Commencement 2020: Touched by Tragedy

On May 31, 2020, I presided over the virtual Commencement ceremony for the Class of 2020 — it was the University’s 273rd graduation ceremony, and the first held virtually. Shortly before the event was live-streamed, I released a statement about the killing of George Floyd and the importance of combating racism. That statement appears below, along with my Commencement remarks for this year’s graduating seniors. — C.L.E.

Statement from President Eisgruber on the killing of George Floyd and the importance of confronting racism

In my Commencement address for today’s virtual ceremony, I say that members of the Class of 2020 graduate into hard times, and that the world needs not only their talent, but their insight, courage, and compassion. Though I recorded that speech less than two weeks ago, intervening events have reminded us that COVID-19 is not the only tragic challenge facing our students and our world.

We have witnessed yet again how this nation’s long legacy of racism continues to damage and destroy the lives of black people. The heartless killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis occurred soon after the unjust shootings of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and Breonna Taylor in Louisville. It coincided with the appalling harassment of Christian Cooper in New York’s Central Park, an incident that demonstrated how easily a racist complaint could put a black man in danger. The COVID-19 pandemic itself has killed black and brown Americans at higher rates than other groups, magnifying disparities in healthcare and economic well-being.

We all have a responsibility to stand up against racism, wherever and whenever we encounter it. Commitments to diversity, inclusivity, and human rights are fundamental to the mission of Princeton University. I ask all of us to join the graduates in the Class of 2020 in their quest to form a better society, one that confronts racism honestly and strives relentlessly for equality and justice.

Touched by Tragedy

A venerable Princeton tradition allows the University president to offer a few words to the graduating students at each year’s Commencement exercises. You’ve all heard more than enough online speeches this spring, so I’ll keep my remarks brief. I would be remiss, however, if I did not say something to mark the special achievements, and the exceptional potential, of this graduating class.

During my own senior year, which was a very long time ago, I chose a quotation from Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., to accompany my picture in The Nassau Herald. The quote was, “Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire.”

This was a terribly naïve selection on my part. I wanted to say to my classmates that our time together at Princeton had kindled dreams, ideas, and friendships that could inspire us throughout our lives. But when Holmes claimed that he and his generation had been “touched with fire,” he meant that their character had been forged through the searing challenges and tragic deaths of wartime military service. Through that perilous endeavor—and here I will quote the next line from his speech—“it was given to us to learn … that life is a profound and passionate thing.”

My generation experienced nothing like that. For the most part, we had it rather easy.

You graduate in much harder times. The awful contagion that now spreads among us tends to afflict the old more harshly than the young, so you may or may not feel your own life at risk. Some of you, however, have lost relatives or friends to this virus, or struggled with it yourselves. Many of you have seen jobs disappear or felt the economic devastation inflicted by this pandemic. Each and every one of you has lost something precious and irreplaceable.

In far too many ways, you have seen how fragile our world is. So much vanished so fast: scholarly projects, artistic performances, athletic competitions, even the simple pleasures of sharing meals or hugging friends. This ordeal affects us all, but it comes at a particularly formative moment in your lives.

So what will you do with this hardship? The losses are real and painful. What they took from you was beyond your control. What you take from them, however—that is at least partly up to you.

It is thus worth asking: how will you remember these difficult times when you look back on them many years from now? Might you say, do you want to say, after Oliver Wendell Holmes, that “In our youths, our lives were touched by tragedy, and so it was given to us to learn that life is a profound and passionate thing”?

You are already the Great Class of 2020 in the sense that we traditionally call Princeton classes “great”: during your time as Princeton students, you animated this University with your creativity, curiosity, intelligence, aspiration, compassion, persistence, and energy. I have no doubt that you will continue to impress us with your achievements in the years to come.

I believe, however, that your class has the chance to be the start of something truly extraordinary, to appreciate anew the value of ordinary human experience and to cooperate afresh for the common good. You enter a world that needs not only your talent, but also your insight, your courage, and your compassion. With those qualities and with the education you complete today, you have the opportunity to chart a new course. I hope you seize that opportunity.

For today, though, I hope simply that you celebrate as exuberantly as circumstances allow. You have persisted in tough times, achieving something remarkable. I send heartfelt best wishes to you now, and I look forward to congratulating you in person next spring.

Scenes from virtual Commencement: Dean of the Graduate School Sarah-Jane Leslie *07, President Christopher L. Eisgruber ’83, and Dean of the College Jill Dolan; President Eisgruber; Grace Sommers ’20, salutatorian; Nicholas Johnson ’20, valedictorian; Maria Ressa ’86, journalist, spoke from the Philippines; Professor Tracy K. Smith read one of her poems; Class of 2020 singers performed “Old Nassau”; Ananya Mittal ’20 celebrated with family in New Delhi.