Wesleyan University
173rd Commencement
Remarks as prepared for delivery by Amy Gutmann,
President of the University of Pennsylvania
Sunday, May 22, 2005

Thank you, Chairman Dachs, and thank you, President Bennet.

Congratulations to the great class of 2005!

I am greatly honored to join Edward P. Jones, William Barber, Bill Belichick, and our fellow graduates as alumni of this great University.

I am thrilled that Coach Belichick and I are receiving our honorary degrees together, even though, since moving to Philadelphia—yes!—I have become an avid Eagles fan. I have fought off any impulse, however, to rattle Coach Belichick on behalf of a severely wounded Eagles nation. I promised President Bennet that I would show perfect etiquette.

He asked me, however: "Why behave? This is Wesleyan!"

Thanks to the Wesleyan Argus, I know I am professionally challenged today not to speak as an envoy from the ivory tower, but rather as a "real person." As the Argus editorial so tactfully lamented: "We wish we had someone really prepared to send us into the real world and usher us out of our academic past."

On the list of preferred commencement speakers, this means that I trailed such real-world emissaries as Oprah, as William Safire, and even Kermit the Frog. But there is hope: Last I checked, I was comfortably ahead of Miss Piggy and Paris Hilton. Well, Paris Hilton, anyway!

In all seriousness, my fellow graduates, the academic world is part and parcel of the real world. Outstanding Wesleyan faculty have sharpened your minds and strengthened your character. Your fellow students have taught you equally valuable life lessons.

So, as the poet said, "Instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know you realize that life goes fast. It's hard to make the good things last. You realize the sun doesn't go down. It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round."

Many years from now, when your children ask who was your commencement speaker, you’ll say, "Don’t remember her name – but she quoted Flaming Lips!"

You are leaving Wesleyan—seriously now—with the strength of mind and character to flourish as engaged citizens and wise leaders in our democracy. Today, I want to talk about the most important quality that our democracy needs more, more and more than ever before. It is an emotional as well as intellectual attitude that can be summed up in two words: mutual respect.

Mutual respect is not about walking on eggshells. It is not about playing down differences. Rather, it is about giving serious consideration to our differences and disagreements and working through them. It is about pursuing common goals in a constructive spirit of engagement – even when many differences remain, as they always will in a democracy.

Mutual respect is the lifeblood of democracy. It allows you and me to pursue our own happiness also for the benefit of our fellow men and women. It allows even fierce adversaries to seek common ground.

Think about the champions of democracy and freedom. Mahatma Gandhi. Dr. Martin Luther King, Lech Walesa. They hated unjust laws and institutions—hated them! And they fought with all their might to overthrow them. But they never acted hatefully in confronting their adversaries.

Alas, these are not the best of times for mutual respect. We are witnessing a steady erosion of respect for the opinions of others and for the institutions and democratic traditions that have helped to safeguard life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The signs of disrespect are all around us. In the ferocious assault on the judiciary. In the shrill debate over Terri Schiavo. And worst of all, in the hateful, ad hominem attacks that issue daily from the radio and TV talk shows.

We are living in a smash-mouth culture in which extremists dominate public debate to the point of hijacking it. You cannot have a reasoned discussion about abortion when one side is slandered as "baby-killers" and the other side is smeared as "religious wingnuts."

It is hard to pursue a reasoned debate about the Iraqi War when opponents of the war are accused of treason and the President of the United States is compared to Hitler.

Reach across the aisle, pursue collaborative solutions, or explore the shades of gray on any charged issue, and you are likely to be ignored or dismissed as indecisive. That's if you’re lucky. More likely, you will endure crude and often malicious attacks on your intelligence, faith, and patriotism. You may even face death threats – as did Judge George Greer did after ruling on the Schiavo case.

What a waste of the privilege of living in a free society.

Do not get me wrong. Extremism has its place. If you are confronted with a pure evil or an absolute injustice, do not compromise. Confronted with slavery? Call in the abolitionists. Accept the Taliban? I’m behind our troops. Engage Holocaust deniers? There is nothing to debate.

But most issues are highly debatable. We need massive doses of deliberation and mutual respect if we are going to move our society and world to a better place. And that is what you are going to do.

This does, however, raise a difficult question: How do we distinguish between a viewpoint that warrants our condemnation and one that merits reasonable disagreement?

Your liberal education at Wesleyan taught you to make precisely these distinctions. You learned to open your hearts and minds to viewpoints you may never embrace … and to leave room for reasonable disagreement. Whenever there is some truth on the other side—and you know that is most of the time—it is rare that your opponents have pure evil on their side.

This goal of mutual respect may seem tangential as you embark on your first full-time job or you begin graduate or professional school.

Yet, without mutual respect, our democracy is dead – and so are your prospects for living in a just and peaceful world.

With mutual respect, you can lift society to higher ground anywhere from Cape Town … to Middletown.

Think about this country's beginnings. Think about the debate over the U.S. Constitution. It is easy to forget that the Federalist arguments stimulated robust and respectful debate in the form of opposition letters that appeared in newspapers throughout the land.

Anti-Federalist patriots, such as Patrick Henry, George Mason, and John DeWitt, feared the impact of a strong central government on individual liberty and the power of individual states. The Anti-Federalists deliberatively engaged the arguments of those who supported the idea of a strong national government that was embodied in the new Constitution.

And the Federalists replied. Many points of disagreement remained. It took a civil war to settle the question of slavery, a disease that Edward P. Jones describes so brilliantly in The Known World.

Other disagreements persist to this day – like the size and role of government in people's lives, about which William Barber has written so eloquently.

Still, the deliberative debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists was incredibly fruitful and successful. It led to the adoption and ratification of the Bill of Rights! Can you even imagine life at Wesleyan University without the First Amendment?

Indeed, recent Wesleyan history includes shining examples of respectful debate that led to tangible change. Back in the year 2000, student members of the United Student Labor Action Coalition were determined to win higher wages and guaranteed working conditions for service contractors. When they respectfully engaged the administration with reasoned arguments, these students helped to bring about the adoption of new employment standards. That was productive, mutually respectful debate.

Mutual respect can even make miracles happen, and I can attest to that. A little more than a decade ago, I met Nelson Mandela in South Africa shortly after he was released from prison. We were both addressing a gathering organized by the Institute for Democratic Alternatives for South Africa.

Standing before me was a man who had spent the prime of his life – 27 years -- as a political prisoner. And he was treating the Afrikaners in our audience who jailed him with complete respect.

After Mandela spoke, someone in the audience asked the following question: “How can it be that you have no bitterness towards all the people who have perpetrated all those crimes on you?”

I will never forget Mandela’s response.

“I could not wish what happened to me and my people on anyone, not on any human being.”

Mandela's words and actions made it possible for South Africa to move forward to become a multiracial democracy without a violent civil war.

So consider: If mutual respect is possible even under such trying and explosive conditions, then why is it so hard for us to respect one another under so much more fortunate circumstances?

Alas, the average poll-watching, risk-averse politician will not replenish our democratic soil with vision and respect. Nor will the average radio or cable TV talk show host.

But you can revitalize our democracy, and indeed you must. You absolutely must!

Yes, you have your work cut out for you. As someone who preceded me here on this very spot observed, “The world today … is embittered, frustrated, and to an unfortunate degree, dominated by fear.”

These words were delivered by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren to the Wesleyan graduating class of 1954, the year in which Warren wrote the landmark ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education. It was a terrible time in this country. McCarthyism and paranoia raged about our land, but Justice Warren called on Wesleyan graduates to pursue a deeper understanding of all people and all cultures.

Today, I call on you—the great Class of 2005—to follow Warren's and Mandela's examples: Make respect for one another your basis for pursuing a higher level of happiness and a deeper understanding of this troubled but wonderful world.

A 1967 New Yorker cartoon—1967 was before even I started college—shows a stately couple about to begin their dinner. The husband, of course, is already seated. His wife is holding the phone.

She tells her husband, "It's our Oliver, calling from Wesleyan. He wants a greater voice in something!"

That was 1967. Some things don't change!

Graduates, you may not have found the Douglas Cannon. But after the national trauma of 9/11, you found your voices. And how well you have used them!

May you all raise your voices more rigorously and vigorously and effectively as you venture forth to make the world a place with more mutual respect and more happiness and more justice for all!

Today, you are a sensation. Keep your hearts and minds open, and you will become the greatest generation. Ever.

Thank you for allowing me to share this wonderful moment in your lives. I ask one thing of you. When we gather again on this beautiful campus for our 25th reunion in 2030, let’s meet at O'Rourke's Diner for a lively chat. If we are true to our Wesleyan ideals and traditions, then I know we will have something to debate! In the meantime, congratulations! And with all due respect, Godspeed!