Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attends the opening ceremony of the Abu Dhabi Worldwide Petroleum Exhibition & Convention, ADIPEC, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Rice informed members of Southern Utah College’s Class of 2022 Friday that if they need to query the freedoms People get pleasure from, they need to discover inspiration within the Ukrainian individuals’s “fierce protection of their rights” of their ongoing combat towards Russian invaders. Kamran Jebreili, Related Press
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed members of Southern Utah College’s Class of 2022 that if they need to query the freedoms People get pleasure from, they need to discover inspiration within the Ukrainian individuals’s “fierce protection of their rights” of their ongoing combat towards Russian invaders.
“If you end up at any second bitter for even one second on the facility and the blessings of the rights that we get pleasure from, the precise to say what we expect, to worship as we please, to be freed from the knock of the key police at evening, and the arbitrary energy of the state, and to have the precise to decide on those that would govern us, simply watch the information as of late only for a second and discover inspiration from peoples who're prepared to die for the rights that we now have,” stated Rice, featured speaker for the college’s 123rd annual graduation ceremony Friday.
It demonstrates “that there's nothing just like the blessing of liberty. Look to their instance, as an affirmation of freedom and its energy,” stated Rice, who is taken into account an knowledgeable on the Soviet Union.
Even in troubled occasions, Rice urged SUU’s 2,309 graduates to have religion that the long run shall be higher than the current.
“Idealists, not cynics, are those who've imagined the world not as it's however accurately after which work to make it so. Always remember the sacrifices of those that are prepared to provide all within the protection of freedom. Embrace the establishments that defend liberty, revere them and use them for peaceable change,” stated Rice.
Rice served because the 66th U.S. secretary of state from 2005 to 2009 and was the second girl and first Black girl to carry the submit.
A professor of political science, Rice has been on the Stanford College college since 1981, and served as its provost from 1993 to 1999.
From 1989 to 1991, Rice served on President George H.W. Bush’s Nationwide Safety Council employees. In 1986, whereas an Worldwide Affairs Fellow of the Council on Overseas Relations, Rice additionally served as particular assistant to the director of the Joint Chiefs of Workers.
Some day, members of SUU’s graduating class might have alternatives for public service, too, she stated, throughout her deal with in SUU’s America First Occasion Heart in Cedar Metropolis.
“You may even find yourself ready that you might by no means have imagined,” stated Rice, reflecting on the White Home ceremony when she was sworn in as secretary of state.
“As I stood there within the Ben Franklin Room in 2005, being sworn in as secretary of state, an oath to a Structure that after counted my ancestors as three-fifths of a person, sworn in by a Jewish girl Supreme Courtroom Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I did assume to myself ‘What would previous Ben have considered this?’
“Nicely, he would by no means have imagined it, after all, and admittedly, neither would I as slightly lady rising up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama. I'd let you know that I don’t assume Ruth both would have imagined it as she was simply making an attempt to have her voice heard in legislation college. So, there are unbelievable potentialities on the market for you in public service.”
Rice informed the graduating class to be aware of those that haven't had the privilege of attending faculty.
“Keep in mind that there are those that had been simply as succesful, simply as sensible, who by no means bought this opportunity. For no matter motive. it simply didn’t work out for them. So it is a time to have fun achievement however a time to put aside any sense of entitlement. For these of us who're privileged sufficient to have it, we should use it properly, and share it, at any time when we are able to,” she stated.
That's the accountability of an informed individual, she stated.
“I wish to problem you to be energetic on the planet round you, drawing in your training to make that world higher. There is no such thing as a higher antidote to entitlement than to interact with those that have lower than you do, who for no matter motive, live troubled and tough lives,” she stated.
Rice stated her household’s historical past of acquiring larger training dates again to her sharecropper grandfather from Eutaw, Alabama (pronounced Utah). “I’m not kidding,” stated Rice.
Her grandfather, John Wesley Rice Sr., died two months earlier than she was born, “however one way or the other I really feel that he’s all the time been there by my journeys. You see, he was an informed one that persevered and did no matter it took to get that one factor that nobody would ever take from him.”
He paid for his first time period at Stillman School in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with cotton.
“After his first 12 months, the varsity stated to him, ‘So how are you going to pay to your second 12 months?’ And he stated, ‘Nicely, I’m out of cotton.’ They stated, ‘Nicely then, you’re out of luck.’”
However the quick-thinking younger man inquired how his fellow classmates might afford faculty.
“They stated, ‘Nicely, they've what’s known as a scholarship, and should you needed to be a Presbyterian minister, you might have a scholarship, too.’ My granddaddy didn't miss a beat. He stated, ‘You understand, that’s precisely what I had in thoughts.’
“And my household has been faculty educated and Presbyterian ever since,” Rice stated.
On Friday, Rice added one other doctorate diploma — albeit honorary — to her vitae.
She and Eric O. Leavitt, govt chairman and chief govt officer of the Leavitt Group, the biggest family-controlled insurance coverage brokerage within the nation, and a former chairman of SUU’s board of trustees, had been awarded honorary doctorate levels by the college.