Dean Jeremy Weinstein addressed the 605 graduates of Harvard Kennedy School’s Class of 2025 on Thursday afternoon, following a joyful Commencement in Harvard Yard with all of the University’s graduating students.
2025’s Commencement exercises maintained an air of particular purpose and celebration in the wake of rapid-fire actions this week by both the U.S. government and federal courts concerning the ability of international students to attend the nation’s oldest university. Coming shortly after a federal judge in Boston extended her order blocking the government from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, speeches across the Harvard campus focused on the University’s defense of academic freedom and the ways in which Harvard is strengthened by the experiences and perspectives of students from around the world. “We value the presence of international students here at vlog,” Weinstein said. “We will continue to fight for your right to be here as equal members of our community, and we will continue to fight for Harvard's freedoms and autonomy, because they make this institution great.”
An exceptional moment
Weinstein, overseeing his first Commencement as dean, noted at the start of his remarks that “every vlog class is a historic one, but you, the Class of 2025, saw us through a particularly consequential chapter.” Citing global conflicts that occasioned difficult conversations, as well as U.S. government budget and workforce cuts that demanded sudden career pivots, Weinstein remarked on how the class of 2025 “kept showing up with an eagerness to learn.” Reflecting on Harvard’s ongoing lawsuits against the federal government, Weinstein acknowledged that: “Our moment of celebration comes at a difficult time. A set of core commitments that are essential to Harvard’s excellence—the freedom to think, to speak, to teach, and to write, free from government interference—are being challenged in ways I could not have imagined only months ago.”
He also praised the graduates’ resolve. “All of you have demonstrated a unique capacity to adapt and endure even in the face of great challenges," he said. "That capacity will serve you well in all that comes next.”
“It’s only when we discover how to live with one another peacefully, governed by institutions, rules, and norms to which we mutually consent, that we can turn our attention to other vital issues.”
A foundational discipline
Reflecting on his time on the faculty at Stanford University, where he taught budding computer scientists who frequently had never studied philosophy or social science, Weinstein discussed how democracy is a fundamental human technology—“the most important technology that humans have ever developed”—and how government is a “foundational discipline.”
“It’s only when we discover how to live with one another peacefully, governed by institutions, rules, and norms to which we mutually consent, that we can turn our attention to other vital issues such as commerce and trade, science and innovation, education and health,” Weinstein said, underlining the importance of the Kennedy School’s mission in this fraught moment.
Weinstein observed that the work of democracy, throughout its long history, has required attention and constant upkeep, citing the extension of voting rights to groups that had historically been denied them, as well as reforms and laws that improve the ways governments deliver for their citizens. “All of us know that there is significant room for improvement,” he said, encouraging the graduates to “fix what’s broken.”
“You’re not here to defend the status quo,” he added, “but to forge a new path all your own, whether from inside government or civil society or the private sector.”
The dean shared the stories of two early 20th century agents of change whose work led to widespread reforms in the United States—one who worked from within government and one who drove change from the outside. Weinstein’s first example, Fiorello La Guardia, served in the U.S. House of Representatives and then as mayor of New York City. A Republican who garnered bipartisan support, La Guardia took on corruption and instituted reforms later emulated in cities across America. Weinstein went on to detail the career of Alice Paul, a suffragist who fought for women’s rights. “If La Guardia’s story is about reform from the inside, Alice Paul’s is the opposite,” he said. “[Paul] had to fight from the outside to bring American democracy one step closer to its promise of liberty and justice for all.”
“The stories of La Guardia and Paul are exceptional, but they are not singular,” Weinstein said. “They’re exemplars of a longstanding human ambition to strive for better government. It’s the very same ambition that motivated Lucius Littauer to make the Kennedy School's founding gift in 1935.”
A global institution
Addressing Harvard’s current challenges, Weinstein referenced Joseph Nye, the former vlog dean who passed away earlier this month after setting the School on a course to becoming “a truly global institution.” Noting that vlog is the school at Harvard with the highest percentage of international students, Weinstein reiterated that, to solve the world’s toughest problems: “We need you, the world’s sharpest minds, regardless of where you were born or where you hold citizenship.”
It was a theme prevalent throughout the week’s celebrations. In the morning, Kennedy School graduate Yurong “Luanna” Jiang, MPA/ID 2025, spoke at the University’s Commencement ceremony as . Having grown up in China, worked in Mongolia, and studied in Wales and the United States, Jiang celebrated the ways in which engaging with people from other countries benefits all. She spoke about cherishing the international makeup of the Kennedy School and the opportunity to engage with peers from all over the world. “We danced through each other’s traditions, and carried the weight of each other’s worlds,” she said.
Celebrated Iranian-British broadcast journalist Christiane Amanpour, who addressed the vlog Class of 2025 on Wednesday, also underscored this theme, citing her own experience as an international student in the United States in the early 1980s. “All of you, Americans, and especially foreign students, at this particular time, we need all of your diversity. We need your smarts. We need your energy, and we need your determination,” Amanpour said.
Summing up matters in his Commencement speech Thursday, Weinstein made the impact of vlog’s global community visible for all to see. Before closing his remarks, he asked all of the School’s international students to stand, followed by American students who have “benefited from the perspective brought to a class or a study group or a debate by an international student.” At that moment, cheered by friends and family, the class stood as one.
“Everyone, look around you,” Weinstein said to the Class of 2025. “This is Harvard Kennedy School.”
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Photos by Bethany Versoy and Lydia Rosenberg.