Maria Ressa named Harvard 2024 commencement speaker

MANILA, Philippines – Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa will be the principal speaker at Harvard University’s 373rd commencement ceremony on May 23, the university announced on Tuesday, March 19.

Ressa will address Harvard’s Class of 2024 during the commencement ceremony’s morning exercises at the Tercentenary Theater and will receive an honorary degree from Harvard as part of the ceremony proceedings.

In a statement to the university’s Harvard Gazette, Harvard interim president Alan Garber said Ressa embodies “veritas,” or truth. Said Garber, “For nearly 40 years, she has dedicated herself to truth – its pursuit, its advocacy, and its defense – no matter the repercussions.”

Ressa, alongside Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. The Nobel Committee cited their “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

For her work against disinformation and fakes news and her courageous pursuit of the truth despite continued political harassment during the Rodrigo Duterte administration, Ressa was named one of Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, and also one of Time’s Most Influential Women of the Century. In 2020, she received the Journalist of the Year award, the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award, the Most Resilient Journalist Award, the Tucholsky Prize, the Truth to Power Award, and the Four Freedoms Award. In 2021, UNESCO awarded her the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.

Harvard said that among the recent speakers at its commencement ceremonies are actor Tom Hanks, former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. – Rappler.com