Loomis Chaffee School Address, June 4, 1999

Thank you very much Mr. Weigel, distinguished members of the Board of Trustees, distinguished faculty members, grateful parents and friends and members of the class of 1999. Congratulations to this outstanding class.  I want to begin with my applause to all of you.

What a thrill it is for me to hear just a few of the life deeds of members of this class who were honored a few moments ago and to know how many more of you have similar and related stories of academic excellence and community engagement. Great congratulations. The mission of this institution is to commit students to best self and common good. These are the words of T.H. Green. Now, I was tempted to change my remarks completely and speak on the merits of honor, justice and chicken nuggets, but you'll be glad to know that that work was already done so well that I'll go on with the remarks I've prepared for you.

Each of you in the graduating class is a son or daughter of privilege -- not because your family's income is at a certain level -- it may or may not be. You are sons and daughters of privilege because you have been here at Loomis Chaffee. Because you have had opportunities to come to know, under the tutelage of this great faculty in the framework of these great traditions of this great school -- and because you have families and friends who have cherished you enough to make the sacrifices to place you here and sustain you here -- you are the sons and daughters of privilege. You have come to know a great deal here. I want to ask you a question I hope you will ponder all the days of your lives. What will you do with what you know? Because, as people of privilege you will become people of power and knowledge will not be enough. You will have to have a moral center that will consistently ask you that question: What will you do with what you know? What difference will my power and privilege make? And if you don't know what to do with what you know then you'll make no difference. You may even be involved in doing harm.

And so, I'd like to share with you three very brief stories that come out of the way we engage this question -- What will you do with what you know? -- when you're a person of privilege of higher education. At Connecticut College, we have a series of convocations that bring students and faculty together at the beginning of the year, and each of the last three years we have focused wholly on this question: What do you do with what you know?

We brought to campus three years ago a woman of 41 years old who, when she was six years old in New Orleans, Louisiana, was the child who integrated the Frantz Elementary school. She arrived for school surrounded on her first day of class by federal marshals who had to protect her from an angry crowd of whites.  They had so inflamed the local population that none of the other parents would permit their children to attend the school. Ruby Bridges emerged from a car surrounded by federal marshals armed with guns to protect her from her fellow citizens. People who like her and her parents sang "America the Beautiful" also screamed horrible words at this six year old child on her first day of school as she walked up the steep steps to begin not only her first grade, but a change in our country. Her brave parents had prepared her for this frightening day.  She and they knew it was a day when they had to do something important.  What will you do with what you know?"

Ruby Bridges' parents had a sixth-grade education. They didn't have the kind of privilege of education that you have and that my students at Connecticut College have. They're students who attend the twelfth most selective college in the United States. Like you, they are sons and daughters of privilege by virtue of the education they have. What did Ruby Bridges' parents do with what they knew? They knew the country needed someone to integrate the school. Four families had committed to that act of integration and as the days moved forward inexorably to the first day of school -- remember your own -- one after another of these families decided that they couldn't put their child at risk.

And Ruby Bridges' parents decided they had to act courageously in the belief that change would only come if people acted out of courage. And so they told Ruby that she would hear people yelling terrible things at her and that would be the sign that she would know to begin praying that God would take the anger out of their hearts and sweeten their spirits. And they told Ruby that she had nothing to be afraid of because she was doing something very important that millions of other children would someday be grateful for. And that God would sweeten the hearts of these people if a child asked God to do that. And so when Ruby heard the crowds screaming, she knew that was her moment and she began to pray, and a young psychiatrist educated at Harvard happened to be in the area and watched the tableau on the first day. And he committed to studying the disintegration of this little girl over the months that she would be at this kind of risk on a daily basis psychologically. That person is Robert Coles. And Robert Coles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 56 books, now says that all of his Harvard education, and all of that power and knowledge had not prepared him for people like Ruby Bridges' parents who had asked themselves the profound question: What do we do with what we know? We know justice must emerge from this community. We know we are called to act courageously, and so we will. And Bob Coles says his Harvard education hadn't prepared him to deal with the wisdom and courage in the parents of Ruby Bridges with their 6th grade education.

Ruby told this story on the first day of classes at Connecticut College when we welcomed her to Palmer Auditorium, surrounded not by federal marshals but by students and faculty marshals, to a thunderous applause and to her first honorary degree. We wanted her to know, as she received an honorary doctorate from Connecticut College, that we not only prized the knowledge and pursuit of excellence in Physics and Mathematics and Environmental Studies and all the fields in language and arts and economics that are taught there, but that we ask ourselves a bigger question that must, in fact, lead the question of knowledge -- the clarity of moral force -- Act courageously and even more so, love those who hate you. Education is power. Make it make a difference.

The following year, we invited Miep Gies, who sheltered Anne Frank and her family in her own home. What will Miep Gies do with what she knew? A modestly educated woman from a modestly educated family who knew that something was terribly wrong that people were being taken away and that the Frank family was in mortal danger. She had the knowledge as well of the danger her family could be in if the Nazis discovered that she was sheltering Jews. And this Christian woman knew something else -- she knew that she had to act courageously. Love her neighbor as herself. Act as she would want them to act on her behalf. And so she hid the family and hid them as long as she could. Hid them long enough for Anne Frank to leave us this priceless document, translated into hundreds of languages, a document that continues to focus the world on the minds and wisdom of young people, younger than the members of this graduating class. What will you do with what you know? You act courageously, without concern for self. Knowledge frees you and compels you to act with moral force. What will you do with what you know?

This past year, we invited two soldiers to receive honorary degrees just as Ruby Bridges and Miep Gies had.  These were two soldiers who were in a helicopter flying over Vietnam when they noticed that American troops were gunning down civilians, letting them fall over into a ditch. What will you do with what you know? When you're 19 and in a helicopter with two twenty-year-olds and you realize there's a commander on the ground commanding American troops to do something you know breaks the military code of ethics. You could veer off, it's not your problem. These are not your people. The way Miep Gies could have stepped away from the Frank family -- not her people. She was Christian, they were Jews. The way Ruby Bridges' parents could have followed the example of the other families and stepped away quite understandably. But these three young men, one of whom was killed shortly after this incident, veered their helicopter right into the line of fire and the young commander said to his gunner "Cover me. If the Americans keep on shooting after I give my command, fire on them."  Imagine, at his age. What will you do with what you know?

He commanded from honor, not expediency, not concern for his own career, not concern for his own well being. Because he had knowledge of the military code of honor and a great tradition of honor and ethics, and so he commanded Callie's forces to stop firing and he knew they might well have fired on him or simply ignored him. Thanks be to God, they did neither. They stopped firing and the young commander walked between the American armed soldiers and the civilians and he gathered up the civilians and moved them to safe space. And we all know the story of Mei Lai. What will you do with what you know? You act courageously from a code of ethics from an honor code that's part of what you're part of. This country expects people of privilege -- and here that doesn't just mean economics, it means the privilege of education and knowledge -- it expects us to act from principles and it expects us to be present as individual human beings embracing the role of hero, not just when we're given that role but when that role just comes forward. What will you do -- someday -- with what you know? I hope you will gather all of the knowledge you have acquired here at Loomis Chaffee and the knowledge that you will acquire at the outstanding colleges and universities that will welcome you to their freshman classes and that you will remember that all of us as Americans are privileged because we live in this democracy, which is still an emerging democracy.

It is still a work in progress. I hope you will remember that Ralph Ellison in his outstanding book Invisible Man called us to remember the principles in our founding documents that are not simply the words of Founders. They are our words. They are your words and you and I and Ruby Bridges and Miep Gies in a global framework and the young soldiers who discovered the Mei Lai massacre are each responsible in the human community for assuring that the principles embedded in our founding documents are actually life experiences of our brothers and sisters in this country and around the world.

I call each of you to embrace the notion that whatever your life's work will be as a profession, that you see one job description ahead of you. You are called to be the people who know what to do with the knowledge and privilege you acquire. You are called to be the people who close the gap between the aspirations in those documents and the lived experiences of your brothers and sisters wherever you find them so that when you see that our founding documents that all men are created equal and empowered by their creators with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that you know that these are words you are meant to carry into the specific lives of fellow citizens in this country and around the world.

If Mort Zuckerman is right and the 21^st century is to be the 2^nd American century, that it is our commitment to justice and tolerance and compassion that brings the next whole level of achievement to the American Dream. It is in your hands -- what will you do with what you know?

God bless you.