Pomona College announced last month that California Supreme Court Associate Justice Goodwin Liu, humanitarian Jane Olson and political scientist Daniel Ziblatt PO ’95 would speak at the college’s commencement ceremony on May 17 on Marston Quad.
During the ceremony, the speakers will receive honorary doctorates recognizing their contributions to law, human rights and democratic governance. The speakers were selected by the Board of Trustees’ honorary degree committee, made up of three Pomona professors.
Liu previously served as a professor and associate dean at the UC Berkeley School of Law and is known for his expertise in constitutional law, education policy and diversity in the legal profession. Olson is the former chair of the International Board of Trustees of Human Rights Watch, and Ziblatt is the Eaton Professor of Government and director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.
Pomona President Gabrielle Starr said the selection of speakers reflects values central to the college’s mission.
“[The speakers] have demonstrated a commitment to values that resonate deeply with our educational mission, including civic engagement, community building and the public good,“ Starr said in a statement to TSL.
Lexi Duffy PO ’26, a public policy analysis major, said she appreciates the selected speakers because of the ideals they represent.
“I think the message to the graduating class is pretty simple: if you care about democracy, human rights or political change, you eventually have to decide where you want to plug into that work,” Duffy said. “Pomona is sending students off with examples of people who actually did.”
Pomona politics professor Mieczysław Boduszyński said the speakers’ work is important in combating threats to democracy and human rights.
“Professor Ziblatt and Ms. Olson have made major contributions to the defense of democracy and human rights through their scholarship and activism,” Boduszyński wrote in an email to TSL. “An independent judiciary is also a critical component of a healthy democracy, and it has been under assault since January 2025. Justice Liu’s participation is significant in that regard.”
Ziblatt’s co-authored books “How Democracies Die” and “Tyranny of the Minority” have heavily influenced how people around the world view democratic backsliding, Pomona politics professor Erica Dobbs wrote in an email to TSL.
Dobbs added that Ziblatt embodies the values Pomona seeks to instill in its graduates and hopes they are inspired by his work.
“I hope all of our graduates consider the importance of bearing their added riches to the critical task of active, engaged citizenship — particularly in this moment when democratic institutions at home and abroad are under enormous strain,” Dobbs wrote.
Duffy said the speakers’ extensive work in democracy echoes students’ worries about current democratic backsliding.
“The conversations happening at Pomona right now are grounded in real concern,” she said. “Students are worried about the safety of undocumented community members amidst ongoing ICE raids, anxious about what the federal government’s targeting of universities means for academic freedom and trying to figure out how to respond to all of it in ways that feel meaningful.”
Dobbs notes how Pomona graduates must grapple with the mission statement that brands the College’s gates: “they only are loyal to this college who departing bear their added riches in trust for mankind.”
Duffy said this year’s speakers reflect how conversations about democracy are shaping the ways graduating seniors seek to embrace Pomona’s values and ‘bear their added riches’ for future generations.
“Hearing from people who have stayed engaged with the same issues over long careers through courts, advocacy and scholarship feels like a timely thing to be sitting with at graduation.”
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