Reflections on Boldness

I graduated from college at a time and place where donning regalia and marching in procession were considered quaint at best and unbearably pompous at worst. My friends and I were dimly aware that some students chose to participate in graduation ceremonies, but none of us ever seriously considered joining them. There was no punctuation mark at the end of our studies. The past merged seamlessly into the future.

It was only after moving to America that I realized just how beautiful and moving such events can be, and now I never miss one when my own students are set to walk across the stage. So I was in attendance yesterday, at Radio City Music Hall, for Barnard’s 133rd commencement ceremonies.

The keynote speaker this year was Shabana Basij-Rasikh, founder of the School of Leadership, Afganistan (SOLA). This was a boarding school for Afghan girls that operated in Kabul from 2016 to 2021, then moved to Rwanda when the Taliban returned to power. The academic records of all students were burned on August 15 (to protect their identities and the families they would leave behind). The community arrived in Rwanda on August 25, and classes resumed just four days later.

This is how Shabana Basij-Rasikh began her remarks:

Thank you for inviting me to celebrate a day that, if we were together in Afghanistan, simply wouldn’t be happening. It would be impossible. It would be illegal.

Women don’t graduate college in Afghanistan because women don’t go to college in Afghanistan. Girls don’t go to high school. Girls don’t go to school at all beyond sixth grade.

Sixth grade. Puberty comes, and education ends. That’s how it is in Afghanistan. That’s the Taliban’s law. And it’s been like this since 2022. Men graduate college, and women don’t. Boys graduate high school, and girls don’t. This is the Taliban’s law, and this is how a nation and a society spirals down into desolation.

That’s my country. That’s my home. And it’s important to me that you know about this.

And I don’t say it because I want to darken the mood of a beautifully bright day. I say it because I have a challenge for you.

She continued as follows (links added):

My challenge for you, Class of 2025, comes in the context of two data points.

The first one comes from a report from the Pew Research Center, a report they released last year. They tracked the gender gap in college degrees earned in America across the past three decades, from 1995 to 2024.

Here’s what they found.

In 1995, 25% of U.S. women between the ages of 25 to 34 held a bachelor’s degree. And so did 25% of men. Complete parity.

But that’s when the gap began to form, and it widened, until last year, in 2024, Pew found that 47% of U.S. women between the ages of 25 to 34 held a bachelor's degree. But only 37% of men did.

A 10% gap in college degrees between American women and American men. That’s the first point.

The second point is from you. It’s from Barnard College.

And I’ll be more specific: It’s from your website, from the page that talks about the history of your school, your founding, your accomplishments for more than a century.

You’ve probably seen it, but for everyone who hasn’t: When you visit that page that details the history of Barnard, the creation of this place where women could receive the same rigorous education that men could receive—right at the top of the page, there is a single sentence.

And the sentence reads: “The idea was bold for its time.”

It really was, wasn’t it?

That sentence struck me when I read it. And I’ll tell you why. My school, SOLA, wasn’t always what it is now. Originally, we focused on securing scholarships for Afghan students to study overseas—but over time, we decided we wanted to focus on bringing quality education to Afghanistan itself, providing it to young Afghan women within their own country.

And so, we settled on a new model. A boarding school model. A boarding school exclusively for girls. A place where girls from across Afghanistan could live and learn together safely. Girls from all ethnic groups, girls from all economic backgrounds, girls from every region of the country—we wanted them all.
We were going to create a place where girls would meet sisters they never knew they had, and together, they would grow to become members of some of the best-educated generation of women that Afghanistan had ever seen.

Nothing else like SOLA had ever been tried in my country. Ever. Not until SOLA.

This was our idea, and I remember how I would go into meetings with high-level politicians in Kabul, telling them why we wanted to create a boarding school, our reasoning behind it, our belief in what could come of it.

These men weren’t extremists, they weren’t Taliban—these were elected government officials, and I remember them being very interested in what my team and I had to say to them.

And I will never forget what one of them said, at one of these meetings.

He said, “It’s a remarkable idea you’ve got, very powerful. And it’s such a shame that you’re wasting it on girls.”

That really happened.

And I’ll tell you something else that happened: I proved him wrong. I did, and SOLA’s teachers did, and SOLA’s global village of supporters did—and more than anyone else, our students and their parents did. Afghan girls, and Afghan mothers and fathers, who believed in a bold idea.

Educating girls shouldn’t be a bold idea. But it is, in Afghanistan.

Equality shouldn’t be a bold idea. But it is, in Afghanistan.

Bold ideas challenge. Bold ideas frighten. And some bold ideas, like the one that motivated the creation of SOLA and the creation of Barnard College—some bold ideas have the power to benefit not just some of us but all of us.

Educated girls become educated women, and educated women have agency. They can uplift economies, they improve the health of their families, they neutralize the threat of extremism. They can do all these things and benefit everyone on Earth.

It seems straightforward and easy to accept. But bold ideas need bold champions. And in a time when gaps are widening in educational achievement … in a time when gaps are widening between those who see equality as a pathway to mutual benefit and those who see equality as a threat to individual gain … in a time when gaps are widening between those who hold traditional opinions of gender roles and the “proper” place of women in a society and those who see different arcs of possibilities—in these times, in these days, we look for bold champions for our bold ideas.

And that’s my challenge for you today, the Class of 2025.

Be the ones who are bold enough to bridge the gaps.

Gaps are dangerous places. Gaps are places we fall into. Gaps are dangerous places—I have to emphasize. And these are places that we fall into when no bridge has been built to link those two sides. No path has been laid between them. And wherever your path may lead you after today, I challenge you to innovate ways to bridge the gaps that divide us.

These remarks were met with rapt and respectful attention, in pin-drop silence.

Just a few minutes earlier, however, there was loud and prolonged heckling as the current chair of the board of trustees, Cheryl Milstein, delivered her remarks. Milstein is an alumna of the College, as is her daughter. The College president, Laura Rosenbury, was likewise heckled as she spoke, as was the Dean of the College, Leslie Grinage, when she rose to read the names of graduating students.

Heckling is both a speech act and an infringement on the speech rights of others. Taken to an extreme, it denies to an audience the right to listen. This is the so-called heckler’s veto, opposition to which is enshrined in the Chicago principles on freedom of expression, and in a brilliant ten-page letter issued by Jenny Martinez when she was the Dean of Stanford Law School.¹

On this occasion, thankfully, there was no heckler’s veto—remarks were delivered as planned and were clearly audible for the most part. But the incredible amount of polarization on campus continued to be evident as students later made their way across the stage. Many refused to shake the President’s hand, and some protested in more elaborate ways—with messages displayed on garments, or flags unfurled. Other students gladly offered their hands, and there was even an occasional embrace. The protesting students were met with raucous applause from some corners of the assembled crowd; those exhibiting warmth and appreciation received a quieter public reception.

In comparison with some of the more dramatic protest activity on campus over the past eighteen months, the expressive acts during the commencement ceremony (including the heckling) were mild, and the mood was generally festive. I think this was cause for relief all around, from the trustees and senior administration to the students and their parents.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh was an inspired choice for commencement speaker this year, but I suspect that different people will draw different meanings from her message. To me, her call for boldness in the bridging of divides, especially in light of her first data point, was a statement about the wide variation across societies in the social cleavages they exhibit, and the need for calibrating our actions to the particular conditions we each face.

I also think that there was a second, more important message that was delivered on that stage, implicit in the life and work of the speaker if not in her prepared remarks. Shabana Basij-Rasikh pursued her goals with dogged determination and boundless courage, to be sure, but also with a clear understanding of exactly how the means at her disposal would lead to the ends that she sought.

The same cannot be said for the campus protests over the past year and a half. These have certainly been bold—students have risked suspension, expulsion, arrest, and deportation. But it seems doubtful to me that the encampments, building occupations, and class disruptions have changed any minds, except perhaps in a direction less likely to further the Palestinian cause.

I am not blind to the enormity of suffering in Gaza, or to the pressures of self-censorship and institutional sanction. To take one recent example, Glenn Loury has faced extreme vilification and charges of bigotry for raising objections to the manner in which the war is being conducted. This is someone I have known for more than two decades; if Glenn is antisemitic then the word has no meaning.² At the same time, I cannot see how the manner in which the campus protests have been conducted can lead to the kinds of change that the protestors claim to seek.

Boldness is a virtue only in combination with wisdom and strategic foresight. That is the second message that I drew from the commencement speaker. Not from the text of her remarks, but from the inspiration of her example.

1. I discussed both these documents (along with several others) at length in an earlier post. The Martinez memo was issued to explain why she apologized to Judge Kyle Duncan for the disruption of his speech in March 2023, and why the University’s commitment to diversity and inclusion required it to “protect the expression of all views.” Jenny Martinez is now the Provost at Stanford.

2. My own view of this will carry little weight, so I refer you to someone with more standing to make the claim.