UMB Class of 2025: Stepping into Greatness, Service, and Truth

In this graduation season compilation on “The UMB Pulse,” hear from three of the visionary leaders who spoke directly to the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s Class of 2025 — and to anyone entering a world that desperately needs bold, ethical leadership.
 

·       Paul A. Offit, MD ’77, director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, opens with a personal and historical reminder of why public trust in science — and vaccines — must be protected at all costs. (05:36)
  

·       Zach Noel, PharmD, PhD ’23, BCC, associate professor at the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy, brings heartfelt storytelling and humor to the stage, challenging graduates to choose their “auxiliary labels” wisely and live their values with purpose. (21:09)

·       Sherrilyn Ifill, JD, the Vernon Jordan Distinguished Professor in Civil Rights and founding director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy at Howard University School of Law, closes with a profound call to action — urging law graduates to become the next generation of founders and framers, rebuilding a democracy in crisis. (31:10)

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Chapters

• 0:00 It's Graduation Season
• 5:36 Dr. Paul A. Offit's Speech on Vaccines
• 21:09 Dr. Zach Noel's Speech on Labels
• 31:10 Sherrilyn Ifill's Vision for Democracy

Transcript

Charles Schelle: 0:00

Congratulations to the University of Maryland Baltimore class of 2025!

Dana Rampolla: 0:03

Woo.

Charles Schelle: 0:04

We did it! Well, it feels like, there are certain types of graduation speeches. All of them are different, but there, there are certain structures and, and between Dana and myself, I think we've heard plenty through the years and I. We're gonna play a little game on this podcast. We won't tell you the answers. You're gonna have to decide for yourself, you know, which type of graduation speeches are you going to listen to this year in the UMB Pulse. So I think, uh, the way that I'm looking at these, there's the, your time is now where you have to take the reins. Um, there's the metaphorical, maybe a label. Or something is representing, um, something in somebody's life that, that's really important. Uh, there's the reflective where they look back, uh, on their journey and remember all the people that, um, have helped 'em along the way. And, there's the stakes could never be higher. And it feels like every year a speaker might say something about, you know, we're at a critical juncture in this country. Um, but I feel like maybe this year the stakes have raised a little bit higher of, what do you think, Dana? I.

Dana Rampolla: 1:17

Yeah, it could be. I think you're right. Every year there's kind of a call to action, like as you're graduating and you start that next season of life to take something with you that you can bring to the future. And this year I do, I do feel like a number of people touched on situations or. I don't wanna say problems, but for lack of better word, problems going on within our own communities, our own country. And I think people have been called to to act.

Charles Schelle: 1:48

Right. And so we've balanced this year's between the, the serious talking about, um, misinformation, truth, um, vaccine, uh, vaccines and why they're important, uh, the democracy along with your more, I would say, lighter, encouraging. Um, speeches and they will range from maybe about 15 minutes or so to one by Sherrilyn Ifill, , at the end to over 30 minutes. So, um, they are well worth every minute when you listen to them. So of course if you want to hear a specific speech, just check the show notes for those timestamps and jump ahead. You can always double back if you decide that you wanna listen to the others after you get to the one, um, you wanted. So. Let's tell you a little bit more about who you'll hear from on this episode..

Dana Rampolla: 2:38

We're gonna get started with Dr. Paul Offit, who is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of virology and immunology. He serves as the director of the Vaccine Education Center and Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He is also the Maurice R Hillman professor of Vaccinology at the Perleman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Offit is a well-published expert in the areas of Rotavirus specific immune responses and vaccine safety, and the co-inventor of the Rotavirus vaccine RotaTeq, which is recommended for universal use in infants by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is also a proud and engaged alum of the University of Maryland School of Medicine class of 1977.

Charles: 3:31

Let's get the pharmacist involved this year with Zach Noel. Dr. Noel is a teaching associate professor in the Division of Practice Advancement and Clinical Education at the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy.. Dr. Noel is a outpatient cardiology clinical pharmacist at UNC Health Hillsborough campus serves as an instructor in course manager within the pharmacotherapy series and conducts research within health professions education. Prior to joining UNC in 2023, Dr. Noel was a faculty member here at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy for seven years. During this time, he was a clinical pharmacy specialist at the University of Maryland Medical Center, co-coordinator of the postgraduate year two cardiology residency program, and actively engage with teaching and managing courses within the pharmacotherapy series of the pharm D curriculum. It was here at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy Dr. Noel developed a passion for evidence-based education that led him to earning a PhD in health professions education from the University of Maryland School of Graduate Studies in 2023. Finally we will hear from Sherrilyn Ifill. She's the Vernon Jordan distinguished professor in civil rights at Howard University School of Law and founding director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law and Democracy. Ifill taught at Maryland Carey Law for 20 years, from 1993 to 2013 before leading the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for nine years.

Her book "On the Courthouse Lawn: 5:06

Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century" was highly claimed and is credited for laying the foundation for contemporary conversations about lynching and reconciliation. Ifill was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019 and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021.

Dana Rampolla: 5:30

There's a lot of inspiration ahead in this episode, so make sure you have a full tank of gas or a load up on snacks. Let's kick things off with Dr. Paul Offit, talking about the importance of vaccines, public trust in science, and the dangers of misinformation to the School of Medicine class of 2025.

Paul A. Offit: 5:50

First of all, congratulations, you made it. So, my parents were children in the 1920s. Their parents or my grandparents were scared of diphtheria, which killed 15,000 people every year, mostly children. They were scared of pertussis or whooping cough, which killed about 8,000 children a year. I was a child of the 1950s. Um, my parents feared polio, which could, could paralyze as many as 50,000 children every year and kill 1800. Um, I was, um, actually in a polio ward when I was five years old. I didn't have polio. I had a failed operation on my right foot, which led left me in a chronic care facility, specifically what was called Cronan's Hospital for Crippled Children. Back in the days when you could use words like crippled and feeble-minded in the names of children's hospitals. Um, but I remember polio. I mean, I remember children in iron lungs. I remember the sister Kenny Hot Pack treatments where they would put, um, these excruciatingly hot packs on withered arms and legs in the hopes of restoring function. I remember children screaming, there was one visiting hour a week. On Sundays from two to three, uh, my mother couldn't come because she was, um, ill with a complication with my brother's pregnancy. My father was a traveling salesman, so he actually also didn't come. And I just remember there was a, a window to the left side of my bed that looked out on the front of that hospital, and I just kept staring out that window, hoping some would, would save me. I mean, it was a experience like that out of a Dickens novel. Um, they were also scared of measles, which could cause, um, as many as 48,000 hospitals every year and 500 deaths primarily from pneumonia, dehydration, and encephalitis. And of those who had encephalitis, there was about a thousand cases of encephalitis for measles every year. Um, about a quarter would be left, blind or death. They were scared of mumps, the most common cause of acquired deafness. They were scared of rubella, which when, and infected pregnant women caused a high probability of delivering children with congenital birth defects like heart defects, blindness, and deafness. When I graduated from here, I did my residency, my pediatric residency at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh, and they had a rotation in that first year where you were, um, on 12 hours on 12 hours off for 21 straight days in the emergency department. At the end of which you were like psychotic, but you know that that was what that thought. And I remember I did two to three spinal taps every night that I was on call. Why? Because we didn't have vaccines against Hemophilus, influenza B, or Meningococcus, or pneumococcus, which were common causes of meningitis. Today, the pediatric residents in our hospital at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia don't do spinal taps. They don't know how to do them. When, when the child comes in with suspected bacterial meningitis, which is rare, it's the interventional radiologist that does the spinal tap. Now my children were born in the 1990s. My wife and I were scared of rotavirus, which as an intestinal infection would cause severe dehydration and hospitalization, and about 70,000 children every year. We were scared of respiratory syncytial virus, which was the most common cause of hospitalization for young children, accounting for about 80,000 hospitalizations every year, and a hundred, 300 deaths. We now have actually a maternal vaccination and a monoclonal antibody to prevent that. And, and over this past year, it's been available and it's been, uh, not widely used, but used enough so that you're starting to see a drop in the infant mortality rate. My grandchildren, um, were born a few years ago. These two ridiculously cute grandchildren were born, uh, in the past few years. And, uh, my son and daughter-in-law don't fear any of these diseases, which is the problem. Um, I think not only have we largely as I think this child can attest to, um. Not only have we eliminated diseases like measles, we've eliminated the fear of measles. We don't remember measles anymore. We've eliminated the memory, and I think the consequences are, as is shown by a recent uh, CDC report. More parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children for non-medical reasons than ever before. You know, by the way, when I, when I graduated from medical school, like a hundred years ago in 1977, there was, I, I had, uh, there was a pediatric award called the J Edmund Bradley Prize for Excellence in Pediatrics. And I actually won that award, but as I got up there was a child crying the entire time. So this is like going full circle here, but their voices should be heard, which is really the point of this talk. Um. So, so what's happened is what you would expect to happen when immunization rates fade. Um, the, it's the most contagious human infection that comes back first. Measles, far and away the most contagious of the human infections. And so over the past year there's been three deaths from measles, um, including two in young children. That that number, that three number, uh, equals the total number of deaths from measles over the last 25 years. The two children that died, we haven't had a pediatric death from measles in this country since 2003, so it's been more than 20 years since that happened. Um, and the estimates are, although if you look at the CDC website, it'll say that roughly 1100 children in this country or people in this country have had measles. If you talk to people on the ground in, in Texas and other places, that's just people who have been confirmed to have measles by serology or PCR. The number's probably at least 3000, probably closer to 5,000. This is the biggest measles outbreak we've had in 30 years. So to put this in a broader perspective, in the last 50 years, child deaths have been reduced worldwide by 75%. 40% of that reduction has from vaccines, and 60% of that is from the measles vaccine. This is not a disease that you wanna see come back. So what happened? Why have we lost trust? Um, why are we facing measles outbreaks? I think the pandemic interestingly, didn't help. You. You would've imagined that creating a vaccine a, against using a novel technology messanger RNA, against a virus that had unusual biological and physical or clinical characteristics would've been seen for what it was, which was heroic. I mean, we probably saved 3 million lives with that vaccine. And it is a remarkably safe vaccine. It's not free of any side effect, but in the world of vaccines, I'm, I'm on the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee, and when we've reviewed that vaccine in, in December, 2020, um, the 800 pages that we got to review before we authorized or recommended authorization of its use, you're looking, you're reading every word because you know that there has never been a medical innovation in human history that has not been associated with some human price to be paid for knowledge. And that always happens here. The price was relatively small myocarditis, which is generally short-lived, transient self resolving. Um, so it was amazing. I mean, the two people that did Mr. The mRNA work, starting in 1997, Drew Weissman and Katie Karikó won the Nobel Prize in medicine for 2023. Nonetheless, the what's happened over the last few years, I think with this pandemic has in some ways soured people away from vaccines. And I'll explain why. I think in 2020. We didn't have anything. We didn't have antivirals, we didn't have monoclonal antibodies, we didn't have vaccines until the end of the year. All we had for a virus that was killing hundreds and ultimately thousands of people a day, was to try and restrict human to human contact for a virus that could be spread asymptomatically, meaning anybody you came in contact with could potentially spread a virus to you. Which could kill you. So what do we do? We restricted travel. We closed schools, we shuttered businesses. We quarantined, we masked. We isolated people. We tested, tested, tested. And I think for many people that was seen as massive government overreach. The following year, 2021, when we had a vaccine, um, you couldn't really go places without showing that you had been vaccinated. You couldn't go to your favorite bar or restaurant or sporting event or place of worship. You may get fired from, from work. And, um, I think that again. Was seen as massive government overreach. And I think inadvertently we leaned into this libertarian left hook and I think we're feeling the results of that punch. And there, there's another issue also. The, um, the head of CDC in 2009 was a man named Richard Besser, Dr. Richard Besser. And uh, he was great. He was out in front of the media every other day. Explaining. Here's what this vaccine is, here's what this virus is, here's how we're doing. Here's how many deaths are occurring. Here's where the deaths are. He was great. So I saw him at a recent meeting and I told him that. I said, you did great in 2009 during the swine flu pandemic. He said, thank you. I appreciate that. I could never do it today. One reason, social media. So I think that is something that we're up against now, that we weren't up against before, which is it's very easy to spread misinformation and disinformation. But all is not lost. Um, a recent publication in the Journal Nature by Heidi Larson and David Bersoff offered a Path Forward, so they made the following four points. One research produced by the uh, Edelman Trust Institute and the Global Listening Project found that trust in science and scientists remain high globally. But scientists and scientific information exist in an increasingly complex ecosystem in which people's perception of what counts as reliable evidence is influenced by other factors such as politics, religion, culture, and personal belief. In the face of this complexity on people are turning to friends, family, journalists, and others to help them filter and interpret the vast amount of available information. The current problem is not a loss of trust in science or scientists. But a misplaced trust in unworthy sources. And they offer three solutions. First work with locally trusted sources to disseminate information. And I'll give you an example in Philadelphia, um, there is an African American surgeon at Temple whose name was Aila Stanford. And, um, she was upset when she saw that when the vaccine first came out. And people wanted it. There was a, there was an allotment given to, um, Temple University to distribute the vaccine in North Philadelphia, a predominantly Black and Brown community. But when she looked out in the parking lot, which she saw were Lexuses and Mercedes Benzes from people coming from the suburbs in to get this vaccine. That upset her enough to create something called the Black Doctor's COVID Consortium. And she, and about 200 other people went into North Philadelphia and sat in people's living rooms and gave them somebody who they could trust. Who they could talk to. And she would come back again and again if she had to, and explain to them why it was important to get this vaccine. And over the period of of months, really she was able to vaccinate 50,000 people in North Philadelphia. She was a point of light during this pandemic, and we needed more. Second, I think, um, we need to, uh, colter cultivate greater scientific literacy specifically that we learn as we go. I mean, you don't know everything at the beginning, and there were certainly mistakes that were made during this, the recommendations associated with COVID, but I think we needed to explain that when we make recommendations, we're making it based on what we know at the time. That we think we know enough, not that we know everything, and that we're open-minded to the fact that we might learn as we go. Probably the best example during the pandemic was the vaccine that was licensed or authorized in February, 2021. The adenovirus vector vaccine. So fairly soon we found out that that vaccine could surprisingly cause clotting, including clotting in the brain, including fatal clotting in the brain, which ultimately drove that vaccine off the market. It was picked up fairly quickly and withdrawn fairly quickly. But again, some people will look at that and say, see, these people don't know what the hell they're doing, when in fact, we were always, we had systems in place like the vaccine safety data link to very quickly pick that up. Third, I think we need to make scientific communications more resonant with audiences. People are predisposed to focus on information that is visceral and emotional rather than points on a graph. And I had to speak a few days ago at the Montgomery County Immunization Coalition, and the woman who spoke before me, her name was Alyssa Canowitz, and she got up there and she told the story of her daughter, Amanda. Four years old who died of influenza. And she showed pictures of her and film of her and her daughter, her daughter with, with her husband, her daughter, with her brothers and sisters. And, uh, then described exactly what it was like to watch her daughter die of that disease. And, um, no one who listened to that wasn't moved by it. And I think we need to make it more real. I think the, um, that when you hear statistics like 1100 uh, children are suffering from measles. It, it's, it's just a statistic. I mean, not to quote Stalin, not usually go Stalin, but Stalin said, um, you know, one death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic. So you need to find a way to make that those stories come alive. So, um, the authors concluded that the scientific community cannot stop the amplification of misinformation, but that doesn't mean that it's, it's powerless. So we need to get our voices out there. Okay, so I'm gonna end on a positive note, and that's to do, even though I have to go back to 16 hundreds to find it. But Galileo, so, uh, Galileo was the father of observational astronomy. He described the rings around Saturn, the moons of Jupiter in the phases of Venus. That was in his first treatise. In his second treatise, he got into trouble because what he did was he bought into Nicholas Copernicus's notion that the earth revolved around the sun. That the earth wasn't the center of the firmament as sort of dictated at the time by the Roman Catholic Church. And they, he had violated then their edict. So they brought him before a Roman to tribunal and, um, put him in chains and forced him basically to renounce what he had said, that the earth revolves around the sun. And as he was being let out, he sort of looked back at the tribunal and he said, presumably in Italian and referring to the earth. And yet he said it still moves, meaning, um, you can put me in chains, but that doesn't change the science. And I think that, um, the same is true today, that um, it doesn't matter how many times our Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims that vaccines cause autism. They don't, and it doesn't matter how many fringe scientists or politicians or sycophants or media venue, uh, uh, uh, or, or media folks, uh, amplify his claims. That doesn't change the science and science is a powerful thing to have on your side. Unfortunately, it might take a while. Um, in October, 1992, Pope John Paul II appeared before the Pontifical Academy of the Science is to hear the report of a commission asked to examine the inquisitions, um, mistreatment of Galileo. The Pope accepted the commission's findings that they had treated him poorly. And a headline in the New York Times read after 350 years, the Vatican says Galileo was right. It moves. So I'm optimistic that it won't take that long to undo the harms created by the current wave of misinformation and your advocate advocacy for science and truth will have everything to do with that. Thank you.

Dana Rampolla: 21:09

Now with some heartfelt humor, University of North Carolina Teaching Associate Professor Zach Noel helps the School of Pharmacy grads remember the labels that matter most.

Zach Noel: 21:19

The class of 2025. It is so good to see you again. Thank You for having me. I am, yes, I am. Just, I'm so Delighted to be back in a place that has meant so much to my family and I, and I'm deeply honored that you all reached out to me, um, to speak with you all today. Your class is near and dear to my heart, and I don't mean that because I helped teach you all cardiology. Um, you thank you so much for including me as part of this celebration. Before I go any further, I want you to pull out your phones if you're able to do that with these things on. And, um, I would like you to please not pull up social media or your email. I promise now that rotations are done, you'll have much more time to watch TikTok and YouTube Shorts with some downtime. Uh, but in all seriousness, I want you to open up your phone and I want

you to set an alarm for 12: 22:07

00 PM. Um, when your alarm goes off, I want you to text, call or find someone who has been influential in your journey to getting to this point. Friends, soon to be pharmacists. Make no mistake about it. We're here to celebrate your accomplishments. Uh, but I don't want our enthusiasm in the moment to crowd out humbly acknowledging the individuals and support systems that have been so important. It takes a village as you know. So if you haven't done so by the time your alarm goes off, be sure to express your gratitude, be it to a family member, a friend, um, or one of the amazing faculty that are on stage or sitting behind you. Well, her name is Jillian Lynn. You've probably never heard of Jillian. It's the 1930s and Jillian is eight years old. Schoolwork is a struggle for Jillian. She was labeled as slow by her teachers. And her teacher sent a note home to Jillian's mom stating that she would soon be attending a special school. Mom and Jillian go to see a psychologist. The psychologist asks questions to Jillian and mom. Suddenly the psychologist says to Jillian, I'd like to talk to your mom outside for just a moment. As the psychologist heads out the door, he switches on the radio and music starts playing the psychologist and mom, leave the office. Thinking no one was watching. Jillian stands up and then starts dancing. The psychologist smiles, turns to mom and says She isn't slow. She's a dancer. Enroll her in dancing school. Jillian, whether you know it or not, would go on to dance in the London Ballet and eventually become choreographer for Andrew Lloyd Weber's Cats and Phantom of the Opera two of the longest running Broadways in history. I share that story with you to illustrate the power of labels. Jillian was labeled as slow, but thanks to her mom's persistence and advocacy and the thoughtful input of a psychologist Jillian's trajectory was changed for the rest of her life. Class of 2025. Like Jillian, you'll soon bear a new label. A lot's wrapped up in the label of pharmacist, and I know you're ready for the responsibility that comes with it. But it's not the actual label of pharmacists that I wanna focus on today. Rather, I wanna spend some time talking about the auxiliary labels that you'll wear as a pharmacist. I can remember being tormented as a student working at Rite Aid. You see, as I filled prescriptions in front of me was a clear plastic dispenser of auxiliary labels. You know the one I'm talking about that has 10 or 15 different rows of brightly colored stickers, and your job was to pick the two or three most important ones to stick on the bottle'cause that's all you had room for. Uh, I can remember being tormented by this. Do I put, do not drink with grapefruit juice or do not drink with alcohol? They both seemed important at the time. Um, auxiliary labels provide crucial instructions, warnings, and reminders to supplement the primary prescription label. As soon to be pharmacists, I wanna challenge you to identify the auxiliary labels that are most important to you as a pharmacist. They should serve as reminders of what you value and strive for in your career. Over the years, I've created labels that represent things that I value as a pharmacist. It's a way of keeping me focused on what matters the most, and to keep the main thing the main thing. One such label that I wear is hashtag ABL. In pharmacy school, a professor of mine used the slogan hashtag abl, which stood for Always Be Learning. At the time, hashtags were cool and up and coming, but regardless of the pound symbol in front of the letters, the underlying message struck me. To this day, I have hashtag A BL Fridays where I devote a block of time to reading updates in the literature and broadening my horizons. I do so because I value being a learner. It makes me a better pharmacist, a better educator. And a better leader. Lifelong learning is so important to being a pharmacist that it's part of the oath that you'll soon take. The words you'll utter are, I will accept the responsibility to improve my professional knowledge, expertise, and self-awareness. I hope you'll embrace lifelong learning and perhaps even make it an auxiliary label of your own. Another auxiliary label that I wear is guardian ad litem. The word literally means guardian of the court. You see, in 1976, judge Soukup of Seattle, Washington was forced to make a life changing decision for a 3-year-old child who had suffered from child abuse. He realized that through all the hearings and court proceedings, there was no one there to advocate on behalf of the child's best interest. Two years later, the first court appointed special advocates were assigned, and 40 years later. Every state uses a guardian ad litem for foster children, ensuring that each child has someone to advocate for their best interest. I wear my guardian ad litem label as a reminder to advocate for my patients and my students. It's my job, and it's soon to be your job to advocate on behalf of those who you're caring for. Whether it be in direct patient care, in industry, or some other alternative career path, I hope you'll consider wearing the Guardian ad litem label. Now these labels, right, represent my values, but I'm not here today to cast my values on you. Rather, I'm here to encourage you to identify your own labels that represent your values. What auxiliary labels are going to accompany you as a pharmacist. It's your choice. I need to give a disclaimer. Decades of research on label theory have shown us that labels can be a good thing and they can also be harmful. As I refer to these auxiliary labels, I wanna emphasize that the goal is not to conform to the intellectual shortcoming, stereotypes and oversimplifications of labels. What I really want is to challenge you to consider what you value and assign a label to it that will serve as a reminder. So that you can remember to keep the main thing, the main thing. As I round for third or round third and head for home, I wanna tell the story of two pharmacists. They sat in seats just like yours many years ago, earning the label of pharmacists. But along their journey, compromising decisions led one thing to another, and as fate would have it, their label was taken away from them what was entrusted to them by society and intended for good. Became distorted and warped over time. My parents no longer bear the label a pharmacist. Somewhere along the way, they lost sight of what they value. Mislabeled, if you will, friends, I wanna remind you not to lose sight of what you value and to always use your pharmacist label for good and for the care of others. Your impact as a pharmacist comes from living your values, not just from earning a title or a label. Keep the main thing. The main thing. In closing, I recently conducted a randomized uncontrolled study in which I asked fellow pharmacists who it was that spoke at their pharmacy graduation, and I have disappointing news for someone like me. Over 90% had absolutely no idea. The forgetting Curve is a well-established phenomenon that highlights the finite capacity of working memory and the disturbing speed at which we forget what we hear. Just like the lectures that I gave you in school, you don't remember those right? Over the last 10 minutes, I've spoken about 1500 words, and if I'm fortunate, you're going to remember 150 of them by the time you eat dinner tonight. For the record, I don't remember who spoke at my graduation either. And so with the innate limitations of human memory in mind, if you remember anything. Remember stories like Jillian's Mom and Judge Suko, who were advocates for the vulnerable, just as you're to be advocates for your patients. Remember my college professor who taught me the value of lifelong learning through a simple hashtag, and remember my parents and to always use your label of pharmacists for the good of others. And when you think of them, I want you to think about what you want said of you one day. What auxiliary labels do you hope to have attached to your name when your career is over? Write them down, reflect on them. We can't predict the future, but we can identify the values and attributes that we want set of us and strive to be like them. Class of 2025. Doctors of Pharmacy Pharmacists, welcome to the profession. Your hard work. Your hard work, and the support of those around you have paid off. Congratulations on making it to this point. Now go and do great things.

Charles: 31:03

And we will close the special graduation episode of the UMB Pulse with a powerful charge for this generation of leaders. Howard University School of Law Professor, Sherrilyn Ifill shares a vision for rebuilding democracy and the role Maryland Carey Law grads have in it.

Sherilyn Ifill: 31:20

I am so thrilled, uh, to be, to be back here and, um, and to be with you. Congratulations, class of 2025. Um, Dean Hutchins, uh, who I've known a very long time is extraordinary. I hope you know how blessed and lucky you are to have had her as your dean during your three years at the law school. She's extraordinary and, um, so thrilled that I could be here with you today. Thank you. Um, so many of my colleagues at this law school became good friends and are dear friends to this day. And, um, some of them are here. Michael Pinard. He is the person with whom I launched the reentry, uh, clinic for formerly incarcerated people. Um, Monique Dixon, who was my student, she was one of you. And, um, I later hired her at the Legal Defense Fund, where she ran our policy work. Uh, and it was she who really organized that town hall. Um, people like Tanya Banks now retired, who really was my friend and Sherpa, um, Richard Bolt, who was nice enough to co-teach with me my first semester. So, uh, he knows where all the bodies are buried. Uh, and he showed me the ropes and I'm always so appreciative, appreciative of him, uh, for that. And of course, people like Doug Colbert, who I've known for many, many years, and who's now actually my neighbor. Uh, and the man who hired me, Don Gifford, um, and gave me a shot at becoming a law professor. Uh, I birthed two children during the five, the first five years of my teaching tenure here. Uh, I feel like I raised all three on the third floor of the first building and the second floor of the second building. Um, they're not here with me today, unfortunately. My husband is here with me. And, um, it's just a testament to how comfortable I felt to be, uh, at this institution. Even as I was compelled to work incredibly hard to live up to the expectations of students and my colleagues. I had the privilege of teaching thousands of Maryland law students over those 20 years, largely achieved by teaching large sections of civil procedure and con law for my first few years. Um, and, uh, loved just being involved with students at this law school. I run into my former students all the time, uh, and I've noticed something about Maryland law students, um, Maryland law graduates have a heart and a spirit for service, whether they're attorneys in public interest practice at law firms in private practice. Maryland law graduates serve. They serve on bar committees in civic organizations, on judicial selection committees, on boards of public institutions. They speak at judicial and lawyer conferences. They create scholarship and mentoring programs. Maryland law graduates are doing the work that keeps our profession afloat. They do the work that supports the functioning and integrity of our profession and of the rule of law. And I hope that in these times when. So many in our profession have lost their way when the bonds that used to knit us together, whatever our ideological differences and litigation posture have been forgotten by some and shredded by others. When for some being an officer of the court no longer means that we owe a duty of candor and clarity to the tribunal before which we appear when lawyers appearing before the court can not be counted on to. Not make misrepresentations to the court or to work in good faith to obey judicial orders. When some lawyers and law firms are prepared to sacrifice their independence to outside pressure. Perhaps we can now see how important it is to develop lawyers who hold allegiance to the profession, who work to keep us on track in all the ways that may seem boring or like a time suck, but that are critical to the functioning of our profession. And to maintaining its integrity. Those kinds of lawyers are Maryland lawyers. I know that many of you will be those lawyers in your day jobs. You'll be public defenders, prosecutors, state agency lawyers, city lawyers, bar officers, uh, judicial clerks, law librarians, federal government lawyers. But even those of you who enter private practice, who become tax lawyers, entertainment and sports lawyers, contract erisa, you too will find ways to serve the profession. You will take seriously your oath, your oath as an attorney. You'll take that oath sometime later this year or next, and I hope you really pay attention. I did when I took mine. When you take that oath, let the words go deep in, you never forget that. You swear to demean yourself honorably and fairly. That's from the Maryland Oath, every state has a similar one. Maybe in years past new lawyers repeated the oath without much thought, but I ask that you really feel the words, what it means to demean yourself honorably and fairly, that you will defend our constitution and laws as the supreme law of the land. I don't take oaths lightly, and so it's always mattered to me what I said when I took my oaths. I understood that the oath bound me together with others in my profession. Lawyers with whom I might have nothing in common, and from whom I might sit on an opposite side of the courtroom. But we were joined in this project to resolve our disputes, to advance our client's interests within the context of this legal system to which we pledged allegiance. I planned to be a civil rights lawyer. By no means did I believe our system was perfect, but I understood that I had pledged to do the work of making change by working within the context of this infrastructure and doing so honorably today. That may seem quaint, but I assure you it is not. It is the glue that holds together a profession that is essential for ensuring the strength of the rule of law, and as such, it is essential for undergirding democracy. There can be no healthy democracy where the rule of law is threatened. And what this means, what we do, how we show up in the profession, whether we truly comport ourselves as officers of the court, whether as prosecutors, defense attorneys, civil rights lawyers, private or in-house counsel, we adhere to the principles of the rule of law and take seriously the ethical rules that guard the integrity of our profession matters. It matters in ways fundamental to the maintenance and strength of democracy in this country. I serve on a task force of the American Bar Association focused on democracy. And on May 1st, we joined with others in a nationwide initiative asking lawyers to retake their oath. We asked lawyers to film themselves repeating their oaths, and it was powerful and important. So remember the oath. Um, there's also a new organization called Maryland. Uh, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and I hope some of you will look it up and join, including on the faculty. Very important. So I do have something I wanna say, um, that I think is important. And I will say it's a little surreal standing up here today because I can recall sitting on the stage at The Lyric with my faculty colleagues during one of our commencements. I think Karen Rothenberg was Dean, and almost in reverse deja vu. I knew that one day I would be giving the commencement for this law school. Yeah, it's a true story. No ego. I had no reason to believe I would do anything worthy of standing before you. It was just, that was years before I left to take leadership of LDF. It was just a moment, but as clear as day, I saw myself giving the commencement address to Maryland Law graduates. I haven't thought about it much since then, but I've never forgotten it. So when Dean Hutchins reached out to ask if I would do it this year, it felt completely natural to say yes. And now I'm not a psychic. Or particularly prescient or nor am I a real adherent to those kinds of things, but the feeling I had those many years ago was so strong that I found myself wondering a few weeks ago, why did the future visit me that day? What might be so important for me to tell you today that the future reached out to tether me to this moment. I admit, I could never have guessed, would never have imagined that the circumstances in which we find our country, our profession. The state of higher education, our rights to free speech, the protection of civil rights and liberties, and our very national identity would be as contested and strained as they are today. I would never have guessed that I would be standing before you to speak to you as a commencement speaker does about hope and possibility and hard work and integrity at a time when my own belief in this familiar formula as the key to success and a life of consequence is being tested daily. I assume that when the day came, I, I would stand before the graduating class of whatever year and tell you with confidence, clarity, and certainty, the steps for the path ahead. But things are different than we all expected. Our country, our profession, the world you are inheriting is considerably more precarious and fraught than I anticipated, and that imposes a greater sense of responsibility on me today. So first let me be clear about what's most important today. You made it your hard work. Your dedication has paid off. What you've done is no small thing. Law school is a commitment to study, to work, to discipline. It can be a humbling experience. It is an expense that likely will be with you for some time, but you completed it and in so doing, you've affirmed your commitment to this path. Maybe you had doubts along the way, but today your completion of this task stands as a testament to your maturity, commitment, and vision. At any moment during your studies for the bar exam this summer, or as you start your new job, whatever it might be, or as you try to make ends meet, as you embark on this career, if there's any moment when you doubt yourself, when you feel as though you can't quite measure up, I want you to remember this accomplishment and what it says about you. About your intellect, your determination, and your character. Now with everything in me, I wish that the world and the time in which you will take your first steps as a lawyer was one that was more hospit hospitable for your entry into the profession. I do. I've spent 37 years as a civil rights lawyer, and every sacrifice I've made to my health, my time with my children, my own happiness at times. All of it was in the sincere belief that I could, I would make the world and especially our country, a better country than the one that had been left to me. At least that's what I told my kids, and God bless them, they believed me. I struggle every day with the sense that I let them down. It's been disappointing to feel as though the world, I am leaving my adult children and my beloved grandson is in worse shape than the one handed to me. And I think, I think many older adults, perhaps many even of. The parents who are here today are feeling the same thing. It's a sacred pact of human life that wish that we leave the world to our children as one where there will be greater ease, greater safety, greater humanity than the one left to us. And in many ways, those of my generation are facing that. It feels like we failed in that sacred obligation. But I'm not sure this is the right way to look at this. I say without equivocation that our country is in a moment of democratic crisis. The times are grim. We cannot be certain what the outcome will be. All of this is true, and it would be dishonest of me to stand here and not say it, but I wanna encourage us all to stop doom scrolling for a moment or for the older folks turn off NPR and CNN, which my, which my kids always told me, gave them a headache in the car. And take a moment to see this time through a different lens because yes, the times we are in are turbulent, challenging, sometimes ugly, but they are also more honest. The moment in which we find ourselves allows so many of more of us to see the truth, the painful truth about the weaknesses in our democracy. We can now see so many more of the cracks and fissures in what many once thought was the solid foundation of our democracy. It's shocking yes. To see how deep those fissures go, but at least we can see it now and that's a good thing. If you own a home, wouldn't you rather see the cracks in the foundation than blithely go on Believing that your infrastructure was strong until one day it falls apart around you. The work of being a civil rights lawyer, I've long said is the work of seeing those foundational cracks long before your peers and colleagues. Because we understand that we can best evaluate the integrity of our democracy by examining how it interacts or serves those who are at the margins or at the bottom. So the very issues that many of us have long lamented and worked to fix, have now deepened into profound and potentially catastrophic that threatened to bring our democratic house down, but can also be readily seen by everyone and herein graduates. Lies the opportunity of this moment because we can only repair, we can only fix and replace damage that we can see. I'm a student of the 14th Amendment Americans. Uh, America's second founding was ushered in by the 14th Amendment to our Constitution. And by that I mean the restructuring of our nation after the Civil War. So let me provide a lens from that history for viewing the current moment. Think about the challenges they faced in 1865, those who inherited a fractured nation. The war war was over, and in fact, the war was still going on in pockets. In some places in the country, 600,000 people were dead. Resentment was still simmering. 4 million Black people, formerly s slaves were enslaved were now to be integrated into America's political, social, and legal life. And the one man who had held the union together was assassinated in a conspiracy in which the plan was to kill multiple members of his cabinet. Imagine what it felt like for those members of Congress, for those leaders in that period. So what did they do? We don't learn a lot about this period in school, and that's why so many Americans fill in their gaps with extravagant and counterfactual movies about the period. But when I teach the 14th Amendment, and I promise I won't teach the class here. I try, I try to demonstrate how much of our national identity, our set of expectations and protections as citizens of this country actually comes from the 14th Amendment ratified in 1868. And you probably know, certainly the law graduates know the first section of the 14th Amendment guarantees, birthright citizenship, due process protections, and equal protection of laws. Protection. Come on. Just think about it. Just think about the cascading power of that one amendment, um, which I think is the most consequential amendment in the constitution. Just that first sentence, if I can just have just a minute. Um, the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, every person born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is a citizen of the United States and of the state in which they reside. Now that sentence was necessary, was necessary to ensure the citizenship of Black people. It was designed to overturn the Dred Scott decision, which you all will remember, uh, from 1857 in which the Supreme Court said that Black people not only were not citizens, but could not be citizens, which meant not only could enslaved Black people not be be citizens, but also free Black people. And so even free Black people were rendered stateless persons. And so that first clause, that birthright citizenship clause, um, was meant to re- re ensure the, uh, citizenship of Black people. And yes, they did debate whether it would apply to the children of migrants, uh, and they agreed that it would, um, but just think about the consequence of that provision. Many of you in this room, your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents arrived on these shores by ship or by plane, secure in the knowledge that they could become citizens. And that if they had a child, even a day after they arrived at Ellis Island or touched down at then Idyl Wyld Airport or some other location there, that child would be a citizen. It changed the whole democracy of this country. You would not be able to call this nation, if you call it that, a nation of immigrants without the 14th Amendment. Tens of millions of European migrants benefited from birthright citizenship. Evidence of the principle that has always been true in our constitutional republic, that actions we take to expand opportunity and fairness to those who are the least of these, those at the bottom and the margins always, always in nors as well, to the benefit of those for whom the policy was never intended. So win-win. The point, but the point is not about birthright citizenship itself or even equal protection or due process at this moment, it's about the bil ability of those framers to wrestle with the meaning of citizenship, drawing from decades of work, activism, writing, theory, and movement. I call this the, the theory of the founders and framers. Right. When I ask you about founders and framers, and when you were asked in your classes, you probably said the, the founders and framers of our country, you probably said, Hamilton and Jefferson and Madison. All true. But what about the second founding? What about the second founding of our Republic? And I don't just mean the Congress persons who wrote the the three Civil War amendments. I don't just mean Bingham and Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, but I mean all of the people. The activists, the lawyers, the abolitionists, the suffragists, the petitioners and individual litigants, all of whom advanced ideas about the meaning of citizenship in the decades prior to the Civil War that informed that amendment. Even enslaved people who demonstrated their determination to live as free people. To find their families who'd been sold away to become educated, to work their own land and to be paid when they worked for others to marry who they wish to marry and to raise their own children, to be free, to be free. They too were founders. Their actions demonstrated for the more formal framers in Congress, the core demands of citizenship from the perspective of those who had been excluded and they helped. Through their actions populate the meaning of equality and what it would mean. Let me just say a quick word to encourage you. That concept of equality to which all of us feel entitled, by the way. It is not something that one group of people feel entitled to. You feel entitled to it. We have all kinds of ways in which we ensure equality in our society, but the inclusion of equal protection and the concept of equality does not come from our first constitution. It comes from the 14th amendment. And if you think it comes from the founding of our nation, 'cause we're gonna do our 250th anniversary next year, please no, it does not. What you're thinking about is the Declaration of Independence. We hold these choose to be self-evident that all men are created equal, but that didn't show up in the original Constitution. That included the three fifths compromise and other ways in which obviously equality was not on offer. It was the 14th amendment that reached back over the first constitution and pulled the Declaration of Independence into our foundational constitution. That's how powerful it is. So why am I going over this history to remind us that this nation has been refound before and that the terms of that refounding were powerfully influenced by the experiences and advocacy of ordinary people. And herein lies our opportunity. You, my dear law graduates are part of the generation of founders who will help us create the next stronger, healthier iteration of our democracy. It may not require a constitutional amendment, but it will require ambition, vision, scholarship, engagement with Americans who see this country through lenses that are far too often dismissed. It will require lawyers who are excellent at their craft, lawyers of integrity and uprightness. It will require lawyers willing to amplify the voices of their clients and willing to work for a system of justice that really does apply equally to those rich and poor, black and white, educated and not, and it will require your belief that nothing you do in the service of greater justice, greater democracy is wasted. Some would have us believe that the work ahead is purely political. And certainly that's important, but I ask you to remember that the weaknesses in the foundations of our democracy did not arrive on our doorstep a decade ago. The weaknesses in our democratic infrastructure didn't come down in escalator, in a luxury high rise, the problems, the deep devastating fractures in the structures and foundations of our democracy, that left us vulnerable to the excesses of this moment. Have existed for decades long ago. Brian Stevenson, the visionary, great lawyer and founder of Equal Justice Initiative, said that in this country, it is better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent. Every week we read about another person who has been exonerated and released from prison after serving 20, 30, 40 years in prison for a crime they didn't commit for decades. We have lamented the unmet legal needs of the poor, which so many of you are helping with. I began litigating voting rights cases 36 years ago. Voter suppression is not new. Police brutality did not begin with George Floyd's murder. Wealth inequality has been steadily on the rise for 40 years. Literacy rates started falling precipitously 40 years ago. Besides the brief 10 year period from 1970 to 1980, our schools have remained racially segregated and our neighborhoods even more so. These are the elements that weakened our democracy and made it vulnerable to opportunists you. And we, and I say we because many of us are not leaving the fight. We created this mess, and so we have to clean it up too. You and we will have the chance if we're willing and dedicated to reimagine and found. This next iteration of American democracy, one better able to withstand the strong winds of authoritarian ambition of economic crisis, of social media and AI of prejudice and discrimination of political difference. That's what those 19th century framers did to stitch together our fractured nation after the Civil War and look what they introduced into our national identity. Birthright citizenship, equality, the guarantee of due process. From state, um, encroachment. I know what some of you are thinking, that that much of the promise of the 14th Amendment was frustrated and hardly recognizable. 30 years after its ratification, that reconstruction was defeated and we entered a prolonged period of legalized apartheid in this country until the civil rights movement. All that is true. But what those founders and framers created, survived, even though its early promise was frustrated, they created something, enduring something that could be harnessed by future generations. The promise of equality in the 14th Amendment may have been frustrated by Plessy versus Ferguson, but it was not killed. It may have been frustrated by violence and by congressional inaction in the first half of the 20th century. Yes. But the guarantees of the 14th Amendment were enduring enough to inspire a band of lawyers in the 20th century who had never themselves experienced equal citizenship. I'm talking now about Thurgood Marshall, Charles Hamilton Houston, Oliver Hill, Spotswood Robinson, to believe that they could create a litigation strategy that would one day end Jim Crow's segregation. From the time they first began that work in 1935, when Thurgood Marshall successfully challenged the exclusion of Black students from this law school to 1954 in Brown versus Board of Education was only 14 years, men and women who had only known racial segregation, imagined a country without it and worked to make it so. So enduring was the concept of equality, that it could be acted upon by ordinary people like Rosa Parks and John Lewis, Diane Nash, and Fannie Lou Hamer. Pauly Murray and Jack Greenberg, Robert Carter and Bernard Aids Gloria Steinem and Marsha Johnson. Lily Ledbetter. Mildred Loving. Jim Obergfel. And the list goes on. People who had never seen in America of racial or gender equality, who did not grow up in a world in which you could marry who you love, whatever their race or gender, but they were able to achieve the guarantees of the 14th Amendment to make a world they had only imagined could be true. All of us in this room have been the beneficiaries of what their vision, courage, and determination created. So yes, reconstruction was defeated in its time, but the concept and belief in the right to equality. Endured grew, shaped, and powered generations, and we have the example of how that promise was frustrated to inform how we build a foundation that can withstand those forces. These opportunities for transformative change do not come often. They present themselves most readily when the old systems have crumbled, have shown themselves unable to withstand the pressure of the moment. They do not, I believe, require war. They do not, as I said, require constitutional amendments, although I can think of a few that would come in handy, but they do require our vision and determination and our attention. If we phone focus only on what has been lost, we will lose the window of opportunity to build what could be. I believe there is nothing stopping us from being founders and framers except our limited understanding of who we are in this country. But you, your clients, your neighbors, your family members have the right and ability to influence and shape the future of this country justice. Sure. As Frederick Douglas and Elizabeth Ka Stanton and John Bingham and Charles Sumner, and so on and so forth. When the foundation of your house is crumbling, you have no choice but to build a new foundation. Now, there will be large sections of the old foundation that are still sound and can serve as cornerstones for the new stronger foundation you build. But you may wish to use new, more durable materials to build out that new foundation. You may wish to use new methods of building your foundation and your house to better withstand strong earthquakes and storms. And so that's my charge to you today to see yourselves not as bystanders, standards, observers, or even worse as victims of a challenging moment in our country. But instead to see yourselves as founders and framers of the America that your children and your grandchildren will inherit. To lean into the vital role that lawyers always play in building a new republic from Nelson Mandela to Thurgood Marshall, to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to Alexander Hamilton. Whenever you see the creation of a dynamic new iteration of democracy, you will find lawyers wielding the pen and shaping its contours. And because you are Maryland law graduates. You've had a commitment to service. It's so deeply embedded in your professional makeup that you're ahead of the game. You don't have to be a civil rights lawyer, although I welcome you. But remember that Charles Hamilton Houston, the father of Thurgood of of Civil Rights and mentor to Thurgood Marshall was a successful patent lawyer. In a practice with his father, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not only a women's rights lawyer, she was an expert in civil procedure, both US civil procedure and Swedish civil procedure. Alexander Hamilton practiced white collar criminal defense, and Nelson Mandela hung out his own shingle and started a small law practice with his best friend to serve the people in his community. But each of these lawyers stared steered their countries toward greater equality and democracy. There's a role for you among the founders and framers of our new democracy. Our job is to fight for justice, for equality, for due process and humane treatment, but our job is also to look ahead, to work towards a vision of the nation that we truly want. One of you sitting out there will be up on this stage giving this address to Maryland graduates one day. Imagine that future. Let it touch you now, give you a sense of hope. An opportunity for what may yet be. But today, today and, and maybe even this weekend and beyond is for family, for friends. I feel her breathing on me for crabs, for beer, for wine, for baseball this summer. Yes, it is. For studying and passing the bar. Um, but I know you'll have your work cut out for you. When you start your new jobs. You'll need to focus, get your land, legs, learning and absorbing all you can. Don't worry, you'll know when it's time to serve. You don't have to look for it. It will find you. The only thing you'll have to do is say yes and believe that the oath that you have taken, the oath of fatty to the constitution of this nation and of the states to which you are admitted, includes a commitment to work for the strengthening. And building of our democracy and of our nation. I truly believe that this is the charge for all of us in this moment. Thank you for allowing me to be with you and congratulations class of 2025.

Jena Frick: 1:02:24

The UMB Pulse with Charles Schelle and Dana Rampolla is a UMB Office of Communications and Public Affairs production edited by Charles Schelle, marketing by Dana Rampolla