Being a Yalie didn’t stop Jodie Foster from taking home an award courtesy of her alma mater’s old rival on Friday.
The Oscar-winning star was in Cambridge to accept the Radcliffe Medal as part of the Radcliffe Day 2025 festivities. Since 1987, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has awarded the medal annually “to an individual who embodies its commitment to excellence, inclusion, and social impact,” according to the institute’s website.
Last year’s award went to Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor, with other notable past honorees including Melinda French Gates, Billie Jean King, Hillary Clinton, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Foster was awarded this year’s prize for her “barrier-breaking career” and contributions “in front of and behind the camera,” according to the event’s description online, as well as for her support of young people in the LGBTQ+ community.
“Jodie has used the power of art to engage with existential questions that define the human experience,” said Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Harvard Radcliffe Institute dean, while introducing Foster during Friday’s ceremony. “She’s also harnessed her craft and the resources it affords her to focus our attention on critical issues and overlooked voices.”
In addition to receiving the honor, Foster took part in a keynote conversation about her life and career with Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard’s Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. The “Finding Your Roots” host was a professor of Foster’s during her time studying African-American literature at Yale, and even helped her score an interview with Toni Morrison for her thesis while serving as Foster’s senior adviser.
“Who in the world would ever have thought that you and I, two Yalies who met when you were an undergraduate and I was a baby professor in New Haven back in 1983-84, would one day be sitting here at Harvard,” Gates joked, with Foster quipping, “[and] not covered in beer.”
Foster tried to be diplomatic when answering Gates’s questions on why she chose Yale over Harvard (Gates noted that she was accepted to both universities), and admitted that her mother “was mad” when she ultimately chose the Bulldogs over the Crimson.
“My mom really wanted me to go here,” Foster told Gates. “Every institution has its own vibe, has its own feeling, and for whatever reason I was drawn to Yale — but I clearly made a terrible mistake.”
The conversation took a more serious tone when Foster opened up about her traumatic experience of being stalked by John Hinckley Jr., whose obsession with the actress played a pivotal role in his attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
“It definitely turned my world upside down,” Foster said, detailing how she was a freshman and in the middle of doing a play at the time, but needed constant security due to the situation. “I don’t usually talk about that time because it was a tumultuous time.”
“I wanted to have a long career where I was known for myself and for my work, and I wanted my identity to be about what I produced,” she added. “I just didn’t want to be that girl who was chosen abstractly by an insane man to be a footnote in history.”
The wide-ranging conversation concluded with Gates asking Foster to share her hopes and fears for “the present moment.” Foster expressed that, while “a lot of us are tired and worn out and sad,” people need to “be energized” and find the strength to fight back.
“What I hope for people now is that they take the gloves off,” Foster said. “Harvard has shown that recently, but also, with this group of thinkers in these rarified places, where the intellect and the ability to connect is really revered above all else, [for people] to really understand that you have the power to use love as a guiding principle and to be strategic.”
Jodie Foster, right, received the Radcliffe Medal on Radcliffe Day from Tomiko Brown-Nagin, left, dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, in Cambridge on Friday.Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff
The ceremony kicked off on Friday afternoon with a panel discussion on the representation of women in film and television featuring actress Amy Brenneman, filmmaker Naomi McDougall Jones, Oscar-nominated director Mira Nair, and TV writer and producer Saladin K. Patterson, moderated by Stacy L. Smith, associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Author and long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad also provided a humorous and heartfelt testimonial honoring Foster. The actress earned an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Nyad’s friend and coach Bonnie Stoll (who was also in attendance on Friday) in the 2023 film “Nyad.” The movie, based on Nyad’s memoir “Find a Way,” chronicled her epic swim across open waters from Cuba to Florida.
“Jodie, we wouldn’t have missed it for the world, we’re so proud of you,” Nyad said, speaking for herself and Stoll, who she also praised Foster for portraying in the film. “So, today, yes, we congratulate you, but the truth is, we’re here because we love you and we’re so thrilled at our growing friendship.”
