Activist, public intellectual and scholar Loretta J. Ross will deliver the address during the School's virtual commencement on August 22, 2021.
An associate professor at Smith College, Ross started her career in activism and social change working at the National Football League Players’ Association, the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, the National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Black Women’s Health Project, the Center for Democratic Renewal (National Anti-Klan Network), the National Center for Human Rights Education and SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective. Ross retired as an organizer in 2012 to teach about activism.
Her most recent books are Reproductive Justice: An Introduction co-written with Rickie Solinger, and Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique. Her forthcoming book is Calling In the Calling Out Culture due out in 2022.
She has been quoted in the New York Times, Time Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, among others.
