More women to speak at college graduations

This graduation season, the podium is all hers.

For the first time in at least two decades, most of the nation’s top colleges are featuring women as their spring commencement speakers, a shift that industry experts credit to the wave of female empowerment fueling the #MeToo movement.

Yale University has invited former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg; Vanderbilt University, human-rights lawyer Amal Clooney; and Dartmouth College, actress Mindy Kaling.

Overall, women account for almost 60 percent of the speakers at the 25 schools that have the largest endowments and traditionally carry the clout to draw big names to the lectern. By contrast, women made up just a quarter of the speakers at those schools in the previous 19 years combined, according to an Associated Press analysis of university records.

Companies that are hired to find speakers say they’ve seen a surge in requests for women at the same time that the #MeToo movement has shed light on sexual misconduct from Hollywood, Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Demand has grown so quickly that some say they’re struggling to keep up.

“There’s been a much bigger push to bring in white females, black females — anyone other than a white male,” said Richard Schelp, owner of Executive Speakers Bureau in Memphis, Tennessee, where 40 percent of recent booking requests from schools and other clients have been for women.

Schools contacted by the AP said the Among the women set to speak at top-college graduations this year, from left: Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State; Mindy Kaling, actress; and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO.

#MeToo movement didn’t directly influence their decisions, but some said it might have been on the minds of students who helped pick finalists. Many start looking for speakers more than a year in advance, competing for prominent figures who will impress alumni and prospective students.

Speakers chosen this year include women from politics, business, athletics and the arts, with some reflecting diversity beyond their gender.

Film director Ava DuVernay will be the first woman of color to give Cornell University’s speech in a decade. Raquel Bono, a Navy vice admiral and a Filipina American, will speak at the University of Texas, Austin.

As ceremonies unfold in coming weeks, experts say graduates can expect to hear speeches on equality, inclusivity and other topics that might have been considered too thorny in the past.

“Because there’s so much demand out there, I think they’re much more comfortable talking about this,” said Don Epstein, CEO of the Greater Talent Network, a New York agency owned by United Talent Agency. “The public is finally saying, ‘Enough. We want to hear about it.’”

Outside the richest schools, many of the marquee speakers for 2018 are also women.

Actress and rapper Queen Latifah will head to Rutgers University’s Newark campus. Wesleyan University in Connecticut will hear from Anita Hill, who has become a #MeToo icon for her 1991

testimony accusing then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.

The numbers contrast starkly with past years that yielded few female speakers. In 2007, for example, two of the 25 richest schools chose women. In 2003, none of the eight Ivy League schools did.

Colleges say they strive for diversity but face tough competition for a small pool of speakers. And although more women have joined the speaking industry in recent years, experts say they remain widely outnumbered by men.

Bringing celebrity speakers can also carry a hefty cost — sometimes upward of $100,000 — leading many schools to seek alumni or others who won’t charge.

Still, some schools have chosen far fewer women than their peers. Among the colleges that have brought just three in the past two decades are Harvard and the universities of Notre Dame, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Notre Dame officials said they seek a mix of speakers but are sometimes thwarted by scheduling conflicts.

A few colleges have brought a rough balance of men and women in recent decades.

At Dartmouth and Duke University, women account for 40 percent of spring speakers since 1999.

Dartmouth officials attribute its numbers to a wide pool of successful female graduates and some scheduling luck.