The Rutgers University Board of Governors announced that social justice advocate Dorothy Roberts and jazz legend Wayne Shorter will receive honorary degrees at the Rutgers-Newark Commencement ceremony.
Roberts will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and deliver the commencement address. As a scholar, teacher and activist, Roberts has appeared on television and radio shows and has a wildly popular TED Talk viewed by more than 1 million people to date. She served on the faculty of Rutgers Law School for a decade starting in 1988. Roberts recently completed her first book, “Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty.”
“Dorothy Roberts is one of the nation’s leading voices striving to expunge deeply embedded discriminatory ideas and practices from the American social fabric, embodying principles that Rutgers-Newark holds most dear as an institution that is not just diverse, but committed to leveraging our diversity as a partner in lifting up our community, our nation and our world, especially by lifting up its people,” said Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor.
Shorter will receive an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree. The famed jazz saxophonist has a career spanning over 60 years winning 10 Grammy Awards. A Newark native, Shorter was a student at Newark Arts High School and began playing in jazz ensembles and big bands. He graduated from New York University in 1956.
Rutgers-Newark Commencement ceremony will take place May 22 at the Prudential Center.
