Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.

It is my great pleasure to be with you today as we celebrate sixty years of National Collegiate Honors Council Annual Conference. My joy comes from my deep belief in the power of science and knowledge, and in the essential role of universities in shaping awareness, confronting injustice, and building free, flourishing societies.
I come to you from the far end of the Global South, from Yemen, where my journey began as an educated women, journalist and a dreamer who dared to stand alone against a tyrant. From 2006 to 2011, I led peaceful protests almost by myself, driven by hope and the conviction that a corrupt authoritarian system could never reform itself—it had to be changed.
The turning point came when I stood at the gates of Sana’a University and called out: “Students—your rights, Yemenis rights are being taken away!” Their response transformed the struggle. Without the courage of university students, we could not have brought down the dictatorship.
Inside universities, I witnessed the most beautiful faces of humanity: students standing before bullets demanding a free homeland, professors arrested for defending truth, and young people with no wealth or power—only the dream of dignity and the courage to pursue it.
And for this very reason, universities today are under attack by dictators, extremists, and predatory corporations who fear free minds.

A Global Campaign Against Universities
Today, science and scientists — professors, researchers, and students — face a systematic campaign targeting higher education as an institution and as a pathway to freedom and progress. This campaign seeks to restrict academic and student freedoms, monitor research, suppress professors and students, appoint regime loyalists, and weaken universities through intimidation, dismissal, and arrests.
At the same time, a loud narrative is spreading to devalue universities and mock intellectual life, claiming higher education is unnecessary or elitist. 
We hear: “University is a waste of time,” 
“You don’t need education — just work hard,”
 “Billionaires didn’t finish university.”
This is not innocent advice. It is a deliberate, well-funded project aimed at eroding trust in science, dismantling critical thinking, and weakening the last spaces of freedom. Its goal is to produce a generation that does not question, object, or organize.
this is not innocent advice.
It is a planned and well-funded campaign aimed at:
• degrading trust in universities,
• mocking intellectual life,
• smearing scholars and researchers,
• rewriting the relationship between society and knowledge,
• and manufacturing a generation without awareness or conscience.
It is social engineering.
It is a battle over truth.
It is a war over who controls the mind and the future.
So we must ask:
Why do authoritarianism, extremism, and predatory capital fear the university?

1 — Why Tyrants Fear Universities
Across the world, attacks on universities mirror attacks on democracy itself. The assault on higher education is inseparable from the global assault on human rights: the rise of authoritarianism, the spread of hatred, the silencing of voices, the suppression of journalism, and the criminalization of academic and student freedoms.
A tyrant does not fear the tank as much as he fears the free question.
He does not fear the weapon as much as he fears the student who asks:
“Why?” “Who benefits?” “What is the truth?”
They fear free societies — the very societies that free universities create.
Universities are not merely walls, halls, or lectures. They do not only teach skills.
They do not produce subjects; they produce free citizens — living consciences and courageous minds.
Citizens who think before they obey.
Citizens who reject injustice.
Citizens who believe dignity is a non-negotiable right.
So when a book is banned, a professor dismissed, or a student punished for demanding justice — these are not “political disagreements.” They are fragments of a broader war on the human spirit: a war on our ability to think, to question, to dream, and to say “No.”
We see this clearly in Arab region,
we see it in Gaza, where universities are bombed, libraries demolished, and young minds exterminated — among the gravest crimes against knowledge and humanity.
We see it in Sudan, where education is strangled and cities — along with their dreams — are destroyed.
We see it in Ukraine, across Africa, and everywhere truth stands between tyranny and freedom.
And we see it today in the West, including here in the United States, where student movements are demonized simply for standing with the oppressed; where students protesting genocide in Gaza are punished, funding is threatened, and universities are pressured to restrict or surveil student activism.
2 — Why Extremists Fear Universities
Extremism grows in closed identities, closed minds, and closed communities. It survives on fear, hatred, ignorance, and superstition.
-    The university is the opposite: A community built on science, dialogue, diversity, and pluralism.
-    It teaches that diversity is strength, dialogue is power, and hatred is ignorance.
Fascist movements accuse universities of “corrupting the youth” not because universities destroy values—but because they save values from collapsing into fanaticism.
A young person formed in a free university does not become a weapon for hatred.
They become a force for dignity and coexistence.

3 — Why Greed Corporations Fear Universities
Greed corporations do not want a free mind; it wants an obedient consumer.
Some corporations today move faster than governments.
Algorithms shape awareness.
Advertisements shape desire.
Influencers replace educators.
And so a profitable formula emerges:
Weak awareness = passive consumption = unlimited profit
This is why some corporations work—intentionally or indirectly—to weaken universities:
They want young people to learn from influencers,
not from philosophy professors.
From advertisements,
not from science.
From algorithms,
not from critical thinking.
Trust is being shifted away from classrooms and redirected toward:
– commercial courses    – short content     – fast training  – “skills without values”  – “knowledge without humanity”
This is not progress.
This is intellectual colonization.

How Do We Confront This Attack?
This is not an educational debate.
This is an existential battle between knowledge and ignorance, between freedom and tyranny.
To confront it, we must unite—students, professors, researchers, staff, and university leaders.
Let me share six commitments for this moment.

First: Be Proude of Yourselves
Every hour you spent studying, researching, debating, writing—
is a contribution to humanity’s progress.
Reject those who belittle universities, professors, or students.
Reject those who mock your achievements.
Reject the shallow comparison between education and a small number of billionaire dropouts.
Those companies that billionaires built?
They are powered by the minds that universities educated.
Do not let anyone steal the value of what you have built.

 Second: Modernize Education and Link It to Innovation
The challenge today is speed. The world is changing faster than curricula, faster than institutions.
Modernization of higher education is not optional.
Universities must be leaders—not followers—of the labor market.
Provide ethical foundations for entrepreneurship.
Be at the heart of the digital transformation, not its victims.
Combat digital disinformation.
Use technology to serve truth, not to bury it.

Third: Nurturing Ethics and the Human Conscience
In a time of authoritarianism, polarization, and artificial intelligence, universities must do more than prepare students for jobs — they must prepare them for leadership rooted in human dignity and shared responsibility.
We need leaders who restore the values that give science its soul: compassion, responsibility, respect for others, and care for the environment.
In the age of AI, this mission is urgent; technology can lift humanity or crush it, and it must remain a servant of human freedom, not a substitute for it.
Universities must also break out of their walls and engage with society, building local and global partnerships.
Look at Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Yemen:
where schools are destroyed, yet students continue learning under bombardment because they believe that knowledge is resistance and education is the first line of defense for dignity.
Let us bind knowledge to conscience, science to responsibility, and the local to the global.
For real power does not lie in possessing knowledge,
but in sharing it to elevate humanity.

Fourth: Never Compromise on the Independence of Universities or on Academic and Student Freedoms
Recent international reports underscore the gravity of the moment our world is living through.
In October 2025, a Sciences Po report warned that academic freedom is rapidly eroding worldwide, even in democracies, and that university independence is no longer guaranteed under political and economic pressures. Weeks later, Scholars at Risk reported hundreds of attacks on academics and students in 49 countries, confirming that repression of free thought is now spreading into nations once seen as democratic strongholds. These findings show a dangerous global trend threatening the foundations of human civilization: freedom of thought, human dignity, and society’s right to knowledge and truth.
Academic freedom is not a privilege — it is a right.
It is not a luxury — it is the first line of defense for democracy.
No knowledge is born in fear.
No creativity flourishes under surveillance.
No free university can become a barracks, an arm of power, or a propaganda tool for interest groups.
To university leaders and faculty:
Protect the independence of your universities from political authority, from conditional funding, and from the influence of powerful lobbies.
Do not, under any circumstances, become instruments of repression against your own students.
Make your universities fortresses of freedom — not gates of fear.
Encourage dialogue, dissent, and intellectual courage.
A free university does not produce mere employees; it produces thinkers, leaders, and builders of the future.
When universities are silenced and questions become dangerous, nations fall into darkness and the future is buried before it is born.
Restricting academic freedom and student freedoms is not simply a mistake —
it is a crime against the future.
A university that fears the question transforms from a factory of hope into a graveyard for mind and knowledge.
We do not want silent universities, nor professors who whisper the truth, nor students who measure their breaths before they speak.
There is no university without academic freedom,
no science without critique,
and no knowledge without the courage to ask questions.

Fifth: To the Honors Students
You are here not to celebrate the world as it is,
but to build the world as it must become.
Honor is not a title.
Honor is responsibility—
the courage to question,
the humility to learn,
the conviction to act.
Raise your voices.
Stand against injustice, hatred, and division.
Defend your universities, your freedoms, your humanity.
Democracy does not always die by the weapon;
sometimes it dies through silence— when questioning is replaced by loyalty, when thought is replaced by fear.
Throughout history, universities have been the birthplace of liberation movements:
– The Civil Rights Movement
– The struggle against apartheid
– Opposition to the Vietnam War
– The Arab Spring
– And today’s global student movement for Gaza, for Palestine, and for justice everywhere
Universities are — and must remain — the heart of liberation.

Sixth: Be the Generation That Leads the World Toward a Better Future
The world needs your conscience, your knowledge, your moral compass.
Link innovation with ethics, The danger is not the advancement of machines—but the retreat of human beings from their moral role.
Hold governments and corporations accountable.
Fight poverty.
Reject corruption.
Protect the environment.
Oppose dictators and occupiers.
Build a world without wars, without hate, without dictatorship, and with racism

At the final of my speech:
Do not give up—
and we will never give up.
Our struggle is one.
Our destiny is one.
And freedom is always the fate of the brave.
Thank you.
Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you.