Welcome, everyone! Welcome, family and friends, champions and supporters. Welcome, members of the Class of 2026. Today, we celebrate your achievements.
Soon-to-be graduates, there is no doubt among those assembled here that you will continue to achieve great things. We know that your contributions to communities across this country and around the world will make us proud. We know that you will continue to distinguish yourselves as you add luster to our legacy. We know these things because we know you.
Knowing you is no small matter. I want to begin by acknowledging all of the people across the University who taught and mentored you, who encouraged and supported you, who created the conditions in which you could thrive. There is no accounting for the number of individuals whose work, seen and unseen, made your experience of Harvard everything it was. Please join me now in thanking the many members of our community—here and elsewhere—for their unwavering dedication to you.
We trust that you will proceed from these festival rites with confidence in your abilities and purpose in your hearts.
We trust that the excellence you have demonstrated in your academic endeavors will persist throughout your lifetimes and that you will continue to bring honor and joy to your families, your communities, and your alma mater.
You have met the challenges of our times with determination, dignity, and grace, responding to the legitimate concerns of our critics with principled action. You’ve embraced opportunities to disagree constructively, listen generously, and speak freely. You’ve explored ethical, religious, and spiritual issues together as part of our interfaith initiative. You’ve built bridges across the University, undertaking projects that create spaces to encounter and understand different perspectives, that use film to spark challenging discussions, that bring people together to nurture pluralism, mutual respect, and empathy.
By connecting with one another, by strengthening our community, and by championing academic freedom and open inquiry, you have fortified this great American university, reminding so many of the myriad ways in which this institution helps people discover more about themselves, about one another, and about the world—and creates hope for us all.
If, in the years to come, you are given the opportunity to stand on principle in defense of teaching and research—in defense of curiosity and discovery—in defense of the highest heights of understanding to which human beings can hope to rise—we know that you will.
Since 1636, Harvard has kindled the flame of humanity’s potential to grow in knowledge and in wisdom. We have lit candles and lamps and torches—and carried them in every imaginable direction to light the way to new ways of thinking and doing. We have pushed into the endless frontier with infinite resolve, illuminating the quantum world as well as the unending cosmos, solving the mysteries of the mind as well as the body, exploring what it means to be human across time and space.
Now, as ever, the flame burns brightly at Harvard. Free and open inquiry must be protected and nurtured. The unfettered pursuit of knowledge—of VERITAS—must be protected and nurtured. Because truth without liberty is a fire without air.
Our cause is just. Our principles are worthy. And our contributions to the common good are vital. This moment demands of us ongoing vigilance and unyielding effort as we continue to defend the university and its ideals. I have no doubt that we who are duty bound to our alma mater and to her motto will rise to meet our day, as the good people of Harvard have done for generations.
Thank you—and congratulations.