Thank you, Dean Smith.

Thank you, faculty, staff, families, friends — and, most importantly, the graduating students from the class of 2026!

Congratulations on reaching this moment, the culmination of years of study and effort. 

I am honored to join you as you celebrate this remarkable milestone.

When you leave this stage today, you will open the door to a world ready for your commitment to education and expanded opportunity.

You will walk into some of the most important roles imaginable, shaping not just the world we live in now, but the world we hope to achieve.

But none of you arrives at that door alone. You step through it because others, long before you, refused to let it close.

This year, we mark a moment when that door was forced open for good. 2026 is the 80th anniversary of the court case that ended legal segregation in California’s public schools.

The case began with an eight-year-old girl named Sylvia Mendez. In 1944, her aunt took her to enroll in school in Westminster, in Southern California. 

Sylvia and her brothers were turned away and told to attend the “Mexican school,” a two-room wooden shack, down the road.

Sylvia's father did not accept that answer. He and four other families sued. And in 1946, a state court ruled that segregating Mexican American children in California's public schools was unconstitutional.

Sylvia walked through the door that had been shut in her face and received the education she deserved.

A decade later, another young woman across the country quietly spoke up for her right to an education. That was my mom.

She was among the first African American women to integrate the University of Missouri. She endured policies built to constrain her dreams and faced the barbs of critics who said she didn’t belong.

When I look back at her photos in her college yearbook, though, I see something else in her eyes. 

No matter what anyone else said, that young woman knew that she belonged at her university. She knew she had just as much right to study there as anyone else.

Two girls, a country apart, who would not be turned away. Because of them, and thousands like them, that door stands open wider today than it ever has.

Their stories remind us of an important lesson. History is not something we live with; it is something we build.

We have made enormous strides since then. Racial segregation in schools is against the law. The law guarantees students with disabilities the right to the best possible education.

But you know that struggle isn’t over. Not every student is given the chance to maximize their potential, and not every community is given the resources it needs.

While we’ve made important gains for so many students, we haven’t fully kept our promise to fully open the doors of opportunity for everyone.

But that is why I am so inspired when I see this class graduate today. Your commitment to the idea that education must serve every community and every individual is inspiring.

You sat beside students, helping them unlock the power that comes with literacy. You stood beside teachers as they developed lessons to reach all their students.  And you presented research to ensure that the system keeps its doors open for every child.

Every step of the way, you carried the mission of the UC Davis School of Education forward.

The school had a fundamental charge when it formed in 2002: to expand opportunities for quality education for all students.

You are the embodiment of that mission. You stand at that door now — not to decide who gets in, but to make sure no child is ever turned away.

When you cross this stage today, you will be empowered to make a difference.

You will help students transform potential into promise, reenergize schools, and be fierce advocates in the halls of power.

You will write the next chapter of our long national story about access to education and all that it provides ...

Those who opened the doors show us what we can achieve.

My mom went on to teach elementary school children in St. Louis for generations.

And you can be sure she told every one of those students that no one had the power — or the right — to limit their aspirations.

Sylvia Mendez, the little girl who walked into a schoolroom demanding an education, became a director of nursing. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom — our nation’s highest civilian honor — for a cause she took up as an eight-year-old child.

Just a few days ago, she turned 90, and she is still fighting to keep doors of opportunity open.

Like Sylvia Mendez and my mom were so long ago, you are poised at the door.

I know that you will open it wide and tell every child who approaches… 

You belong here.

Thank you, and congratulations!