In November 2025, distinguished Georgetown University graduate Manuel (Manny) A. Miranda (SFS ’82) died. Manny had a significant impression on Georgetown, typically main high-profile challenges to the college administration. His legacy ought to function a reminder to at this time’s college students that the college is just not an untouchable monolith, however somewhat a dwelling group that responds to those that care sufficient to have interaction with it. Rather than accepting the lack of Georgetown’s distinctive tutorial, cultural and non secular identification as an inevitability, we should actively reclaim our function as stakeholders within the college’s future.
Manny’s advocacy stands as a problem to the trendy pupil’s tendency towards passivity. In the mid-Nineteen Eighties, for instance, the college tried to take control of the alumni affiliation and its annual fund. Manny, a newly licensed lawyer, led a winning lawsuit that set a standard for nonprofit organizations affiliated with academic establishments. If a younger graduate can out-litigate a white-shoe legislation agency, then you’ll be able to problem directors on insurance policies with which you disagree.
Manny’s vigilance demonstrates that a person can pressure the administration to realign with its historical, academic and Catholic foundations. In the early Nineties, he mastered canon legislation and pressured Georgetown to finish help of a pro-abortion rights group, convincing the Vatican to threaten to strip Georgetown of its Catholic standing. In 1997, when the administration did not replace crucifixes in repainted lecture rooms, Manny organized a coalition of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims in protest. Following national media exposure, the Board of Governors voted to revive the crucifixes and the college complied.
This document shatters the phantasm that college students should settle for the erosion of their schooling. In the identical decade, Georgetown’s English division ceased its requirement for majors to take programs in Shakespeare, Milton and Chaucer. Manny organized the opposition, resulting in broad nationwide criticism, together with from left-leaning New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and the right-leaning New Criterion.
Manny’s enduring engagement offers a blueprint for resisting the established order, reminding us that the responsibility to guard the college’s heritage is a lifelong dedication. In the 2020s, when the leaders of the Philodemic Society — which he had helped refound within the Nineteen Eighties — started burying its history and curtailing arguments, Manny helped revive the Philonomosian Debate Society in its place. In 2023, he helped arrange a bipartisan coalition that stopped makes an attempt to rename the School of Foreign Service. If a graduate can shield the rigorous mental heritage and institutional namesakes of his alma mater a long time after commencement, then you’ll be able to make sure the Georgetown of tomorrow stays anchored in its storied previous.
Manny’s life serves as a rebuke to the trendy pupil’s temptation towards apathy. While he considered the college as moldable, at this time’s pupil physique could also be tempted to deal with campus life as a pre-packaged client expertise. This passivity is seen within the acceptance of sky-high tuition or the shrug of shoulders when historic campus areas are repurposed for administrative places of work. To observe Manny’s lead is to acknowledge that being a Hoya carries a lifelong warrant to behave as a guardian of the college’s mission and traditions.
This requires being productively tough. As at this time’s bold Georgetown college students try to affix established establishments, they may fear dissent will harm their skilled prospects. This resume-protection mindset results in a sterile atmosphere the place college students hesitate to problem censorship or communicate out in opposition to the dissolution of classical programs of research. Yet, Manny confirmed that true loyalty typically seems like opposition. When the administration drifts from foundational values — be they non secular, tutorial or civic — it’s college students and graduates’ responsibility to behave as an anchor. We ought to determine the trendy equivalents of these lacking crucifixes and protest such institutional compromises.
The “Georgetown bubble” shouldn’t be a defend from the world, however a coaching floor for advocacy. Manny’s historical past of activism proves what one passionate individual can do to form the world, defend rules and affect occasions. His life teaches us that the instruments of change can be found to anybody with the self-discipline to be taught them. If you see a curriculum that has misplaced its rigor or a campus tradition that stifles open inquiry, don’t look forward to an invite to repair it. The college belongs to those that labor for it.
Sean Rushton (SFS ’95, GRD ’01) was a senior information and contributing editor of The Hoya. He is the Speaker of the Second Stewards Society.
