Moynihan Slated To Address Commencement

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the former Harvard government professor and Democratic senator from New York who penned an influential report on race and poverty, has been chosen to deliver this year’s commencement address.

Moynihan, 75, is currently the senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington and is a professor at Syracuse University.

Moynihan is the first non-economist to give the commencement speech since former Irish president Mary Robinson’s 1998 address. Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya K. Sen and former Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin ’60 were the last three speakers selected.

“Pat Moynihan’s career represents an extraordinary combination of intellectual distinction and devotion to public service,” said University President Lawrence H. Summers in a statement released today. “He has been at the center of national and international debates on some of the most important and difficult issues of our time, and he has made profound contributions both to the life of the mind and the life of the nation.”

Raised in a poor neighborhood in New York City, Moynihan attended City College of New York. After his graduation in 1943, Moynihan enlisted in the Naval Reserve.

He did graduate work at Tufts University, then worked as an assistant professor at Syracuse before coming to Harvard as a professor of government in 1966.

Moynihan left Harvard after being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976. He was re-elected in 1982, 1988 and 1994.

Moynihan retired from the Senate last January, when he was replaced by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

During his nearly 50 years in politics, Moynihan also served in the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford administrations—the only person to ever work for four consecutive administrations on a Cabinet or sub-Cabinet level.

Moynihan also served as ambassador to India, U.S. representative to the U.N. and president of the U.N. Security Council.

Moynihan, who has written or edited 18 books, is best known for “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” a report he wrote in 1965 while assistant secretary of labor, a document that became commonly known as “The Moynihan Report.”

The report drew attention to the rise of single-parent families and other evidence of breakdown of the traditional family—arguing this was “the fundamental source of the weakness of the Negro community at the present time.”

Moynihan’s thesis proved controversial and was criticized by many civil rights leaders for what they saw as blaming black Americans for their plight, yet over 35 years later it remains influential.

Moynihan also authored Beyond the Melting Pot, a noted study of American ethnicity, with Nathan Glazer in 1963.

Senior class marshal Avik Chatterjee ’02 said that though he would have liked to have a woman or minority as commencement speaker, he was pleased with the selection of Moynihan.

“He’s a veteran politician and I’m sure he has a lot of interesting stories and things to say,” Chatterjee said. “I’m glad it’s not another economist.”

Karen Spencer Kelly ’80, president of the Harvard Alumni Association, said she was also happy with the choice.

“Daniel Patrick Moynihan has been part of the Harvard community for many years and a major figure in the U.S. Senate over the last quarter century,” she said in a statement released today. “I very much look forward to hearing him speak to our alumni, including our newest alumni, in June.”

—Staff writer Joseph P. Flood can be reached at flood@fas.harvard.edu.