J.B. Pritzker: 'Don't trust idiots', Northwestern University - 2023

14 June 2023, Northwestern University, Evanstone, Illinois

Today graduates. I want to invoke a seminal piece of 21st century culture to help send you forward on the right path in life. I am of course, talking about the Emmy Award-winning sitcom known as The Office, which in its 200 episode run gave us all the wisdom that you need to make your way in this world.

Now look, the younger members of my staff made it clear to me that your generation might consider The Office to be sort of cheugy. Which I learned is a pejorative term, meaning 'uncool', or 'you're just trying too hard'. Well, that's fine. I don't care. I'm a dad. By definition. dads are cheugy.

We try too hard every day, mostly to get our kids to turn off the lights when they leave a room. We don't care if you don't think that we're cool. We are determined to plunge ahead anyway. So give me and The Office a chance to show you that non trendy things still have a lot of wisdom to offer.

You don't have to be a fan of the show, by the way, to follow along because quotes from The Office stand on their own in their uncommon wisdom and depth. I'll offer you the first one now.

1. 'PowerPoints are the peacocks of the business world. All show, no meat' —Dwight Shroute.

Before I was the Governor of Illinois, I ran a technology focused investment firm. And in the early years of the internet, I used to take at least three meetings a day with young entrepreneurs who would present their ideas for online retail businesses. Every young retail entrepreneur in the world wanted to copy Amazon's success, but frankly, they had to answer the magic question, 'how are you going to attract millions of customers without spending all your money on advertising?'

So one guy came to me with what he thought was the perfect answer. He started the Hey Company. Hey, spelled h-e-y. The guy told me that he had registered hundreds of domain names that all started with the term, the word hey. Like heyooks.com, heytshirts.com, heywaterbottles.com — hundreds of them. His idea was that people would be browsing online and they would think to themselves, 'hey, I need some shorts, and that naturally would lead them to type into their browser, heyshorts.com, and bam, you'd find what they needed on his websites. It was brilliant except for the fact that no one shops by first saying, he yshorts or hey underwear. But he had a fancy PowerPoint and one of his slides had financial projections that showed his company was going to be bigger than Amazon. It was not.

Here's the thing that I remember most. The hey guy handed out his business plan in an expensive mahogany box and gave a great presentation. I give him credit that after a few months in business, he realised he wasn't going to make it and he closed up shop. He was at least honest with himself and with his investors. But sometimes when I see a news story about a company like Theranos or WeWork where a charismatic CEO has a clever pitch that fools a lot of intelligent people into investing their money. Or when politicians give flashy pitches and catchy slogans, I think about Dwight Schrute's lesson for life. So ask questions, demand answers. Do your own research. Trust people with a lot of life experience. Be sceptical.

2. 'Having a baby is exhausting. Having two babies, that's just mean' — Jim Halpert.

 I mentioned already that I'm a dad and I have two wonderful college age kids and like most of the parents here, having children turned me from a fun, cool, spontaneous person who could stay out past midnight, to a functional madman who answers the phone 'Y'allo' and won't let anyone in my house touch the thermostat.

We dads didn't start out cheugy. You made us that way! Look, we parents, we love our kids. We want you to grow up to be strong and kind, brave and smart, and we will do just about anything to make sure that that happens. But along the way, you have led a campaign of collective inception to make us question the very fabric of reality at times. If you really want to understand the multiverse of madness, have children.

When my son Donnie was in kindergarten, my wife MK and I went to school for a parent teacher conference. The teacher told us that Donnie was doing well in school, great at reading, great at math, but when she asked Donnie if he was struggling with anything he said, he couldn't tell time very well. Like all parents whose love of their child has led them to overthink every single decision that they've made, MK and I were flabbergasted. Did we do something wrong? Had we missed some critical step in our son's early childhood development? Had our embrace of the digital age led to a child who had some sort of clock face blindness? So we sprang into action. We bought all kinds of clocks and put them everywhere at our house. We made a big show of telling time at meals and reading clocks everywhere we went. We got Donnie an analogue clock that lit up and spoke the time out loud when asked. For an entire year, I walked around like the Mad Hatter constantly proclaiming the time. 'Donnie, it's seven 10. See, it's seven 10.' After 12 months of this insanity, just when MK and I were starting to congratulate ourselves for doing such a good job focusing on the time telling problem, Donnie decided to let us know that he had never had an issue telling time. It was just that when his teacher asked him to identify something that he needed help with, he couldn't think of anything to say. So he made up a story about not being able to tell time, and then he didn't want to admit that he had lied.

If you think your parents are crazy, it's important that you understand that you made us this way!

We are experts in worrying about you, and this affliction just gets worse with time and distance. We want you to go out and have amazing adventures in the world. We want you to love with abandon and to take calculated risks, and to experience the rich fullness that comes with an imperfect life. We know that we cannot hold your hand through every difficult situation that will happen to you, but there will come a moment, sometime in the future, when something you very much wanted to have work out will not. Maybe it will be a job, or a relationship, or some other passion that you've sunk your whole heart into, and you'll find yourself teetering on the edge of despair, because every person has teetered on the edge of despair at least once in their lives. That's when you want to call the person in your life who would've spent a year trying to help you learn how to tell time. Hopefully that's your parents, and I'm here to tell you on their behalf that we will always take your phone call. We will always be willing to help remind you of the strength that we know you have inside yourselves. Because we gave you some of ours.

3. 'Whenever I'm about to do something, I think, would an idiot do that, and if they would, I do not do that thing.' — Dwight Shroute

The entire efficacy of this incredibly useful piece of information hinges upon your ability to pick the right idiot. I wish there was a foolproof way to spot idiots, but counterintuitively, some idiots are very smart. They can dazzle you with words and misdirection. They can get promoted above you at work. They can even be elected president.

If you want to be successful in this world, you have to develop your own idiot detection system. As part of the responsibilities of being your commencement speaker, I'm going to share mine. Sure. I'm naturally suspicious of people who never saw the original Star Wars movies, and even more cautious of people who loved the prequels and the sequels. But I admit this is not a reliable idiot indicator. No. The best way to spot an idiot, look for the person who is cruel. Let me explain. When we see someone who doesn't look like us, or sound like us, or act like us, or love like us, or live like us, the first thought that crosses almost everyone's brain is rooted in either fear or judgement or both. That's evolution. We survived as a species by being suspicious of things that we aren't familiar with. In order to be kind, we have to shut down that animal instinct and force our brain to travel a different pathway.

Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being. They require the mental capacity to step past our most primal urges. This may be a surprising assessment because somewhere along the way in the last few years, our society has come to believe that weaponized cruelty is part of some well-thought out Master plan. Cruelty is seen by some as an adroit cudgel to gain power. Empathy and kindness are considered weak. Many important people look at the vulnerable only as rungs on a ladder to the top. I'm here to tell you that when someone's path through this world is marked with acts of cruelty, they have failed the first test of an advanced society. They never forced their animal brain to evolve past its first instinct. They never forged new mental pathways to overcome their own instinctual fears. And so their thinking and problem solving will lack the imagination and creativity that the kindest people have in spades. Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true. The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.

4. 'I knew exactly what to do, but in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.' — Michael Scott

When I finished college only a few short years ago, I assumed that there would be a moment very soon after graduation when the maturity of adulthood would start to lend sense to the deep mysteries of life. 35 years later, I'm still waiting for that to happen. And I hate to break it to you, but the real wisdom that comes with age is that you gain a greater appreciation for just how much you don't know. In February of 2020, I had just finished up a successful first year in office. We had passed almost every major initiative that I had campaigned on, and I was beginning to feel that I could overcome any obstacle that might lay ahead. But then came a deadly global pandemic, a crisis that most of us would've said, well, just weeks before it began that it was inconceivable.

I've been asked many times what it was like to be governor during those early days of the pandemic, and all I can tell you is that it felt like waking up every day on a raft in the middle of the ocean, frantically searching the horizons for some land to anchor your feet on. I knew that my job was to minimise the damage this deadly disease was doing, but no one could guide me toward the absolute best way to do that. As Michael Scott said, I knew exactly what to do, but in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do. I've had a few major crises visited upon me in my life, and the way forward each time has always been the same for me. When the world seems to be spinning, and out of your control, inertia can set in. So the absolute best thing that you can do is start to make decisions, even small ones, just get yourself moving.

Pick something you can tackle, and do it. Let your small decisions beget medium decisions, which will beget big decisions. Some of your decisions will be brilliant in retrospect, others will be less so. If you make a mistake, apologise and move on. Talk to people you trust and more importantly, listen to them. Be willing to change your mind when someone makes a good argument, but avoid that paralysing inertia at all costs because not making a decision is making a decision. And you won't like how that turns out. Most importantly, when facing a crisis, pick one value that you're going to hold yourself accountable to, and then every time you face a new choice about what direction you should take, ask yourself which of the options in front of you is most consistent with that core guiding value. For me as governor during the pandemic, I decided I was going to do everything I could to save as many lives as possible.

That was the most important thing. Everything else had to come second, and that gave me clarity amid an absolute maelstrom. Now I know that for this class especially, Covid loomed very large. You were robbed of a chunk of a college experience you very much deserved. I'm sure then and now that it feels very unfair. We don't get a say in what part of history our lives drop in on — the Great Depression World War II, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Covid pandemic. Every generation grows up scared or scarred by something. You are not unique in that regard. Here's the upside. Although you will face a great many challenges in life, most of them will pale in comparison to the challenge of facing a deadly global pandemic. COVID has made you stronger and gave you a unique set of armour. Use it well.

5. 'I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.' — Andy Bernard.

Most of us old guys dispensing advice as commencement speakers mistakenly will lead you to believe that everything good that happens, every day you will ever have for as long as you live, happens in college or your twenties or in your early career. But don't get me wrong, these are great days. But I think a lot of the parents and grandparents who are here travelling back half a century of life, looking at their lives, would tell you that there are plenty of things about being young that we don't miss at all.

The path of your life will have peaks and valleys and the good times are defined less by how old you are, and more by the people you have around you. During the very first worst days of the pandemic, there was a group of about 20 people who are part of our governor's office quarantine bubble. While most people stayed at home, my staff came into the state of Illinois building, in person, every day, to keep the levers of government moving. We worked together for 14 hours a day, tracking down masks and gloves and testing supplies, debating mitigations, tracking data, preparing for daily press conferences. Sometimes we stared into the abyss together. Anyone who's been part of a group like that, good people working closely together in a crisis, will tell you that the bonds that you develop with the people in the foxhole with you are some of the strongest you will ever form in your life.

One day in April of 2020, after weeks of punishing work, I decided to gather the small quarantine team together at the end of a long day for a much needed morale boost. The governor's office of the state of Illinois building, we're on the 16th floor, overlooking an interior atrium. If you dropped something from the top floor where the governor's office was, it would land 16 floors down. So we ordered some food and we gathered everyone, and we were the only people in the building. Someone put on some music, and for a little bit of time, we shared some gallows humour. At some time, at some point in it, a staffer suggested that we all make paper aeroplanes out of copier paper and see who could successfully launch their plane off the 16th floor balcony and into the atrium and land it in the middle of the first floor lobby below.

I remember how hard I laughed watching all these serious people — press secretaries and deputy governors and policy advisors try and construct the perfect paper aeroplane and get frustrated at their many failed launches. A lot of the worst days of COVID are still a blur to me. The stress and the worry that seemed to consume my life have just blended together. But I can remember with unusual clarity and warmth, that hour or so on the balcony of the 16th floor, flying paper aeroplanes with my battle worn compatriots. So I assure you that your nostalgia for certain times in your life won't be defined by when the thing happened, but by who you were in it with. If there are people around you who love you, who can make you smile when times are hard and make you laugh when the world seems lost, then you are in the good old days.

Now, ultimately, The Office was a show about a bunch of imperfect people trying to find their way together. And if that's not a metaphor for life, then I don't know what is. You will find your way, Class of 2023, I beseech you to remember the lessons of The Office. Be more substance than show. Set aside cruelty for kindness. Put one foot in front of the other even when you don't know your way. And always, always try and appreciate the good old days when you're actually in them. And remember what Dwight Shroute said, 'you only live once? False! You live every day. You only die once!' Thank you all very much.

Stacey Abrams: 'You need to know what you believe', American University School of Public Affairs - 2019

11 May 2019, American University School of Public Affairs, Washington DC, USA

[Excerpt, full transcript to come]

Stacey Abrams: Thank you. You guys are too nice to me, I may not go home. To President Burwell, to Provost Meyers, Dean Wilkins, trustees, faculty administration, family, friends, and the graduating class of 2019, thank you for having me here today. You're welcome.

As a fellow graduate in the work of public affairs, I've had more than 20 years to think about what I intended to do with my degree and where I am today. And to cut to the chase, I had no idea this is what was going to happen. I didn't imagine any of the outcomes of the last six months and I knew precious little about the proceeding 20 years, and that's entirely okay. I certainly thought I knew what was to come.

Some of you may know from my book, Lead From the Outside, when I was 18, I had a very bad breakup with a very mean boy. He said nasty things about me and how I was not going to find love because I was too committed to doing other things. I possibly said inappropriate things back to him, I don't remember that part of the conversation, but what I do remember was the sense that I was going to show him. I was going to accomplish many things and I was going to control the world and make his life very, very difficult.

And so I took myself to the computer lab at Spelman College. Thank you. This is back in 1992, so when I turned on the computer, I did not log onto the internet. I logged onto Lotus 1-2-3. I began to type out all of the things I intended to accomplish for the next 40 years. I wanted to be mayor of Atlanta. I wanted to be somewhere near Oprah. I wanted to be a writer. I knew that the way I could get those things done was to write it down, and over the last 20 years, I have tended my spreadsheet like Gollum tends his precious.

I have looked at it and cultivated it. I've made changes and edits. I've erased things and ignored others. And along the way I realized I had no idea what I was talking about. Because, you see, I made a plan for my life, but what I was trying to do was prepare to succeed. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. Because you don't have to plan your life the way I did, but in the process we have to prepare to succeed, and we do that by knowing what we believe, knowing what we want, and knowing that sometimes it might not work. First you need to know what you believe.

Our ambitions, our decisions, our responses are shaped by what we hold to be true. Beyond the easy labels of party and ideology are the deeply held convictions that shape those labels. But too often adherence to conservative or progressive, to liberal or moderate, to Democrat or Republican or Independent, to being pro this or anti that becomes an excuse for lazy thinking. It becomes an excuse for hostile action. And for today, at least, I urge you to set aside your labels and explore what your principles say about the world you wish to serve.

Because beliefs are our anchors. If they aren't, we run the risk of opportunism making choices because others do so not because we should. But those anchors should never weight us down. They shouldn't weight on our capacity for thoughtful engagement and reasonable compromise. For seven years, I served as the democratic leader in the House of Representatives and they told me about my ability to be successful because my title was minority leader. There was to be no confusion that I wasn't going to get there by myself. What they wanted me to understand, what the system is designed to do, is force compromise and force our beliefs to be lived.

And that's why I was able to work with a Republican governor to push forward the strongest package of criminal justice reform in Georgia history, and I would argue in American history. Because my belief said ... Thank you. Because my belief said that I had to set aside labels for the work that we were going to do together, and it worked. We also have to understand that it's critical to know what you believe because public policy is complicated. We're balancing the needs and desires and the arguments of many a cacophony of demands that all seem to have merit. And as leaders, you represent not only those who share your core values, but people who despise all that you hold dear. Therefore, your beliefs, your principles must be concrete and fundamental and you have to know what they are.

Be willing to distinguish between a core belief and an idea you just like a lot or it sounded good when you read it on Twitter. As public servants, you will impose your beliefs through policy and through action. So take the time to deeply examine those notions that you would call your own. Be certain you would ask others not only to share those principles, but as leaders that you would deny access or restrict someone's freedom to enforce that belief because fundamentally that's what we do. And no ancestral teachings or religious tendencies are not sufficient cause for belief. You can clap for that, it's okay.

As provost Meyers pointed out, I'm the daughter of not one but two United Methodist ministers, and one of the darkest days of my life was the day my parents said they weren't taking us to heaven with them. It was really harsh. We were coming back from church and we made some comment and my mom turned around and said, "Look, you've got to figure out what you believe because we can't take you with us." What she was telling us, what my father said even less kindly, was that we had to examine what we wanted to be true and how we were going to live our lives. That they were there as guideposts, but they were never going to be able to make our decisions for us. They wanted us to understand that we needed to hold our core beliefs because our beliefs would shape the world we would bring forth.

So if you believe something, make sure you mean it. Once you know what you believe, try not to believe in too much. I am loathe to follow folks who are absolutely certain they know everything. The ones who have a definite opinion about every headline, every decision, and they can give you the answer before you ask the question. And if you can't figure out who in your circle is that person, it might be you. But you see, beliefs shouldn't be on everything. Public policy usually isn't good or evil. Sometimes it's not even that interesting.

It's mundane and routine and it cuts across neighborhoods and nations and ideologies. But when your lens only allows for a single myopic focus, when you've already made your decision before you know the question, then you do not have the capacity to be a leader. Because you leave no room for debate and you miss the true role of government and public policy and you miss the chance to learn and become a better public servant.

Now, I do have core beliefs, but I don't have an unshakable position on every issue. I do not believe that taxes are good or evil. I do believe that poverty is an abomination and that freedom of speech must be held sacrosanct and that we have to restore justice to criminal justice. I believe climate change is real, but I don't believe there's one answer to solving the problem. And I understand most of all that I have to accept that I may not know enough about an issue to actually render judgment, which is why I have to study and read everything I can, especially counterarguments to my own position.

That's why we must always seek to understand what others believe and why. I had a good friend in the state legislature, his name was Bobby Franklin. Bobby and I both agreed that we were from Georgia. That was about it. Bobby introduced legislation every year that I would have opposed every year. But we sat together and we talked together and we learned about one another. And in the process we were able to aid one another and work together on a bill. It was about civil asset forfeiture, which is a deeply scintillating topic.

But when Bobby and I introduced an amendment together, it was so startling and surprising to the body that the speaker actually called it up without falling the process and we think it passed just because people were too stunned to say no. But it was because I listened to Bobby's concerns and he listened to mine that we were able to figure out how to address an issue that affected his rural white community and my urban black community. We were able to move beyond our positions and hear each other's arguments and find a solution together.

The truest road to good decision making is acknowledging that the other guy might have a point, even if it's not yours. And if it turns out that the new information alters your thinking, the terrifying reality may be that you are accused of flip-flopping. I know, that's the death sentence to any ambition. But as a society that seeks to champion knowledge, we must accept that a person can change where he or she believes as long as that change is authentic and grounded in a true examination of philosophy and reality. Changing who you are to accommodate others or to advance your career, that is craven and is not worthy of real leaders.

But hear me clearly in this day and age, when evolution is based on investigation and interrogation, when people are willing to admit they made a mistake and are willing to write their wrongs, then that should be celebrated and welcomed. It makes us smarter. It makes us better. It makes us stronger. As you enter the world of public affairs for the first time, or on a return ticket, be careful to know if you are evolving or caving in because the internet will never let you forget. And whether you leave here destined to be an administrator or a policy maker or an active citizen, always keep clear in your mind the difference between principle and policy between belief and behavior.

Policy is what we should do. Principle, belief is why we do it. So know what you believe, know why you believe it, and be willing to understand the other side. So know what you believe and the next, know what you want. Some of you may have heard that in 2018, I ran for governor of Georgia. And the first few weeks after I announced my candidacy, I did what you're supposed to do in politics, which is reach out to your friends and your family to start to raise the absurd amounts of money it takes to try to become an elected official.

My family has no money, so I was mostly calling friends. And in the course of this process, I raised over $42 million, the most raised by any candidate in Georgia history. But it didn't start out that way. You see, I started calling friends, people who'd invested in me when I ran legislature in 2006, people who invested in me when I stood to become minority leader, people who supported the new Georgia project and organization I started to register more than 300,000 people of color in the state of Georgia. People who stood with me at every turn. But over and over again I would call and I would hear, "Stacey, we think you're so talented. Stacey, I think you're so qualified, but you're a black woman."

I was like, "I know." But they whispered it to me as though they were giving me a terminal diagnosis. Because you see, they had decided what I was capable of based on what they saw, not based on what they knew. People I'd known for years kept telling me that I wasn't ready for this. In fact, it was suggested that I support the other person running and just ask for a role in her administration. That didn't work for me then and it doesn't work for me now. I was told that I needed to wait until Georgia was ready for me. I was told to wait my turn.

And after a while listening to people who supported me for so many years, I started to wonder if they were correct. If maybe I was pushing too far too fast, if maybe what I wanted wasn't real or possible. I listened to their doubts and I started to internalize their diminution of my capacity until I reminded myself that I knew what I wanted and I had a plan to get it. Because when you aim high, when you stretch beyond your easiest conceptions, the temptation to pare back your ambitions will be strong, especially when there are those who don't share them. Hear me clearly. Do not edit your desires.

You are here in this space. You are entering this world to want what you want regardless of how big the dream. You may have to get there in stages. You may stumble along the way, but the journey is worth the work. And do not allow logic to be an excuse for setting low expectations. You know, this occurs when we allow ourselves to be less because we think if it were possible someone would've done it before, but the fact is no one ... The fact is no one can tell you who you are, and the fact that no one has done it before doesn't mean it can't be done. I became the first black woman to be a major party nominee for governor in our nation's 242 year history.

Now, let's be clear. I realize I am not the governor. That's a topic for another day. But what I do not ask is why hasn't anyone else done it? What I ask is how do I get it? Because if we have the ambition to save our world, we have to ask how we do it, not why it hasn't been done before. That's why you're here and that's what you're going forth to do. How? By writing it down and making a plan. If it's simply an idea in your head, it's easy to forget. It's easy to let it float away in a femoral idea that doesn't have concrete meaning and doesn't have concrete action.

If you just see a title on a roster, but you don't make a plan to get there, you'll be regretting it for the rest of your life. If you know what you want, force the question by plotting how you get there. By knowing what you believe, you have the reason and by knowing what you want, you can start to draw the map. But if you know what you believe and you know what you want, you need to be prepared to know it might not work. Otherwise, known as Stacey 2019. Because the thing is our beliefs may close off avenues that are available to others. Our ambitions may be too audacious or too different for traditional paths, and our very persons may challenge the status quo more than the quo is ready to accommodate. Plus, you might just screw it up and have to try again. But opportunity is not a straight road, and to take full advantage, we must be prepared to fail, to stumble, or to win in a way that looks nothing like you imagined.

For those of us who are not guaranteed access, we must realize that not all worlds operate the same. We are required to discover the hidden formulas to success and too often opportunity looks nothing like we expected. But to hack this very real possibility, look for unusual points of entry. I began my career by learning how to do the various jobs it would take to get me to my ultimate goals. I needed to know how to manage a team, how to raise money, how to make tough choices. So, I volunteered to fundraise when no one else wanted to. I showed up in places I wasn't expected and I asked to do the jobs that others avoided. Each of you harbors a dream that seems outsized, maybe even too big to admit to yourself. You see, I've talked about my dreams publicly and I've been discouraged for doing so that I wanted to be the governor of Georgia, that one day I intend to be the President of the United States and that in between-

But in between my responsibility is to do the work to make those things real, not only for myself, but for the person who was sitting there thinking, "I want that too," but they're afraid to say it aloud. We lead not only for ourselves, we lead for others and our stumbles are opportunities to lay a path for others to follow. And we have to that knowing what we believe in, knowing what we want means that sometimes there are going to be obstacles to us getting there. But I will tell you that if you are willing to put in the effort to accept the grunt work that lets you prove your mettle to dare to want more than you previously imagined, it will come. It may not be in the form, in the shape that you expected, but sometimes it leads you to standing on a stage addressing a group of people you didn't know you'd have a chance to meet because your stumble led you into falling into new opportunities.

To get there, I need you to utilize your networks. You are joining an extraordinary community of graduates from the American University. While you may not know everyone, most of the help you need is only a few degrees away. Ask for it. And if you don't get what you need, ask for it again. Broaden your understanding of who knows whom and who can help, and broaden your understanding of where power actually lies. Don't ignore the IT guy or the administrative assistant, the housekeeping staff or that mid-level associate you haven't quite figured out what they do.

Because the thing of it is, it's the administrative assistant who can squeeze you on to that calendar when you're trying to get in to see someone. It's the janitor who can open that office when you forgot to do something that needs to be done before anyone notices. And it's the person, the intern that you ignore who can help you finish that last minute project. Regardless of status, those who share our space are part of our networks. Show them respect and they can show you the way. But when you learned that it might not work, embrace the fail and search for new opportunities.

In the wake of my campaign for governor, for about 10 days, I wallowed in my despair and then I reminded myself of why I got into this in the first place. I grew up in poverty in Mississippi, a working class poverty my mom called the genteel poor. We had no money, but we watch PBS and we read books. I grew up in a family where my parents would wake us up on Saturdays to go and serve, to take us to soup kitchens and homeless shelters, to juvenile justice facilities and nursing homes. And when we would point out that the lights were off at home, that we didn't have running water, my mother would remind us that no matter how little we had, there was someone with less and our job was to serve that person. My dad would just say having nothing is not an excuse for doing nothing.

I ran for governor of Georgia because I believe in a better world. I believe that we can educate our children and guarantee economic security. I believe that we can provide access to justice and a clean environment. I believe more as possible for all of us. I believe you can center communities of color and acknowledge the marginalized and not exclude those who have opportunity and access. I believe that we can be an inclusive society without relegating ourselves to notions of identity as a bad thing, but instead, using identity to say we see one another, we see your obstacles and we will make you better and stronger because of it. That is why I ran.

And so, in the wake of not becoming governor of Georgia, I had the opportunity to sit back and wallow, to worry and to fret, or to simply be angry. But instead I decided to found Fair Fight Action because I believe voter suppression is real and the threat to our democracy and we will fight for voter rights and for electoral integrity because I believe in the United States of America. That is what we're going to do. I also launched Fair Count because I know the 2020 census is the story of America for the next decade and we have to make certain everyone is counted because if they're not, they will not count. That is our opportunity.
Neither role is where I expected to be today and there are other roles that wait for me. Maybe before 2020 and maybe after, but for me the responsibility is to act as though today is the last day. To do the work I know needs to be done, not because of the position I hold, but because of the work that awaits us. And that is your charge. That is your calling. That is your obligation. When life doesn't work, when the fail seems permanent, acknowledge the pain but reject the conclusion.

Our principles, our beliefs exist to sustain us. Our ambitions are there to drive us, and our stumbles exist to remind us that the work endures. Public service is a passion play. It's the drama of how we shape the lives of those around us, how we allocate resources and raise hopes and ground our dreams in robust reality. You stand as the architects of our better lives. Those who don't fret and worry, who don't just stand on the sidelines and watch but get into the scrum and make it work. You are here because you believe that more is possible and you have been trained to make more a reality. You are here today because you have accepted your destiny as public servants, as leaders for our current age.

Our nation is grappling with existential questions, and our allies and our enemies watch to see how we respond. The tension of elections pull against the urgency of governance and we cannot forget that they are not the same thing. You might be tempted to harden yourself, to cast your lot with what you know ,and to wall yourself off from people and ideas that challenge your direction. But you are here in this school because you understand the deeper calling of our obligations. To serve the grace that is our social contract. To build a better, stronger, more resilient world.

And you are the embodiment of the most deeply held belief of everyone here. That American University, that the school of public affairs, that your friends and your family and your classmates and I all hold today, a singular belief that she'll illuminate us today and forward. We believe in you. Thank you. And congratulations.

Hillary Clinton: 'It's not easy to wade back into the fitght every day', Yale University - 2018

23 May 2018, Yale Class Day, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Oh, that was great. Oh, nice one. Thank you, thank you. Hello. Thank you very much. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Wow, I am so delighted to be here. Sorry we're not outside, but this makes it kind of cosy.

I want to thank President Salovey and Dean Chun. Thank you Alex, a Razorback fan from Little Rock, Arkansas for getting us started on such a high note. Thanks to Alexis and Josh for your comments and your introduction. Thanks to all of the family and friends here today for allowing me to share this happy occasion, and good afternoon to everyone joining us by livestream from around campus. But most of all, congratulations to the class of 2018. I am thrilled for all of you, even the three of you who live in Michigan and didn't request your absentee ballots in time.

But before I go any further, I just want to be sure, did the students from the new colleges make it here? I worried that your flights might be delayed. Sorry Franklin and Pauli Murray, I heard you had a great first year and I am honoured that this class has invited me to be your speaker. Now I see, looking out at you that you are following the tradition of over-the-top hats so I brought a hat too. A Russian hat. Right? Look, I mean, if you can't beat them, join them.

Being here with you brings back a flood of memories. I remember the first time I arrived on campus as an incoming law student in the fall of 1969 wearing my bell-bottoms, driving a beat up old car with a mattress tied to the roof. I had no idea what to expect. Now to be honest, I had had some trouble making up my mind between Yale and Harvard Law Schools. Then one day while we were still in that period of decision making, I was invited to a cocktail party at Harvard for potentially incoming law students where I met a famous law professor.

A friend of mine, a male law student, introduced me to this famous law professor. I mean truly, big three piece suit, watch chain, and my friend said, "Professor, this is Hillary Rodham. She's trying to decide whether to come here next year or sign up with our closest competitor." Now the great man gave me a cool dismissive look and said, "Well, first of all, we don't have any close competitors. And secondly, we don't need any more women at Harvard."

Now I was leaning toward Yale anyway but that pretty much sealed the deal, and when I came to Yale I was one of 27 women out of 235 law students. It was the first year women were admitted to the college, and as that first class of women prepared to graduate four years later, The New York Times reported on Yale's foray into co-education, noting that the women "worked harder and got somewhat better grades than the 940 men graduating with them. A fact," they went on to say, "that some of the men apparently found threatening." Well, I was shocked.

But over the years Yale has been a home away from home for me, a place I've returned to time and again. I spoke to class day back in 2001 on the 300th anniversary of the university, and I hope that that will be the case for many of you as well. This school has been responsible for some of my most treasured friends and colleagues, people like Jake Sullivan and Harold Koh, and I've watched some of you grow up, like Rebecca Shaw, who's graduating today and you'll hear from shortly. And I've been honoured to serve over the last year or two, working with some of the Yale Law School faculty including the new Dean, Heather Gerkin.

Now Yale grads, many of whom are also here today, have worked for me in the United States Senate, the State Department, on my presidential campaigns, and I have been so well-served. I have a very dedicated campaign intern here graduating, David Shimer, the class of 2018.

But I have to confess, of all the formative experiences I had at Yale, perhaps none was more significant than the day during my second year when I was cutting through what was then the student lounge with some friends, and I saw this tall, handsome guy with a beard who looked like a viking. I said to my friend, "Well, who is that?" And she said, "Well, that's Bill Clinton. He's from Arkansas and that's all he ever talks about." And then as if on cue, I hear him saying, "And not only that, we grow the biggest watermelons in the world." And I was like, "Who is this person?" But he kept looking at me and I kept looking back.

So we were in the Law Library one night, I was studying but I couldn't help but see occasionally as I lifted my head up that he was, again, looking at me. So finally I thought, "This is ridiculous," so I got up, went over to him, and I said, "If you're going to keep looking at me and I'm going to keep looking back, we at least ought to be introduced. I'm Hillary Rodham. Who are you?" And that started a conversation that continues to this day.

Now it was also here at Yale that I saw a flyer in the Law School on a bulletin board that changed my life. Now some of your parents and grandparents may remember flyers and bulletin boards. For the rest of you, suffice it to say, that was how we got information. It was like Facebook but the bulletin board didn't steal your personal information. So one day I saw a note about a woman named Marian Wright Edelman, a Yale Law School graduate, civil rights activist who would go on to found The Children's Defence Fund.

Marian was coming back to campus to give a lecture. I went, I was captivated to hear her talk about using her Yale education to create a Head Start programme in rural Mississippi. And I wound up working for her that summer, and the experience opened my eyes to the ways that the law can protect children or come up short. Because like many of you, I learned just as much outside the four walls of the classroom as I did sitting in a lecture hall, and I discovered a passion that has animated my life and my work ever since.

Now a lot has changed since I was here. In 2019 Yale will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the matriculation of women at the college, and the 150th anniversary of the first women graduate students at Yale. And I heard that Yale officially changed the term freshman to first year. I also heard, amazingly, that The Duke's Men and the Whiffenpoofs have started welcoming women. Now as for my long lost Whiffs audition tape, I have buried it so deep not even Wikileaks will be able to find it, because if you thought my emails were scandalous you should hear my singing voice.

I find it very exciting that today's graduates hail from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and 56 other countries. And in your four years on campus, you've survived late nights in the Bass cubicles and early mornings in the Sterling stacks, you've trekked up Science Hill, maybe you've even found love at The Last Chance Dance, and now you're ready to take on your next adventure. But maybe some of you are reluctant to leave. I understand that. It's possible to feel both because the class of 2018 is graduating at one of the most tumultuous times int he history of our country, and I say that as someone who graduated in the sixties.

I recently went back and looked up those famous lines from Charles Dickens in A Tale of two Cities because I usually end after saying, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." But it goes on, "It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

Now Dickens was writing about the years leading up to the French Revolution, but he could have been describing the ricocheting highs and lows of this moment in America. We're living through a time when fundamental rights, civic virtue, freedom of the press, even facts and reason are under assault like never before. But we are also witnessing an era of new moral conviction, civic engagement, and a sense of devotion to our democracy and country. So here's the good news. If any group were ever prepared to rise to the occasion, it is you, the class of 2018. You've already demonstrated the character and courage that will help you navigate this tumultuous moment, and most of all, you've demonstrated resilience.

Now that's a word that's been on my mind a lot recently. One of my personal heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself I have lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along." Well, that's resilience and it's so important because everyone, everyone gets knocked down. What matters is whether you get back up and keep going. This may be hard for a group of Yale soon-to-be graduates to accept, but yes, you will make mistakes in life. You will even fail. It happens to all of us, no matter how qualified or capable we are. Take it from me.

I remember those first months after that 2016 election were not easy. We all had our own methods of coping. I went for long walks in the woods, Yale students went for long walks in East Rock Park. I spent hours going down a Twitter rabbit hole, you spend hours in the Yale Memes Group. I had my fair share of Chardonnay, you had penny drinks at Woads. I practised yoga and alternate nostril breathing, you took Psych and the Good Life.

And let me just get this out of the way, no, I'm not over it. I still think about the 2016 election. I still regret the mistakes I made. I still think though, that understanding what happened in such a weird and wild election in American history will help us defend our democracy in the future. Whether you're right, left, centre, Republican, Democrat, independent, vegetarian, whatever, we all have stake in that. So today as a person, I'm okay. But as an American, I'm concerned.

Personal resilience is important but it's not the only form of resilience we need right now. We also need community resilience. That's something that this class has embodied during your time on campus. Literally, at times, like in the March of Resilience your sophomore year. It was the biggest demonstration in the history of the school. That's 300+ years. Led by women of colour, supported by students and faculty determined to make Yale a more just, equitable, and safe place for everyone. Many of you have said that march was a defining moment in your college experience, and that says something about this class and your values. Because the truth is, our country is more polarised than ever.

We have sorted ourselves into opposing camps and that divides how we see the world. The data backs this up. There are more Liberals and Conservatives than there used to be and fewer Centrists. Our political parties are more ideologically and geographically consistent, which means there are fewer northern Republicans and fewer southern Democrats. And the divides on race and religion are starker than ever before. And as the middle shrank, partisan animosity grew. Now I'm not going to get political here, but this isn't simply a both sides problem. The radicalization of American politics hasn't been symmetrical. There are leaders in our country who blatantly incite people with hateful rhetoric, who fear change, who see the world in zero sum terms, so that if others are gaining, well, they must be losing. That's a recipe for polarisation and conflict.

Our social fabric is fraying and the bonds of community that hold us together are fractured. This isn't just a problem because it leads to unpleasant conversations over the Thanksgiving dinner table, it's a problem because it undermines the civic spirit that makes democracy possible. The habits of the heart that de Tocqueville found so unique in the American character. I believe healing our country is going to take what I call radical empathy. As hard as it is, this is a moment to reach across divide of race, class, and politics, to try to see the world through the eyes of people very different from ourselves and to return to rational debate. To find a way to disagree without being disagreeable, to try to recapture a sense of community and common humanity.

When we think about politics and judge our leaders, we can't just ask, "Am I better off than I was two years or four years ago?" We have to ask, "Are we all better off? Are we as a country better, stronger, and fairer?" That's something you've done here at Yale. You've learned that you don't need to be an immigrant to be outraged when a classmate's father, a human being who contributes to his family and his country is unjustly deported. You don't need to be a person of colour to understand that when black students feel singled out and targeted, we still have work to do. And you don't need to experience gun violence to know that when a teenager in Texas who just survived a mass shooting says she's not surprised by what happened at her school because, and I quote, "I've always felt like eventually it was going to happen here too." We are failing our children. So enough is enough, we need to come together and we certainly need common sense gun safety legislation as soon as we can get it.

Now empathy should not only be at the centre of our individual lives, our families, and our communities, it should be at the centre of our public life, our policies, and our politics. I know we don't always think of politics and empathy as going hand in hand, but they can, and more than that, they must. As former secretary Madeleine Albright writes in her terrific new book, Fascism: A Warning, she says, "This generosity of spirit, this caring about others and about the proposition that we are created equal is the single most effective antidote to the self-centred moral numbness that allows fascism to thrive." And of course, Madeleine had personal experience fleeing the Nazis in Czechoslovakia as a baby, returning after the wall, feeling the communists as a young girl.

Now that brings me to one more form of resilience that's been on my mind over the last year, democratic resilience. In 1787, after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, who by the way received an honorary degree from Yale, was asked by a woman in the street outside Independence Hall, "Well doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy? And Franklin answered, "A republic, if you can keep it." Right now we're living through a full-fledged crisis in our democracy. Now there are not tanks in the streets, but what's happening right now goes to the heart of who we are as a nation.

And I say this not as a democrat who lost an election, but as an American afraid of losing a country. There are certain things that are so essential, they should transcend politics. Waging a war on the rule of law and a free press, delegitimizing elections, perpetrating shameless corruption, and rejecting the idea that our leaders should be public servants undermines our national unity. And attacking truth and reason, evidence and facts should alarm us all.

You and your parents have just paid for a first class, world class education, and as Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder writes in his book, On Tyranny, "To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticise power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle." I think Professor Snyder, both in that book and in his new one, The Road to Unfreedom, is sounding the alarm as loudly as he can. Because attempting to erase the line between fact and fiction, truth and reality is a core feature of authoritarianism. The goal is to make us question logic and reason and to sow mistrust toward exactly the people we need to rely on, our leaders, the press, experts who seek to guide public policy based on evidence, even ourselves.

Just this week, former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson said, "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom. Perhaps a tad late, but he's absolutely right. So how do we build democratic resilience? I think it starts with standing up for truth, facts, and reason, not just in the classroom and on campus but every day in our lives. It means speaking out about the vital role of higher education in our society, to create opportunity and equality. It means calling out actual fake news when we see it and supporting brave journalists and their reporting, maybe even by subscribing to a newspaper. Now most of all, as obvious as it seems, it means voting. In every election, not just the presidential ones. So yes, these are challenging times for America but we've come through challenging times before.

I think back to the night Barrack Obama was elected president. Many of us, so many of us were jubilant. Even I, who had once hoped to beat him, was ecstatic. It was such a hopeful moment, and yet in some ways this moment feels even more hopeful, because this is a battle-hardened hope, tempered by loss, and clear-eyed about the stakes. We are standing up to policies that hurt people. We are standing up for all people being treated with dignity. We are doing the work to translate those feelings into action. And the fact that some days it is really hard to keep at it just makes it that much more remarkable that so many of us are, in fact, keeping at it.

It's not easy to wade back into the fight every day, but we're doing it. And that's why I am optimistic, because of how unbelievably tough Americans are proving to be. I've encountered lots of people in recent months who give me hope. The Parkland students who endured unthinkable tragedy and have responded with courage and resolve. The leaders and groups I've gotten to know through Onward Together, an organisation I started after the election to encourage the outpouring of grassroots engagement that we're seeing. Everyone who is marching, registering voters, and diving into the issues facing us like never before, some for the very first time in their lives. And I find hope in the wave of women running for office, and winning. And hope in the women and men who are dismantling the notion that women should have to endure harassment and violence as a part of our lives.

So we have a long way to go. There are many fights to fight and more seem to arise every day. It will take work to keep up the pressure, to stay vigilant, to neither close our eyes, nor numb our hearts, or throw up our hands and say, "Someone else take over from here." Because at this moment in our history our country depends on every citizen believing in the power of their actions, even when that power is invisible and their efforts feel like an uphill battle. Of every citizen voting in every election, even when your side loses. It is a matter of infinite faith, this faith we have in the ability to govern ourselves, to come together to make honourable, practical compromise in the pursuit of ends that will lift us all up and move us forward.

So yes, we need to pace ourselves but also lean on each other. Look for the good wherever we can. Celebrate heroes, encourage children, find ways to disagree respectfully. We need to be ready to lose some fights, because we will. As John McCain recently reminded us, "No just cause is futile, even if it's lost." What matters is to keep going no matter what, keep going.

The Yale you're graduating from is very different from the Yale I graduated from. It's different even from the Yale that welcomed you four years ago. Four years ago, not one of Yale's colleges was named after a woman. Today students are carrying on the legacy of a trailblazing LGBT civil rights activist at Pauli Murray College and celebrating one of Yale's own hidden figures at Grace Hopper College, named after the naval officer who happened to be one of the first computer programmers in America.

Those changes didn't happen on their own, you made them possible. You kept fighting, you kept the faith. And because of that, in the end, you changed Yale as much as Yale changed you. And now it's time for you to make your mark on the world. I know the best. The best for you, for Yale, and for America is yet to come, and you each will have a role to play and a contribution to make. Thank you and congratulations to the class of 2018.