Courage, Judgment, Integrity, and Dedication

My Remarks at the Harvard United Rally

Below is a transcript of my remarks delivered at the Harvard United Rally on September 6, 2025. In these remarks, I speak about the importance of Harvard standing up to authoritarian attacks on higher education and the qualities of the students who choose to stand up for democracy.

Hugo C. Chiasson, Harvard Crimsoon

I am here to congratulate you for taking a stand and to tell you to keep going.

Let me tell you, as a professor, the thing you want more than anything is to be able to say that you are proud of your students. And I am so proud of all of you.

I am proud of you for standing up for democracy.

And as a professor, you want your students to learn the lessons of history. And you’ve learned that when an authoritarian attacks, you don’t put your head down and cower. Because that is how you lose your freedom. That is how we will all lose our freedom.

But even more, as a professor, you want your students to be ethical citizens. To be leaders. To think beyond themselves and to stand for the greater good.

You know, I heard yesterday that word “defense” is now woke and for losers. But, look, Harvard showed—you all showed—that defending what is right—being a leader and defending the greater good—leads to success.

And you showed Harvard the way to that success.

You chose to stand up.

And because of you and people like you, Harvard won a resounding victory in court.

Let’s not fool ourselves though, Harvard’s leadership had a lot of reasons to say Harvard should only think about itself. They had a lot of reason to capitulate to Donald Trump’s extortion. Those reasons might still be here.

But if we think bigger than ourselves, if we understand that we are in a fight, not only for Harvard, but for democracy. Then we know that capitulation is not an option.

And we know that capitulation is not an option when we understand that this is not only a fight for right now but a fight for our future.

I’m not only a professor, I’m a father, and so I’m thinking about that too. My daughters are here with me today, and I will not let them grow up in a country where the rule of law is not respected. Where their rights can be taken away for what they believe or what they say.

So, you sure as hell better believe that I am going to oppose Donald Trump’s authoritarianism with everything I’ve got.

Look. This is a struggle. And struggles can be ugly and divisive. But let me tell you what else I see as a professor: there is also something really beautiful on campus right now. Something that your professors are talking about.

I have been here for 15 years, and I have never experienced Harvard like this. There is an amazing spirit here. I could feel that spirit on my first day of class this week.

It’s the spirit of unity. It is the spirit of being united in something bigger than ourselves.

In your unity and your leadership, you are the manifestation of the Harvard graduate John F. Kennedy’s call to action when he said that to “those to whom much is given, much is required.”

When Kennedy was leaving Massachusetts to become President of the United States, he looked to the future and said in a famous speech that we will all one day be remembered, not for whether we preserved ourselves, but for whether we were people of courage, judgment, integrity, and dedication.

We won a resounding victory in court. But we all know this isn’t over. This struggle is going to be long. Trump is going to keep coming after us because he is an authoritarian, and that’s what authoritarians do. The New York Times is going to keep writing about how Harvard is just about to capitulate.

And we are going to have to stand strong.

But I believe in your courage. I believe in your judgment. I believe in your integrity. And I believe in your dedication.

And so…

I believe in you. And I believe that *together* we will win this.