DeGeneres Actually Speaking at HLS Class Day

Though Ellen DeGeneres announced on her daily talk-variety show last week that she would be speaking at Harvard’s Commencement in June, the news came as a surprise to the University’s Commencement coordinators.

“We have no knowledge of any visit from Ellen DeGeneres nor have we been in contact with her or her people,” Director of College Alumni Programs F. Hoopes Wampler said.

First Class Marshal Caleb I. Franklin ’05, whose duties include determining Class Day speaker, said that the class marshals had yet to designate a speaker.

The discrepancy seems to be a simple misunderstanding. According to Harvard Law School Class Marshal Sarah E. Mattson ’01, DeGeneres has instead been tapped to speak at Harvard Law School’s Class Day, an event the day before Commencement which is typically more light-hearted than the keynote address that follows.

For example, Ben Stein—1970 Yale Law School graduate, political speechwriter and TV personality—spoke at the school’s Class Day this past June.

Past Commencement speakers have included United Nations Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan, Nobel laureate Amartya K. Sen, Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and former Vice President Al Gore ’69.

Mattson said that the confusion on DeGeneres’ part was understandable.

“The truth is that we consider Class Day to be very much a part of Commencement—in fact, it’s the day that is personalized to HLS and, in my own opinion, the most meaningful for our class,” Mattson wrote in an e-mail.

A committee composed of the president of the Board of Overseers, a member of the Harvard Corporation, the alumni association president and the University president determine the Commencement speaker.

DeGeneres is probably best known for her role on the mid-1990s sitcom, “Ellen.” The writer-producer-actor famously came out in an April 1997 episode, making her television’s first leading lesbian.