The Saint Michael’s College students who will receive their diplomas next month have likely never risked their lives to get an education. But their graduation speaker has. Shabana Basij-Rasikh, an internationally recognized advocate for the education of Afghan girls, will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at the Colchester college’s 119th graduation ceremony on May 10.
Basij-Rasikh, who graduated from Middlebury College in 2011, is the cofounder and president of the School of Leadership Afghanistan, or SOLA, the first and only boarding school for Afghan girls. She was six years old in 1996 when the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan and severely curtailed the rights of girls and women. Basij-Rasikh disguised herself as a boy to attend a secret school in the capital, Kabul. After the Taliban regime fell in 2001, she attended high school in the United States for a year through a U.S. State Department-sponsored exchange program, then received a scholarship to Middlebury.
From 2016 to 2021, Basij-Rasikh operated SOLA in Kabul. But when the Taliban returned to power, she fled with 250 students and staff to Rwanda. On their way out, she set fire to student records to prevent any retribution from the new leaders. The school still operates in the African country.
Saint Michael’s administrators were introduced to Basij-Rasikh by the parent of a current student who is a supporter of SOLA and thought that the school’s mission aligned with the college’s focus on social justice, according to Elizabeth Murray, associate director of communications. St. Mike’s has at least one other notable tie to Afghanistan: Anisa Rasooli, a high-ranking judge known as the “Ruth Bader Ginsburg of Afghanistan.” She is one of around 600 evacuees who landed in Vermont in recent years and lived for a time in an apartment with her family on the college’s campus.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Girls Empowered”
This article appears in April 29 • 2026.
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