Society
• Steven Calabresi, President Yale Political Union, Fall 1978, Y 1980, co-founder of the Federalist Society, professor of law Northwestern University
• Maggie Gallagher, POR Chairman, Spring 1981, columnist
• Matthias Storme, M.A. 1982, professor of law Catholic University Leuven
• Robert Pollock, POR Chairman, Fall 1993, member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board
• Brian Carney, POR Chairman, Fall 1994, member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board
• Eve Tushnet, POR Chairman, Spring 2000, journalist