Thank you, Dean, for that introduction. to the great faculty, the distinguished guests, for having me today. And congratulations to the class of 2025. Go Blue, people, go Blue. It’s great.
Before I begin, I want to take a moment and acknowledge the parents, the families, friends, and loved ones in the audience today who have supported you throughout your education here. Graduates, whoever is here with you today, they are your people. They have played an essential role in getting you to this point, whether directly or indirectly. They have invested in you, they have believed in you, so please, let’s give them a hearty round of applause.
So, I’m excited to be here today, although I’m disappointed this is taking place on a Sunday. I was looking forward to Thursday night at Rick’s. Parents, you don’t need to know what that is. But beyond beer, and gamedays, and the dreaded Pub Poll 330, there’s one tradition that rises above all else here at the Ford School, and that’s public service. As the Dean reminded us, the Ford School first and foremost is a “community dedicated to the public good.” This is an institution that trains the next generation of public servants. Regardless of their roots or their political affiliation, Ford School alumni have dedicated their careers to better educating their kids, building an economy that works for everyone, keeping our citizens healthy and our country safe. That is the tradition you are entering today.
This feels pretty familiar to me. I’ve spent my life in public service. I happened to be in New York City on my second day of graduate school when 9/11 happened. I was just a few years older than most of you here. By the time the smoke cleared, I knew I wanted to go into national security and help keep my country safe. But it is hard to convey to those of you who are too young to remember just what a time of great cultural and political upheaval it was. Our country had just been attacked; across the world we were in a state of shock. We would soon launch two wars that would last 20 years and claim hundreds of thousands of lives. Our entire worldview shifted, and it felt like a monumental break with the old rules, leaving us in a very uncertain future.
Within a few months of 9/11, I would be recruited into the CIA and build a career in national security. That career took me to three tours in Iraq alongside the military, as you heard, the White House under two presidents, one Democrat one Republican, and to the Pentagon as an assistant secretary of Defense. In 2018, I was elected to the House of Representatives, and then just last year, I was elected as Michigan’s newest senator, and indeed the youngest Democratic woman in the Senate. I’m not young, I’m not young. I’m 48 years old, so I’m not young. But I’m young for the Senate.
I’ve had the honor of serving alongside people in combat zones, in Washington, in our great state of Michigan, people who believe in their bones that it is their job to constantly make our country better. That calling is all I know. So for the next few minutes, I want to offer an unabashed love letter to public service. And while I know that the group in front of me here, you don’t need to be convinced to serve, you’re graduating at a time when the very idea of service is under attack. I don’t need to tell you that public servants have been fired, that programs have come under fire, or that agencies tasked with keeping us safe have been dismantled. The attack on the independence of institutions, including this institution, that were established to serve the public good. These recent actions have already shaped the beginnings of your careers.
The good news is you are already embodying the ethos of service because of your resilience. Many of you graduated high school during the height of the pandemic. Some of you started classes online. You lived through two divisive elections and witnessed fundamental shifts in the international order. And now, you’re graduating into an uncertain job market, topped off with a federal hiring freeze. And yet, you’re not taking the easy way out. Many of you are pivoting to service in other places and in other capacities. Even as your calling comes under fire, you are still finding ways to serve. I commend you—yeah, thank you. Let’s clap for that.
[Applause]
I commend you, I commend you for staying in the fight. But I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s not gonna be easy. So I want to spend this time addressing this head on. In a moment of national crisis, how can you be effective public servants that our country needs you to be? In my view, there are three answers to that question. Number one, flip the script. Number two, get in the game. And finally, number three, be that lone voice in the room.
Okay, number one, flip the script. We’ve seen throughout history how, from times of chaos, something good has emerged. The New Deal was passed in the wake of the Great Depression, the liberation of Europe and the establishment of a new world order came after Pearl Harbor, and what we’re seeing today is no exception. Our country is going through enormous change. Our citizens and our leaders are questioning the fundamental role that government plays in our society, and for good reason. The truth is, for too many Americans, our government is simply not delivering. Can you think of a single person who thinks that our healthcare system is working super well, or that our education system is hitting it out of the park, or that the American dream is accessible to everyone? Add to that the rapid change of technology, and it seems clear that we are in a moment that is ripe for new ideas.
So regardless of whether I agree, and I usually don’t, with the reckless change that Washington is carrying out, what I can say is that America is crying out for our government to change. And in a weird way, this moment gives us the opportunity to come up with a different vision, and hopefully a better vision, of the role that our government plays in our lives.
That is where you come in. You bring fresh eyes, boldness, creativity, and what I can only imagine is a sense of constructive frustration that can help us break free of old ideas and figure out a new way to do it. So please, flip the script. It’s a skill that our country needs now more than ever.
Number two, get in the game. When you become a public servant, an advocate, or a champion for a cause, it’s typically because you believe in making the world a better place. That is admirable. A life of purpose may not—sorry parents—make you rich, but for those of us who are mission-oriented, helping people and making change are a different kind of reward. But my message for you today is that in order to truly help people, service must also be effective. And to be effective, you gotta get in the game, rather than simply comment from the sidelines.
Let me give you an example, again related to that pivotal moment in my life when I got into public service after September 11th. I was watching my country weather an unprecedented crisis and coming to terms with a new reality. I wanted to do what I could do to help. I wanted nothing more than to get in the game. Some of you may relate to that feeling. So when the opportunity came to join the CIA, I jumped at it. But that decision came as an unpleasant surprise to some of my friends and colleagues. Many of them had issues with the intelligence community, both past and present. Some of my friends knew I had my own concerns about the CIA and the wars that were just starting up. They were urging me to go work for a thinktank or get a writing job on a blog about the Middle East, which, by the way, at that point was the closest thing we had to social media.
But in a weird way, those disagreements brought me to the CIA, rather than pushing me away. I saw my job as a chance to speak truth to power and to help make the war as quick and successful as possible. I felt like the best way I could influence my country’s national security was to change it from the inside, and I made myself a promise: that if there ever came a point where I would do zero good from inside, I would quit. But I never felt that way. No matter how strong my disagreements, I always felt like I had the power to take action. Maybe it was a paragraph in a briefing that would make its way to the president, maybe it meant ensuring that my leaders heard crucial information firsthand, whatever the case, I had more influence as a junior analyst than I would have ever had tweeting or commenting on world events from the outside. It was more effective to my mission to get in the game than it was to snark on the sidelines.
The lesson is even more important for you all today in this day and age. There are a lot of really safe places in public policy. There are a lot of places where you can find uncontroversial work that feels very pure and passes every possible ideological test. There are a lot of things you can tweet about or post about on social media. But if your mission is to create real and lasting change, you can’t stop there. If you want to fix the healthcare system, don’t rule out major organizations because of their stances on one or two issues. If you want to create stronger American schools, be open to organizations that may not align 100% with your politics. If you want to be a lawyer, don’t quit because the injustices of the justice system. No matter where you go, I want you to ask yourself, is your work actually serving the mission of helping people? Because now more than ever, your country needs you to get in the game.
Final lesson. Be the lone voice in the room. When you’re advocating for a cause, there will inevitably come a time, if it hasn’t come already, when you speak up for something you believe in and you are the lone voice in the room. Maybe you’re advocating for something that no one else supports, or you voice an opinion that was met with crickets in the room, or you disagree with your boss and start feeling that weird vibe in the office. Speaking up is hard. It can be tempting, when faced with opposition, to simply keep your head down and agree with people who are more powerful or experienced than you.
Being the lone voice in the wilderness feels exposed and dangerous. But there is tremendous value in being that lone voice in the room. In fact, if you are a true public servant, it is your obligation to be that voice and speak that truth to power. Again, I learned this as a young analyst. For years, President Bush had been going to TV to tell Americans that the war in Iraq was succeeding. But as someone who had spent years on the ground in Iraq, my colleagues and I were seeing a very different story. A full-blown insurgency and terrorist campaign was raging. American soldiers were being targeted and killed, Iraqis were attacking each other, and the economy was collapsing. The truth was that President Bush had been insulated from the real status of the war. The people around him were giving him a rosy picture of our strategy, claiming it was working.
It wasn’t until 2007, when the crisis became undeniable, that he decided to change strategy. And in that process, he decided to change how he was receiving intelligence about the war. He did something pretty interesting. He told CIA leaders he wanted to hear directly from baby CIA analysts in the Oval Office, every Monday, without their bosses present. When the word of this came down at the CIA, my boss asked a group of us who wanted to volunteer for that first really different briefing. Okay, my hand shot up, like, this is my entire reason for being in my job.
[Applause]
So, the next Monday, I went down to the Oval Office. I was at best 30 years old, 29 years old. President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the national security advisor are all sitting on those very nice, polite couches you’ve seen a million times on TV, especially recently. The topic of discussion was what to do about a particular militia that I knew very well. I joined in, briefing what I thought would be the best course of action on how to handle this militia. What happened next I can only describe to you as a healthy debate. It was cordial, and respectful, but it was very clear that the president did not agree with me on what to do. The vice president and the national security advisor were on the president’s side. But I knew that the president’s decision would have real consequences on the ground, so I continued to push politely, but clearly, back.
To be honest, I was sweating my ass off. But here is the kicker. I walked out of that Oval Office after that briefing, and the national security advisor pulled me aside and he said, “Look, if you can argue with the president and not piss him off, you should come and work here.” And the following Monday, I started work at the White House.
[Applause]
Speaking up worked, and it worked again eighteen months later when I had to brief the incoming Obama team about the war in Iraq. They too didn’t always like what I had to say, but they kept me on in the White House doing the same exact job for a very different president because I was often willing to be the lone voice in the room.
Now, I’ll be the first one to say: today is a different moment. Speaking up now can come with real risk. We have people being harassed or deported for their speech, their beliefs, their vote. Lawyers, activists, even our international students. Federal employees have been fired for giving their best advice. And I know that there are even some of you in the audience who are scared that your views might pose real threats to your safety or the safety of those you love. But let me be very clear about something. As a democracy, as a nation, we are doomed if our public discourse is defined by fear. We are doomed if we succumb to it.
[Applause]
What happens if everyone preemptively censors themselves because they’re scared of being the only voice in the room? We’re seeing the repercussions already. Fear spreads like a weed. The only way fear stops being effective is if we collectively push through it. Because just as fear is contagious, so is courage. First one voice, then five, then one hundred. And on social media, even a hundred thousand in a single hour. So please, be that lone voice in the room. You will not be alone for long.
So, those are my three lessons: flip the script, get in the game, and be the lone voice in the room. Still, being a public servant today is not going to be easy. You are entering the world in a moment of drastic change. But I want to close with this in the hope of giving you some comfort.
In the arc of this nation’s history, this is not the first time that our country has faced moments of crisis. You’ve all had to take history courses. The story of America, of our democracy, is the story of ordinary Americans who have fought to make this place better. We owe our progress to the good people who spent their lives pushing for change, challenging institutions, standing up to injustice. To the generations before us, who fought fear of violence and retribution and isolation and kept going. If any of them had given up, most of us wouldn’t be here today. I certainly wouldn’t be addressing you as a U.S. senator.
So, we can’t give up. We do not have that luxury. And frankly, we don’t have the right. We stand on the shoulders of people whose struggles spanned years, decades, even centuries and we cannot wallow in despair. As you begin your careers, I urge you to see yourself as part of this American arc of history. You are now joining a long tradition of making our democracy more perfect. We’ve been doing it for nearly 250 years in good times and in bad. And now, it is your turn to join the fray. This school has prepared you well, you have everything you need, and your country needs you.
Thank you to the amazing class of 2025 for caring about your country and your community. I welcome you into the fellowship of public service, and I cannot wait to see what you’re about to do. Congratulations. Thank you.