Being here with you brings back a flood ofmemories. I remember the first time I arrived on campusas an incoming law student in the fall of 1969 wearing my bell-bottoms, driving a beatup 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 makingup my mind between Yale and Harvard Law Schools. Then one day while we were still in that periodof decision making, I was invited to a cocktail party at Harvard for potentially incominglaw students where I met a famous law professor.
A friend of mine, a male law student, introducedme to this famous law professor. I mean truly, big three piece suit, watchchain, and my friend said, "Professor, this is Hillary Rodham. She's trying to decide whether to come herenext year or sign up with our closest competitor." Now the great man gave me a cool dismissivelook and said, "Well, first of all, we don't have any close competitors. And secondly, we don't need any more womenat Harvard." Now I was leaning toward Yale anyway but thatpretty much sealed the deal, and when I came to Yale I was one of 27 women out of 235 lawstudents. It was the first year women were admittedto 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 "workedharder and got somewhat better grades than the 940 men graduating with them. A fact," they went on to say, "that some ofthe men apparently found threatening." Well, I was shocked. But over the years Yale has been a home awayfrom home for me, a place I've returned to time and again. I spoke to class day back in 2001 on the 300thanniversary of the university, and I hope that that will be the case for many of youas well. This school has been responsible for someof 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'llhear from shortly. And I've been honoured to serve over the lastyear 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 heretoday, have worked for me in the United States Senate, the State Department, on my presidentialcampaigns, and I have been so well-served. I have a very dedicated campaign intern heregraduating, David Shimer, the class of 2018. But I have to confess, of all the formativeexperiences I had at Yale, perhaps none was more significant than the day during my secondyear when I was cutting through what was then the student lounge with some friends, andI 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 evertalks 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 lookingback. So we were in the Law Library one night, Iwas 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 andI'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 continuesto this day. Now it was also here at Yale that I saw aflyer in the Law School on a bulletin board that changed my life. Now some of your parents and grandparentsmay remember flyers and bulletin boards. For the rest of you, suffice it to say, thatwas how we got information. It was like Facebook but the bulletin boarddidn't steal your personal information. So one day I saw a note about a woman namedMarian Wright Edelman, a Yale Law School graduate, civil rights activist who would go on to foundThe Children's Defence Fund. Marian was coming back to campus to give alecture. I went, I was captivated to hear her talkabout 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 comeup short. Because like many of you, I learned just asmuch outside the four walls of the classroom as I did sitting in a lecture hall, and Idiscovered 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 anniversaryof the matriculation of women at the college, and the 150th anniversary of the first womengraduate students at Yale. And I heard that Yale officially changed theterm freshman to first year. I also heard, amazingly, that The Duke's Menand 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 thoughtmy emails were scandalous you should hear my singing voice. I find it very exciting that today's graduateshail from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and 56 other countries. And in your four years on campus, you've survivedlate nights in the Bass cubicles and early mornings in the Sterling stacks, you've trekkedup Science Hill, maybe you've even found love at The Last Chance Dance, and now you're readyto 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 classof 2018 is graduating at one of the most tumultuous times int he history of our country, and Isay that as someone who graduated in the sixties. I recently went back and looked up those famouslines 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, itwas the winter of despair." Now Dickens was writing about the years leadingup to the French Revolution, but he could have been describing the ricocheting highsand lows of this moment in America. We're living through a time when fundamentalrights, civic virtue, freedom of the press, even facts and reason are under assault likenever before. But we are also witnessing an era of new moralconviction, 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 tothe occasion, it is you, the class of 2018. You've already demonstrated the characterand courage that will help you navigate this tumultuous moment, and most of all, you'vedemonstrated resilience. Now that's a word that's been on my mind alot recently. One of my personal heroes, Eleanor Rooseveltsaid, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stopto look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself I have livedthrough this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along." Well, that's resilience and it's so importantbecause everyone, everyone gets knocked down. What matters is whether you get back up andkeep going. This may be hard for a group of Yale soon-to-begraduates to accept, but yes, you will make mistakes in life. You will even fail. It happens to all of us, no matter how qualifiedor capable we are. Take it from me. I remember those first months after that 2016election were not easy. We all had our own methods of coping. I went for long walks in the woods, Yale studentswent for long walks in East Rock Park. I spent hours going down a Twitter rabbithole, you spend hours in the Yale Memes Group. I had my fair share of Chardonnay, you hadpenny 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 whathappened in such a weird and wild election in American history will help us defend ourdemocracy 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'snot the only form of resilience we need right now. We also need community resilience. That's something that this class has embodiedduring your time on campus. Literally, at times, like in the March ofResilience 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 studentsand faculty determined to make Yale a more just, equitable, and safe place for everyone. Many of you have said that march was a definingmoment in your college experience, and that says something about this class and your values. Because the truth is, our country is morepolarised than ever. We have sorted ourselves into opposing campsand that divides how we see the world. The data backs this up. There are more Liberals and Conservativesthan there used to be and fewer Centrists. Our political parties are more ideologicallyand geographically consistent, which means there are fewer northern Republicans and fewersouthern Democrats. And the divides on race and religion are starkerthan ever before. And as the middle shrank, partisan animositygrew. Now I'm not going to get political here, butthis isn't simply a both sides problem. The radicalization of American politics hasn'tbeen symmetrical. There are leaders in our country who blatantlyincite 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 bondsof community that hold us together are fractured. This isn't just a problem because it leadsto unpleasant conversations over the Thanksgiving dinner table, it's a problem because it underminesthe civic spirit that makes democracy possible. The habits of the heart that de Tocquevillefound so unique in the American character. I believe healing our country is going totake what I call radical empathy. As hard as it is, this is a moment to reachacross divide of race, class, and politics, to try to see the world through the eyes ofpeople 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 ourleaders, 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, andfairer?" That's something you've done here at Yale. You've learned that you don't need to be animmigrant to be outraged when a classmate's father, a human being who contributes to hisfamily and his country is unjustly deported. You don't need to be a person of colour tounderstand that when black students feel singled out and targeted, we still have work to do. And you don't need to experience gun violenceto know that when a teenager in Texas who just survived a mass shooting says she's notsurprised by what happened at her school because, and I quote, "I've always felt like eventuallyit was going to happen here too." We are failing our children. So enough is enough, we need to come togetherand we certainly need common sense gun safety legislation as soon as we can get it. Now empathy should not only be at the centreof our individual lives, our families, and our communities, it should be at the centreof our public life, our policies, and our politics. I know we don't always think of politics andempathy as going hand in hand, but they can, and more than that, they must. As former secretary Madeleine Albright writesin her terrific new book, Fascism: A Warning, she says, "This generosity of spirit, thiscaring about others and about the proposition that we are created equal is the single mosteffective antidote to the self-centred moral numbness that allows fascism to thrive." And of course, Madeleine had personal experiencefleeing the Nazis in Czechoslovakia as a baby, returning after the war, feeling the communistsas a young girl. Now that brings me to one more form of resiliencethat's been on my mind over the last year, democratic resilience. In 1787, after the Constitutional Conventionin 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 havewe got? A republic or a monarchy? And Franklin answered, "A republic, if youcan keep it." Right now we're living through a full-fledgedcrisis in our democracy. Now there are not tanks in the streets, butwhat's happening right now goes to the heart of who we are as a nation. And I say this not as a democrat who lostan 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 freepress, delegitimizing elections, perpetrating shameless corruption, and rejecting the ideathat our leaders should be public servants undermines our national unity. And attacking truth and reason, evidence andfacts should alarm us all. You and your parents have just paid for afirst class, world class education, and as Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder writesin his book, On Tyranny, "To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticisepower 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 bookand in his new one, The Road to Unfreedom, is sounding the alarm as loudly as he can. Because attempting to erase the line betweenfact and fiction, truth and reality is a core feature of authoritarianism. The goal is to make us question logic andreason 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 becomeaccepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as Americancitizens 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 roleof higher education in our society, to create opportunity and equality. It means calling out actual fake news whenwe see it and supporting brave journalists and their reporting, maybe even by subscribingto a newspaper. Now most of all, as obvious as it seems, itmeans voting. In every election, not just the presidentialones. So yes, these are challenging times for Americabut we've come through challenging times before. I think back to the night Barrack Obama waselected president. Many of us, so many of us were jubilant. Even I, who had once hoped to beat him, wasecstatic. It was such a hopeful moment, and yet in someways this moment feels even more hopeful, because this is a battle-hardened hope, temperedby loss, and clear-eyed about the stakes. We are standing up to policies that hurt people. We are standing up for all people being treatedwith dignity. We are doing the work to translate those feelingsinto action. And the fact that some days it is really hardto 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 fightevery day, but we're doing it. And that's why I am optimistic, because ofhow unbelievably tough Americans are proving to be. I've encountered lots of people in recentmonths who give me hope. The Parkland students who endured unthinkabletragedy and have responded with courage and resolve. The leaders and groups I've gotten to knowthrough Onward Together, an organisation I started after the election to encourage theoutpouring 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 timein their lives. And I find hope in the wave of women runningfor office, and winning. And hope in the women and men who are dismantlingthe 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 seemto 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 handsand say, "Someone else take over from here." Because at this moment in our history ourcountry depends on every citizen believing in the power of their actions, even when thatpower 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 faithwe have in the ability to govern ourselves, to come together to make honourable, practicalcompromise in the pursuit of ends that will lift us all up and move us forward. So yes, we need to pace ourselves but alsolean on each other. Look for the good wherever we can. Celebrate heroes, encourage children, findways to disagree respectfully. We need to be ready to lose some fights, becausewe will. As John McCain recently reminded us, "No justcause 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 differentfrom the Yale I graduated from. It's different even from the Yale that welcomedyou four years ago. Four years ago, not one of Yale's collegeswas named after a woman. Today students are carrying on the legacyof a trailblazing LGBT civil rights activist at Pauli Murray College and celebrating oneof Yale's own hidden figures at Grace Hopper College, named after the naval officer whohappened 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 changedYale as much as Yale changed you. And now it's time for you to make your markon the world. I know the best. The best for you, for Yale, and for Americais yet to come, and you each will have a role to play and a contribution to make. Thank you and congratulations to the classof 2018.
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