Actor Tom Hanks sends off Harvard’s Class of 2023
“There ain’t no Superman, nor anyone else in his Justice League,” actor Tom Hanks told Harvard’s newest graduates, but we sure could use some champions right now in the battle for “Truth, Justice, and the American Way.” Using metaphors from America’s superhero-obsessed culture, he urged the members of the Class of 2023 to keep “the promise of our promised land,” warning them against indifference that kills truth, endangers the struggle for equality, and which he termed worse than lies, ignorance, and intolerance. Hanks was the principal speaker at Harvard’s 372nd Commencement, held Thursday in Harvard Yard’s Tercentenary Theatre. The event, brought to order by the tapped staff and traditional call of Peter John Koutoujian, the High Sheriff of Middlesex County, featured lengthy processions by robed students and faculty, speeches, music, prayers, and the conferring of more than 9,000 degrees on newly minted graduates of Harvard College and of the University’s graduate schools. ...