August 19, 2024
First-Year Address
Pericles Lewis
On Citizenship
President McInnis, Chaplain Saltiel, Colleagues – good morning!
And good morning to the parents, guardians, and friends of the incoming class. In my role as dean of Yale College, I thank you for everything you have done in guiding and supporting these young adults. I am delighted that they, and you, are joining the Yale community.
Students from the Class of 2028, transfer students, Eli Whitney students, and Visiting International Students, welcome to Yale!
In gathering here today, you join a great tradition shaped by the many generations of students who have come before. More than 1,500 of you have come to New Haven from all over the world. You come from 1100 different high schools, and 23 of you most recently attended community college. Among you are first-robotics captains, jazz trombonists, employees of the month at your local Panera, debate team captains, and three-sport varsity athletes. About a fifth of you will be in the first generation in your families to graduate from a four-year college, and more than a fifth of you have received Pell Grants for lower-income students. 49 of you were admitted through the transfer and Eli Whitney Students programs, and 20 of you are US military veterans, which is the largest number of veterans in the entering class in many years. You come to Yale with different religious backgrounds, political beliefs, cultural traditions, and ethnic, racial and national heritages.
Amidst this great diversity, you also share much in common: you are promising students with wide horizons and an excitement about learning. And together, you have come to Yale to pursue a broad, liberal education.
You are entering Yale College in the fall of 2024 and most of you will graduate in 2028. This means, among other things, that we start the semester just as the Olympic Games conclude. So we are able to cheer for the many Yalies who have been representing the United States and nine other countries at the Olympics and the Paralympics. The games symbolize the striving for international harmony and an effort to channel the competition among nations into a peaceful pursuit. In ancient Greece, where wars among city-states were common, a truce would be held every four years so athletes could travel to the games.
The fact that Yalies have represented ten countries at this year’s games—and won medals for five different countries—reminds me of the feminist author Virginia Woolf’s comment that “as a woman my country is the whole world.” Together, as members of the class of 2028, you represent 55 countries and 52 US states and territories. Way back in 1776, the year of American independence, future Yale President Timothy Dwight– told the graduating class that they should consider themselves “citizens of the world,” and we continue to emphasize international collaboration and engagement as a key part of a Yale education.
The journey you are starting today also coincides with one of the major political cycles of American life—the presidential election—so you have a special opportunity to learn about democratic citizenship.
You may well have spent part of the summer following this campaign season, an extraordinary one by any measure. Entering college now, with many prominent Yalies in politics, naturally raises the question of what your college education has to do with democracy. Yale College’s mission statement says that we educate citizens to “lead and serve in every sphere of human activity.” And here I want to emphasize that one word: “serve.” You may lead and serve in many fields—academia, the arts, business, law, medicine, the military, science and technology. And some of you will lead and serve in government. Elite institutions often speak of education for leadership, but citizenship is a relation among equals, and we should be educating you for citizenship—for participation on a level of equality with others. By virtue of coming to Yale, you join a group with disproportionate political power.
In Congress and other powerful institutions today, people who have been to college hold most leadership roles. Over 95% of members of congress have college degrees, as against only about 42% of adults in the general population. Graduates of Yale are even more over-represented in national leadership, but remember that even if you go on to a role as a leader, you will be serving your equals. I encourage you to participate in democracy, however you choose, and to view your time at Yale as an opportunity to think about the contributions you will make in your community, or nationally, or internationally when you graduate. Remember also that you are among your peers here on campus and should treat other members of the college community with respect.
So what does this type of leadership and service mean, especially today, when division and polarization have coarsened public discourse? In Yale College, we offer a liberal education. The word “liberal” in this expression does not mean politically liberal, but both senses of the word have their root in liberty or freedom. The liberal education you are about to pursue is focused on your general intellectual, social, and ethical development and not exclusively on career preparation. A liberal education has also traditionally, since ancient times, meant an education appropriate for free citizens, and the American form of this education has grown up alongside our democracy. In many ways, coming to college involves exercising your liberty. You have great freedom in how you spend your time, choose your courses, and chart your own path. You will have opportunities to study history or political science or global affairs in order to learn more about how governments work. Just as important is the opportunity to talk with and learn from people who have very different backgrounds and ideas from yours.
Find those people who see the world differently from you—and make friends with whom you can respectfully disagree.
Most of you live in the United States. But many of you are citizens of other countries. I myself learned a lot about American democracy when I came to the United States as an international student (from Canada). Some of you may go home and run for office someday. One notable world leader who graduated from Yale, Ernesto Zedillo, served as President of Mexico from 1994 to 2000. President Zedillo now teaches here, and once you are a sophomore you can sign up for his class on The Economic Evolution of the Latin American and Caribbean Countries. President Zedillo played a major role in the transition of Mexico from one-party rule to modern multi-party democracy. In remarks to the Mexican congress shortly after his party lost legislative elections in 1997, here is what President Zedillo said about Mexican democracy:
“I have always been confident that free and open competition would enable each of us to shoulder our commitment to democracy in the practice of a genuine ethic of political responsibility: an ethic of responsibility that includes unwavering defense of our laws and respect for our institutions; an ethic of responsibility that encourages tolerance and restraint, not confrontation and rancor.”
President Zedillo speaks not only for Mexican democracy, but also for all democratic nations. Beyond political victory or any policies that we seek to pursue by voting, we share a commitment to the rule of law, to sustaining democratic institutions, and to the tolerance that encourages dialogue.
Freedom and equality are both key principles of our democracy. When I visited Washington, D.C., this summer, I read the words of the Gettysburg Address inscribed on the wall of the Lincoln Memorial, in which President Lincoln called for a “new birth of freedom” and defended “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” These values transcend partisan political difference. As I stood on the steps of the Memorial, I thought of Martin Luther King, who, one century after Gettysburg, spoke on those steps and said: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed—We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” As Dr. King also said that day, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The ideals of Lincoln and King live on and speak to us today as we search for true equality and true freedom.
As members of a democracy, we agree to live as equals according to laws and to determine those laws through debate and discussion and legal processes, not by force. And as members of a university community, we commit to dialogue and evidence. A university is not a microcosm of society—you were chosen to come to Yale because of your unique talents—but it is even more dependent than society as a whole on its commitment to words and persuasion as the means for resolving disputes. You are here to learn skills like analysis, argument, imagination, and critical judgment. These are skills that you will take with you, no matter what you study, as you go out into the world to lead and serve.
History in which all of one side is bad and all of the other side good is tempting but usually misleading. And now, at a time that challenges the ideals we hear from President Zedillo, President Lincoln, and Dr. King, it can also be tempting to doubt democratic processes or institutions like the university or principles like freedom of speech. No university can define justice for all its students. But the liberal education ahead of you will equip you to inquire about justice, to explore the complexity of historical, political, and moral arguments, and to grapple with them using evidence and reason.
In the days, weeks, and years ahead, find ways to serve, perhaps through Dwight Hall, our center for public service. If you are a US citizen, exercise your right to vote in November. But also consider getting involved at the campus level through the Yale College Council or globally through the Yale International Relations Association.
Most important, seek out conversation with your peers from all backgrounds. You have four years ahead of you in which to explore your freedoms in a community of equals. And when you graduate, take that spirit of leadership and service with you. Once again, welcome to Yale.
Pericles Lewis
Dean of Yale College