Honorary Degree Citation - Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Champion of democracy. Tireless defender of respect and rights for all people. Compassionate relationship builder and master of diplomacy.

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, you have made it your life’s work to improve the lives of vulnerable and marginalized people around the world. You have faced adversity and hostility with humility and compassion, always maintaining a sense of hope. Your renowned ability to bring people together, and to build deep relationships, has provided your foundation for navigating humanitarian crises and contentious geopolitical issues.

You were raised in Baker, Louisiana, a small town in the deep south, by parents who instilled in you the values of hard work and kindness. You attended segregated schools and regularly witnessed racist acts such as the burning of crosses in your neighbors’ yards. The first member of your family to attend college, you chose to attend Louisiana State University as one of the first wave of Black students who were admitted due to a federal court mandate.

After earning your master’s degree at University of Wisconsin and teaching political science at Bucknell University, you realized your dream of joining the foreign service in 1982. You joined the country’s diplomatic corps at a time when most of your colleagues were white males. You were posted in Switzerland, Pakistan, Kenya, The Gambia, Nigeria, and Jamaica and served in multiple roles in Washington. In 2008 you were appointed Ambassador to Liberia, where, despite the end of civil war and a recent free election, mob violence, ritualistic killings, violence against women, child abuse, and racial and ethnic discrimination remained.

You returned to the United States to become Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources where you were able to nurture your passion for diversifying the diplomatic corps and mentoring students toward lives of public service. In 2013, you were named Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, where you led efforts to improve governance and democracy while prioritizing human rights and LGBTQ issues in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In your distinguished 35 years in the foreign service you were faced with innumerable human rights atrocities, the Ebola epidemic and the devastation of civil wars. All the while you sought to bring people together, often over a shared meal of Louisiana gumbo, to remind them of their common humanity and to help them to find common ground.

As the newly appointed United States Ambassador to the United Nations, you are committed to restoring alliances. You have spoken out about the importance of multilateralism in addressing the world’s problems. You are working to empower and educate women around the world in order to reduce gender based violence and to open up economic opportunities. You have denounced structural racism and racially-motivated violence.

That all may know of our great esteem for you and our strong support for your work to improve economic opportunities, to reduce racial and gender based discrimination and violence, and to ensure equal rights and respect for the dignity of all people around the world, the College of the Holy Cross confers upon you this day the degree, Doctor of Public Service, honoris causa.