Internationally recognized advocate to speak at W&J commencement
Story updated to reflect the ceremony is not open to the public and to include a link to view commencement online.
Washington & Jefferson College will graduate more than 300 students at its 223rd commencement ceremony scheduled for 10 a.m. May 21 at the James Ross Family Recreation Center.
The ceremony is not open to the public, but it will be live-streamed at https://www.washjeff.edu/commencement-2022/.
Nathan Law, an internationally recognized advocate for decency and human rights, will be the keynote speaker.
Law spoke at the school’s annual Symposium on Democracy in 2019 and 2020.
“I am delighted that our graduates will hear an address by a young leader who has been an inspiration and role model for people around the world,” said W&J President John C. Knapp.
Law came to prominence while a college student as a leader of the pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” in Hong Kong.
Now living in exile in London, he continues to advocate for freedom in Hong Kong and other nations with repressive governments. He has testified before Congress and was a speaker at the December 2021 White House Summit for Democracy.
In 2020, TIME named him one of the “100 Most Influential People in The World” and its readers’ poll ranked him No. 1 on the list. He was nominated in 2018 for the Nobel Peace Prize by U.S. congressmen and British parliament members, conferred the Magnitsky Human Rights award in 2020, and awarded the Democracy Medal by the International Association of Political Consultants in 2017.
Law’s activism for democracy and human rights began in 2014 when he was one of the five student representatives who debated political reform with the Hong Kong government and later founded Demosist – a now defunct political party that championed non-violent civic actions.
He was elected to the Hong Kong Legislative Council at age 23, the youngest member in its history. He was later removed from his position and jailed for his leadership role in the demonstrations that came to be known as the Umbrella Movement, as hundreds of thousands of people repeatedly took to the streets and brought the city to a standstill, using umbrellas to deflect tear gas.
Law’s work has appeared in a number of publications, including The New York Times. His new book is called, “Freedom: How We Lose It and How We Fight Back.”