Caylan Hays

About the ProjectThe Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy (the Project) seeks to enhance Americans’ capacity for civic engagement by supporting the rule of law as we advocate for adjudicating disagreements through relevant facts and data. Evidence, as opposed to unfounded assertions, enriches the national conversation and serves as… Read More

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy’s VUI measures the level and amount of change in Americans’ faith and trust in democracy.   In the first quarter of 2023, the Vanderbilt Unity Index increased almost half a percentage point, driven by a decrease in the number of… Read More

Students from seven Tennessee colleges and universities submitted poems exploring “What unity through American democracy means to me” for the second annual poetry contest sponsored by the Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy in partnership with Vanderbilt University’s English department and MFA Program in… Read More

Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy releases results measuring Americans’ unity, beliefs on government and democracy  The results of the first Vanderbilt Unity Poll, released today, show that 52 percent of MAGA-identifying Republicans believe Russia’s Vladimir Putin is a better president than Joe Biden. … Read More

Stacy Clifford Simplican, Senior Lecturer, Department of Gender & Sexuality Studies  Last week, the Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy launched the Vanderbilt Unity Lab. They are now accepting applications from students, faculty and staff to fill 25 program training positions.   I applied immediately. Read More

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy’s latest Vanderbilt Unity Index, a quarterly measurement of Americans’ general faith and trust in democracy, remained largely stable for a third consecutive quarter, even through the heated rhetoric surrounding the 2022 midterm elections. Today, the Unity Project released the 2022 fourth-quarter Vanderbilt… Read More

What does it mean to be misinformed—and who consumes misinformation? It can be hard to track down measured answers to those questions. Often framed as a problem that ‘others’ encounter, the public discourse surrounding misinformation can also be highly reductive.   Undergraduate researchers and 2022 Buchanan Fellows, William… Read More