MIT celebrated its 2021 Commencement in an online ceremony featuring taped tributes from around the world to the Class of 2021, a musical composition created specially for the event, and a moving and deeply personal address from civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson.
For only the second time in its history, MIT celebrated its Commencement in an online ceremony. This year's event featured taped tributes from around the.
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Bryan Stevenson, a civil rights lawyer acclaimed for his work confronting bias against the poor and people of color in the U.S. justice system, will deliver the address at MIT’s 2021 Commencement exercises on Friday, June 4.
Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama, which has won legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.
Stevenson has argued and won multiple cases at the United States Supreme Court, including a 2019 ruling protecting condemned prisoners who suffer from dementia and a landmark 2012 ruling that banned mandatory life-imprisonment-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger. He and his staff have won reversals, relief, or release from prison for over 135 wrongly condemned priso