Commencement Speaker Abraham Verghese Applauds Harvard For Resisting Washington
Photo: The Harvard Crimson/Briana Howard Pagán
India-West News Desk
BOSTON, MA – Stanford professor, physician, and bestselling author Abraham Verghese began his address to the Class of 2025 by reflecting on his roots — as an immigrant who grew up in Ethiopia under authoritarian rule, survived a military coup, and completed his medical training in India during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. Speaking from a personal history shaped by political turbulence, Verghese never mentioned Donald Trump by name, but his message was a clear and forceful response to the political moment.
Wading into the controversy over international students, Verghese offered pointed support for Harvard University’s legal defiance of recent federal efforts to restrict international student visas. Without naming the Trump administration directly, he condemned what he called a “cascade of draconian government measures” that had created “uncertainty, pain, and suffering.” The remarks came just a week after the Department of Homeland Security threatened to revoke Harvard’s certification to admit international students—a threat now being contested in court.
Applauding Harvard’s response, Verghese praised university leadership for standing firm against federal pressure. “More people than you realize are grateful to Harvard for the example it has set,” he told the graduates to thunderous applause. “By your clarity in affirming and courageously defending the essential values of this university — and indeed, of this nation.”
Though less well-known than some of the university’s previous commencement speakers, Verghese acknowledged his relative lack of celebrity with self-deprecating humor. “I felt you deserved to hear from a star, a legend, a Nobel Prize winner — or perhaps, God knows, the Pope himself,” he joked. “Maybe next year, huh?”
But despite his modesty, Verghese’s speech made national headlines — a testament to the power of his words and the moral authority he brought to the moment. “Perhaps it’s fitting,” he said, “that you’re hearing from someone like me — an immigrant — at a time when even legal residents worry about being wrongly detained or deported.”
His address centered on three themes: the moral clarity that emerges under pressure, the urgency of compassion, and the finite nature of time. Drawing from his experience as a physician in rural Tennessee during the height of the AIDS crisis, Verghese spoke movingly about caring for young men abandoned by their families, and the deep lessons in dignity and courage he learned from them.
“They taught me about manhood — not the caricature, the posturing that’s become so fashionable — but a manhood rooted in compassion, generosity, and quiet strength,” he said.
He closed his speech by reading a letter written by one of his former patients to his mother — a reflection on love, life, and grace.
“If anyone ever asks you if I went to heaven, tell them this: I just came from there,” the letter said. “No place could conceivably be as wonderful as where I’ve spent these last 30 years.”
With those words, Verghese left the Class of 2025 with a charge: to uphold the values that brought them to this moment, honor the sacrifices behind their education, and move forward with purpose.
“Make your decisions worthy of those who supported, nurtured, and sacrificed for you,” he said. “And make good use of your time.”
