Commencement embraces equality

The commencement speaker for the Class of 2014 was revealed on Tuesday and will be YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Wojcicki, in whose garage the company Google was founded, has been named one of the 50 most powerful women in business by Fortune magazine, and one of the 100 most powerful women in the world by Forbes magazine. The announcement comes at the heels of controversy surrounding the commencement decisions in recent years, on topics ranging from speaker compensation, to prior Hopkins exposure to the speaker, to Dr. Ben Carson’s social conservatism. Wojcicki will not be compensated for her services (although we suspect that she, as CEO of YouTube and a founding member of Google, hardly needed the money anyway). Commencement will be held on May 22.

The Editorial Board commends the University for its selection of Wojcicki as this year’s commencement speaker. Certainly, Wojcicki’s business resumé is long and impressive, and the experiences she has to relay are likely invaluable to future leaders in the business community. As a leader of tech giants like Google and now YouTube, Wojcicki has also played an integral role in shaping the online communities that so define our generation’s lifestyle, social interaction, means of working, learning and recreation. It takes a creative and pioneering thinker to work at the forefront of such world-shaking innovations, and we have no doubt Wojcicki’s perspective and advice will be both insightful and interesting.

But the second reason we cheer this selection is that it’s a step in the right direction towards promoting gender equality in all aspects of University life. Over the past 10 years, only one of Hopkins’ commencement speakers has been female — Nancy Pelosi in 2009. Although this figure was slightly better in prior decades, nothing close to gender parity has ever been achieved for any extended stretch of time. In a world, country and university that remain encumbered by disparate social expectations for men and women, choosing prominent and powerful women for high-order speaking engagements highlights positive role models for young women (and men) entering the workforce.

The Editorial Board looks forward to the day when men and women have such an equal likelihood of rising to positions of prestige and prominence that the commencement speaker’s sex is no longer a noteworthy characteristic. Until then, anything Hopkins can do to accelerate that day’s arrival will be met with our hearty approval.