Once the speech has ended, the caps and gowns have been doffed, and parents have been tearfully embraced, Hillsdale students often begin to subject their commencement speaker to harsh criticism. Few things are nearer to our hearts than debate, and the relative merits of our speaker are fair game.
Past commencement speakers have asked the question that most graduates are asking themselves: Has our work been and will it be worthwhile? Were our years here well-spent? What, as Michael Ward asked the class of 2015, are we to do with the time that has been given us?
The answer to our graduates’ questions is not just a matter of theory, but action. We have spent our time at Hillsdale striving to become liberally educated; we must spend the time to come acting in accord with this education, dedicated to the truth and beauty of the life we have found here.
United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is returning to Hillsdale to be the class of 2016 commencement speaker. Thomas is not only one of the most incisive legal scholars of the last century, but a man who values Hillsdale’s mission and has sustained a long relationship with its students.
Thomas grew up in Pin Point, Georgia, in a wooden house with dirt floors and no electricity. After graduating in the top of his class from Holy Cross College, he attended Yale Law School and went on to serve in government before being appointed by George H.W. Bush to the United States Supreme Court. He’s most well-known for his constitutional originalism, reading the Constitution according to its original intention.
But more than that, he has been a Hillsdale College Distinguished Visiting Fellow and colleague of many of our professors. He also spoke at Dr. Larry Arnn’s installation as Hillsdale’s president in 2000.
“You people of Hillsdale College — trustees, faculty and staff, and most of all you students — have a mission to fulfill. You are on the front lines of a battle of ideas that will determine whether Hillsdale’s and America’s time-honored principles will continue to guide our lives and keep us free,” Thomas said.
We do, indeed, have a mission to fulfill. Justice Thomas is a man well-equipped to address our graduates both in speech and by example.
