Jodi Kantor CC'96 is the 2025 Columbia College Class Day keynote speaker.

Martin Schoeller

Best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Jodi Kantor CC’96, known for exposing decades of sexual abuse allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, will deliver the keynote at Columbia College’s Class Day on Tuesday, May 20. The Class Day ceremony honors the achievements of the graduating class.

“We’re excited to welcome Jodi Kantor back to campus as this year’s Class Day speaker,” Dean Josef Sorett said. “The insights revealed in her work have left an enduring impact on our culture and I join the Class of 2025 in looking forward to her words for our graduates.”

“Every Columbia graduation is special, but members of the Class of 2025 particularly deserve to celebrate their growth, learning, friendships and resilience. I’m honored and thrilled to join them,” Kantor says.

Kantor’s work reveals hidden truths about power, law, gender, technology and culture; over the years, her reporting has led to the creation of free-standing lactation pods to help new mothers; paternity leave for workers at Amazon, the second-largest U.S. employer; and a global reckoning that shifted legal, corporate and social standards for treatment of women.

For the last two years, Kantor has been working to shed light on one of our most critical, powerful and least-understood institutions: the Supreme Court. Together with her New York Times colleagues, Kantor revealed the behind-the-scenes story of how the justices overturned the constitutional right to abortion, problems with the investigation into the leak of that opinion, and a secret influence effort by anti-abortion activists and another alleged breach. In spring 2024, Kantor broke the news of two provocative flags, associated with efforts to overturn the 2020 election, displayed at the homes of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. She and Adam Liptak reported on how Chief Justice John Roberts steered the court’s decisions in a historic trio of Jan. 6 cases that benefited President Donald J. Trump.

In 2017, Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the story of the allegations against Weinstein; their work helped shift the culture, protect women around the world and spur a chain of truth-telling that continues to this day. Together with a team of colleagues who exposed harassment across industries, they were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service, journalism’s highest award.

Kantor and Twohey wrote She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement, about the Weinstein investigation, to take readers behind the scenes of this kind of work and show the impact that even a small number of truth-tellers can have. The book was called “an instant classic of investigative journalism” by The Washington Post and one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, the Times and many other publications. It was adapted into a 2021 film starring Zoe Kazan as Kantor.

From 2006 to 2013, Kantor covered President Barack Obama CC’83 and First Lady Michelle Obama for the Times, delving into their ideas, biographies, family, marriage, faith and approach to the White House, and covering the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. Her best-selling book, The Obamas, about their behind-the-scenes adjustment to the jobs of President and First Lady, was published in 2012.

Kantor became a journalist by dropping out of law school — and never looking back. In 2003, she became the Arts & Leisure editor at the Times, and the youngest person in memory to edit a section of the newspaper. Since then, she has been the recipient of many awards and honors, including the 2022 University Medal for Excellence, a 2019 John Jay Award for distinguished professional achievement, a George Polk Award in Journalism and being named to TIME’s 2018 list of the 100 Most Influential People.

Kantor lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Times personal finance columnist Ron Lieber, and her two daughters, and has a special love for mentoring younger journalists.

University Commencement, a celebration for graduating students from all of Columbia’s schools, colleges and affiliate institutions, will be held on Wednesday, May 21.