The Ivy League school conferred an honorary doctorate of arts upon the actor as he joked that he had received the degree "without having done a lick of work, without having spent any time in class, without once walking into that library."

"I don't know much about Latin, I have no real passion for enzymes, and public global policy is something I scan in the newspaper just before I do the Wordle," he joked to graduates as he spoke at Harvard Yard's Tercentenary Theatre, before urging students to stand up against the "indifference of a people who have been made weary by struggle."

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"Indifference makes citizens into indentured servants held in labor by the despots and tyrants whose default setting is cynicism, who outlawed dissent and ban art and dialogue and books," Hanks said, during a speech filled with references to Superman and other superheroes.

"Every day, every year, and for every graduating class, there is a choice to be made," Hanks told the graduating class. "It's the same option for all grown-ups who have to decide to be one of three types of Americans: those who embrace liberty and freedom for all, those who won't or those who are indifferent. Only the first do the work of creating a more perfect union, a nation indivisible. The others get in the way."

During Hanks' appearance at the university, Harvard also gave him a Harvard-branded volleyball in reference to his 2000 movie Cast Away. 

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