During its 324th graduation ceremony on Monday, Yale University awarded honorary degrees to eight individuals whose achievements in their fields have benefited the common good. This year’s honorary degree recipients are Debbie Allen, the beloved performer, producer, and director; Frances H. Arnold, a Nobel Prize-winning bioengineer and pioneer in the field of evolutionary chemistry; Ronald L. Carter, the iconic jazz musician and composer; Michael B. Curry ’78 M.Div., former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and longtime advocate for social justice; Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. ’73, literary scholar and award-winning filmmaker; Annette Gordon-Reed, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author; Fei-Fei Li, a computer scientist and pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence; and Peter B. Moore ’61, a distinguished chemist and longtime Yale professor who contributed key insights for understanding of the ribosome. The awarding of honorary degrees, which has been a Yale tradit...