Students, families and administrators gathered on Old Campus Sunday for Yale College’s 2024 Baccalaureate Ceremony and Class Day.
At the Baccalaureate Ceremony, University Chaplain Maytal Saltiel offered an opening prayer, followed by student-led prayers of various faiths and a hymn. Dean of Yale College Pericles Lewis read a reading of the poem “Ithaca” by Constantine Cavafy and the Yale Glee Club performed a rendition of “Alleluia” by Randall Thompson.
In his Baccalaureate Address, University President Peter Salovey drew on his upbringing in a culturally Jewish home and early memories of the Civil Rights movement — in particular Martin Luther King Jr.’s march to Selma alongside Rabbi Everett Gendler — to highlight the virtues of “love and compassion.”
Citing obstacles such as climate change and racial injustice, and mentioning nationwide surges in antisemitism and Islamophobia, Salovey posed the audience with the challenge of “channeling rage into a positive, constructive force.”
“Without anger, we would be bereft of the fuel necessary to fight against prejudice and violence around the globe,” Salovey said. “So what then, are the grounds that support the translation of outrage into compassion?”
Salovey described a moment in 1963 in which Yale law student and civil rights activist Pauli Murray defended Alabama governor George Wallace’s right to speak at Yale despite his segregationist views and amid pressure from Yale’s president and the New Haven mayor to disinvite Wallace. This approach, Salovey said, emphasized “redemption over retribution.”
“It is not enough to retreat into silos alongside those who are already inclined to agree with us,” Salovey said. “By daring to choose love and compassion over rage and hate, we can bring about the meaningful, sustainable changes needed in society.”
If Peter Salovey had only hired a more ideologically diverse faculty and student body... he wouldn't have had to given this speech.
