Mary Kate Cary - Commencement Address
UVA Sorensen Institute High School Leaders Program
July 27, 2024
Sorensen Institute Director Larry Roberts, Parents, and most of all graduates of the Sorensen Institute’s High School Leaders Program — congratulations on a job well done. And a special thanks to Sarah Campbell for all her hard work on making this event such a success.
I am the daughter of a courtroom lawyer who is married to a courtroom lawyer who is the son of a courtroom lawyer. I grew up listening to all kinds of opposing arguments. I am used to being interrogated about whether I made my bed as a child — or these days, if I’m aware that a statement I just made about the grocery list contradicts my previous statement of last week.
Later, I was a speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush when I was in my mid-twenties, then moved to the Department of Justice to oversee the speechwriters there. After we lost the presidential election in 1992 I freelanced for many years in DC, and met all kinds of fascinating people from both sides of the aisle. Then about five years ago I began teaching at UVA — first a class in Political Speechwriting and then a second one called Democracy Out Loud, in which we study the greatest speeches in American political history.
When I first started teaching I was at a big student dinner where a speaker talked about a new book by Adam Grant called Think Again, which I highly recommend to you. After dinner, a student pulled me aside to ask me about my classes in the Politics Department, which I told her all about.
Then she said to me, “I don’t know what I believe. I don’t identify with either political party. They’re both bad.” This made me sad. But I suspect many of you may feel the same way. Many of my students tell me they are “politically homeless.”
So I told her to think about the founding values of our nation, and which ones are most important to her — values like free speech, religious liberty, the rule of law, or equal opportunity. Then once she’s decided which ones she identifies most with, to think about which policies would support those values.
You could have a situation where two people both say they believe in the rule of law, and one person believes that means they should support the death penalty … and another believes that means they should not support the death penalty. All kinds of policies of all stripes support our founding values — and all kinds of people of good faith support our founding values.
Then you take the policies you think will best uphold your values and see which political party lines up best with your views.
I can guarantee it won’t be 100% with one party and 0% with the other party. Over time, it could be that one party lines up with your values, and a few years later the other party lines up with your views — but you’ll be the one staying true to your values, no matter who the candidate is from what party.
So after I said this to the student at the dinner, I thought about which founding value means the most to me, and that is freedom of speech. (I guess that’s not surprising, given that I write speeches for a living and teach others how to do the same.)
But my eyes were really opened when I taught a class at UVA on the 2020 presidential race that fall. I co-taught the class with a Democratic colleague, side by side, and we’d give lectures together, Republican and Democrat, and host bipartisan panels of experts.
We did it for 200 students on Zoom, and it was a big hit. 89 percent of the students in that class asked for more co-taught classes in the Politics Department. So this fall we’ll do it again for the 2024 race, this time live in person, with 300 students. (What could possibly go wrong?)
I believe it was because of co-teaching that class that back in the spring of 2021, I was asked if I’d serve on the UVA Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry. We published a statement affirming UVA’s commitment to free speech and open inquiry, and that taught me a lot.
I became very interested in the issue of free speech in higher education today in America, and started an organization here at UVA called Think Again, named after the book I heard about that night at the student dinner years earlier.
Think Again sponsors an annual oratory contest where students write and deliver five minute speeches that make the best case for our democracy, before a bipartisan panel of judges who are all former presidential speechwriters who have written for Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Reagan.
This fall, we’re starting student town-hall debates called “Braver Angels Debates” on current issues — very importantly, we offer free pizza instead of kale salads. Believe me, there’s a lot of student events that involve kale. After we learned from polling that three out of four UVA students had never disagreed with a professor, we created fun events like “Disagree with a Professor,” where students share more pizza with popular professors while disagreeing over everything from guns and abortion to whether Ryan Gosling (“Ken” in the Barbie movie) is the greatest actor of our generation.
We started these events because Think Again stands for four pillars:
1. free speech,
2. intellectual humility,
3. viewpoint diversity, and
4. critical thinking.
Let me tell why each of those is important in life, especially as you head off to college.
First, standing up for free speech means standing up not only when you agree with other people, but more importantly when you disagree with them. I can guarantee you’ll be a lot smarter and be a better listener if you take the time to listen to ideas that make you uncomfortable — not physically uncomfortable from a threat of violence, of course — but intellectually uncomfortable, from the thought that what you believe might not be right. There’s a lot of self-censoring these days. As a mom, of course I believe that just because you can say something, doesn’t mean you should say something. Having good manners and being polite are important in civilized society, and a lot of times that means holding your tongue.
But that’s not the same as being afraid to stand up for what you believe in. You should be able to argue with evidence, and make your best case for issues that are important to you. Believe me, that’s a lot more effective than calling people names and insulting them. As I say in class all the time, no one ever changed someone else’s mind by calling them an idiot or a racist. My experience has been that when seeking common ground, it’s better to use honey than vinegar.
Debate teams are a great way to learn how to do this, and often you learn the best arguments for what you believe by arguing the other side of them. John Stuart Mill got it right when he said: “He who knows only his side of the case, knows little of that.”
It’s always a good idea to learn the strongest arguments against your ideas … whether you are running for office, writing a sermon, leading troops into battle, or even just selling a used car. If you learn how to argue with evidence, you’ll use it the rest of your life.
Second, Think Again also stands for humility — specifically, intellectual humility. A few years ago, I made a film about my old boss, President George H.W. Bush called “41ON41” — here’s a shameless plug: it’s on YouTube for free and it’s only 90 minutes long — in which 41 extraordinary story tellers share their best stories about President Bush 41 and the values he stood for. CNN ran it worldwide in 2014 for his 90th birthday.
We had so much great material for historians I made several clips for young people, and I thought I’d share one with you today about what George Bush 41 taught us all about humility and leadership, and how humility to key to bipartisanship — something I think you spent a lot of time on in this program.
A word to the wise: one of the interviewees is Coach K from Duke University, who is considered devil incarnate here at UVA. As much as we all can’t stand Duke, Coach K has some great words of wisdom …
[Transcript from 41ON41 clip]:
Brit Hume, former White House correspondent for ABC News:
George H .W. Bush was a man of a certain kind of virtue and an unusual combination because politics is a rough business and he is not a rough man. He was a gentle man and a
kind man and a forgiving man. But he was also intensely competitive which is I think what allowed him to go forward and thrive in a rough business.
Coach K, head basketball coach at Duke University:
One of the great characteristics of outstanding leaders is humility. And it seems contrary, you know, that you should have somebody with this amazing ego and courage and persona and where does humble fit in? And if humble doesn't fit in, then people can be terrorized by you, or they may never listen to you, they're always in awe of you, or you don't get your complete point across. But when you're humble and you have all those qualities, they believe in you, and they will do things together that they would never do for another leader. I think a lot of people feel that if you're a really good player in any sport, that humility is not part of what you have. But I think it's huge, one, you have to have the belief that you're good. So you have to have an ego. You have to have a confidence level and a belief that you're going to win.
What humility does, is it makes you prepare. If you just have the ego and the talent that may go in another direction. Humility says, I better work on this. Humility says, I better study my opponent. I better be prepared. And so the player, the leader, who has talent, has ego, has confidence, if they couple it with preparation and a respect for the people that they're competing against, then they have a chance to be something that's very special. It's called a champion, and that's what he became. That's what he is: a champion.
Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida:
For those that don't remember, my dad was president with a Democratic -controlled Congress, and from the very beginning, He did everything he could to build consensus around the big things that needed to get done. He reached out across the aisle, which was something I think in the 70s when he was a congressman was quite common, but was increasingly less common. And it's remarkable, as we look back today, to -- I actually wish for those kind of days to come back where presidents lead and build consensus by showing the humility to try to forge consensus rather than to say it's my way or the highway.
[End of clip]
I believe intellectual humility is important in life too. That’s the ability to admit that you might be wrong. Many people today — of all ages — do not think their views might be mistaken. It’s okay to see that in many policies, there are shades of gray. To entertain other options doesn’t mean you are somehow immoral. Changing your mind on a policy doesn’t mean that you are changing your values. In my class, I make the students write a speech about a policy they believe in, then write one on the opposite of what they believe, which many of them have never had to do. One actually wrote a speech on whether O-Hill had the worst food of all the dining halls on Grounds, and then was surprised when he had to write a convincing argument that it was the best food! After doing the research on the arguments of the opposite side of another issue, one of my students asked me if he was allowed to change his mind on that policy. You are ALWAYS allowed to change your mind! I’ve changed my mind on all kinds of issues over the years, and I’m doing just fine. In fact, I highly recommend it.
This brings me to my third point, about viewpoint diversity. Through co-teaching, I’ve learned that it’s not the same for those in the majority to describe the views of the minority. You need to hear it directly from the minority.
As a conservative on a college campus, I’m definitely in the minority — and most students want to hear directly from the horse’s mouth, rather than someone else’s summary of my views. Even if they disagree with me, most students want to hear both sides of every issue.
So do what I do: watch both MSNBC and Fox News … listen to podcasts from all kinds of political commentators … and check in daily with Real Clear Politics, which features side-by-side opinion writing every day from both the right and the left. It’s a lot more fun than just hearing one side.
That’s why our fourth pillar, critical thinking, is so important — because if you only hear one side, you only learn one side. Critical thinking is the ability to take two opposing viewpoints, compare and contrast them, and then decide for yourself. You don’t just automatically believe everything you are told.
Which means you don’t have to believe everything I’ve just told you — my advice is to stand up for free speech and viewpoint diversity and see for yourself if you learn more or not. Go out of your way to see and hear the other side, and don’t be afraid to change your mind. Then decide for yourself how much you are learning after hearing all kinds of fascinating ideas. Don’t just take my word for it.
Congratulations again on completing the Sorensen High School Leaders Program, and on the success of your final projects. I hope you’ll consider going into public service — because politics wasn’t always the way it is right now, and it doesn’t have to stay this way. It takes good people to step forward as the leaders of the next generation of our nation. I firmly believe that one person can make a huge difference in our democracy.
My old boss, George H.W. Bush, called public service a “noble calling” and he was right. As you decide what you’d like to study in college and the jobs you’ll pursue, I hope you’ll consider the noble calling of public service in the greatest nation on Earth, the United States of America.
We really need you!
The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership helps Virginia's leaders develop collaboration skills, trust, ethics, and a mastery of public policy. Sorensen's High School Leaders Program engages Virginia high school students in public policy challenges facing the Commonwealth and prepares them for civic leadership.