These were my remarks at commencement 10 May 2025.
Commencement means beginning. Today we celebrate the beginning of what you will take from this place to shape our future. We celebrate the launch of your gifts into a world.
Members of the class of 2025, I typically focus these remarks on what you have accomplished and how proud I am of your achievements. You have grown tremendously in this special place, and I couldn’t be more proud, but we are in a critical moment that needs our collective attention.
For the first time in our nation’s history, higher education is under attack, and the siege is coming from our own government. These threats betray a profound lack of understanding of what we do, of what you have accomplished, and the role our colleges and universities play in fostering innovation, preparing graduates for meaningful careers and lives of leadership and purpose, addressing our greatest societal challenges, and strengthening democracy.
The hyperbolic refutations of those truths deny the value of what you did here, undermine what you have learned, and are a threat to democracy. I ask every person in this room whether you are student who experienced a transformative education on this campus, or a friend or family member who has witnessed the value of a Susquehanna education, who has seen what an American college education has done for the development and preparation of our graduates, to speak out for the value of what we do on this campus and on campuses across the nation.
We need to celebrate what you have done, and at this moment, we need to defend it too.
This is not a partisan plea. Whatever side of the aisle you call home, we need you to stand up for the principles of a democratic republic, which are the foundation of American higher education.
For all their flaws the Founding Fathers emerged from the intellectual flames of the Enlightenment. They were true intellectuals and scientific thinkers who knew that their fledgling republic would need a new generation of deeply educated leaders, which is why many of the founders cultivated institutions of higher education rooted in the liberal arts.
Franklin founded Penn and Jefferson founded the University of Virginia. Washington provided support for the creation of Washington College in Maryland, and he provided a transformative gift to the Augusta Academy, which is now known as Washington and Lee University. Patrick Henry and James Madison were critical to the founding of Hampden-Sydney College, and Madison succeeded Jefferson as Rector of UVA. Hamilton College was named for Alexander Hamilton, one of its first trustees, and Benjamin Rush founded Dickinson.
This is not a coincidence of history. Our liberal arts colleges have continued to produce a disproportionately high percentage of leaders in science, letters, business, and government. We develop informed citizen leaders in no small part to safeguard democracy from thuggery and mob rule.
And so, here we are 249 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in a nation so starved for citizen leadership that we find ourselves perilously divided not over competing social philosophies of left and right, but quite literally over issues of right and wrong.[1]
We have entered into an anti-intellectual climate in which a significant portion of our populous is willing to reject scientific facts in favor of convenience and self-interest, and yet an inconvenient truth is no less true.
In recent months, we have seen institutions of higher education threatened to have federal funding withheld for supporting DEI programming, for following standing federal law in regard to trans rights, and for allowing members of their campuses to question actions of the Israeli government.
Antisemitism is a deplorable reality in our nation and world, and its insidious head is raised on college campuses in ways that are sadly reflected across broader society, but socio-political arguments are not inherently uncivil, prejudicial, nor inhumane. They are ideas. They are questions whose asking should help us shape deeper understandings of pernicious problems, which in turn may allow us to find richer more successful solutions to challenges whose resolutions have eluded us for generations.
A question shouldn’t be precluded because it is controversial. Free inquiry, including examining positions we find uncomfortable helps us to develop a stronger worldview.
Academic freedom has recently become a recurring topic in the general media with claims from all corners of the political spectrum that free speech and expression are being suppressed on college campuses, but a new study, published by the Lumina Foundation and Gallup, suggests that this is a false narrative.
Among many of the findings, “74% of bachelor’s degree students say their university does an ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ job of promoting free speech, including 73% of Republican students and 75% of Democrat students.”
The principles and standards of academic freedom were established to protect free inquiry, and in turn to support a free and open democratic society that benefits from the fruits of rigorous scholarship and research in which all questions can be asked, and for which legitimate answers can be found and disseminated even when they are uncomfortable to those in power. Expertise matters.
Academic freedom protects scholars from interference or undue influence from politicians, donors, corporations, trustees, and administrators. Therefore, academic freedom is a critical safeguard of democracy and a foundational pillar of our democratic republic that we all should zealously defend and celebrate.
For generations, the United States has been the world leader in technology, innovation, medicine, the humanities, and scientific research and development, and we have been a leader in arts and culture. Our colleges and universities have welcomed millions of students from across the globe who have returned to their home countries as the newest ambassadors for our democratic values.
What could be more American than teaching a young person about democracy or making a moon-launch commitment to cure cancer. All of this has been wiped away or placed in imminent threat.
This is why we need to protect the academy. Colleges and universities are far from perfect places — thank goodness. We wrestle with ideas, we experiment, we make mistakes, we create, we debate, we often disagree, but at our core, we seek the truth.
Today, we are here to celebrate what you have accomplished and what has happened to you in this place. In the coming days, I hope you will join me in standing up to defend it. You know first-hand what it is worth and what is at stake.
I have seen what you can do, and having you join in the fight gives me courage and hope for our future.
Thank you.
[1] JDG: Inauguration Address, October 2017.