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PRINCETON - Former heavyweight champion and cultural icon Muhammad Ali received an honorary doctorate of humanities from Princeton University yesterday.
Though Ali, 65, suffers from Parkinson's disease and rarely makes public appearances now, he has been part of the national conscience since 1960 when the man then known as Cassius Clay won an Olympic gold medal.
Ali went on to become a world-champion heavyweight, and one who always spoke his mind, sometimes in verse. In 1967, he was kicked out of boxing for three years after he was convicted of refusing to be inducted into the military.
At Princeton yesterday, 1,843 undergraduate and graduate students received degrees.
Also honored by the Ivy League university were choreographer Twyla Tharp; Norman Augustine, the former chief executive officer and chairman of the aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp.; Elizabeth Blackburn, a pioneering molecular biologist; Robert Fagles, a celebrated literary translator and Princeton's Arthur Marks '19 Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus; LaSalle Leffall Jr., a leading cancer surgeon and researcher; and Fritz Stern, a renowned historian of modern Germany.
But it was Ali who held everyone's attention as he made his way to the stage and accepted his honorary degree while his wife, Loni, held his hand.
Although he has fought for humanitarian causes since his retirement from the boxing world, around the world Ali is remembered more for his glory days in the boxing world.
Muhammad Ali became the first boxer to win the world heavyweight title three times. His career started when, at 18, he won a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics with a style that challenged the game's sacred teachings. In 1961, he beat Sonny Liston in a fight that first gained him the world heavyweight title and that has been credited with restoring intelligence and balance to boxing. As a member of the Muslim faith and a conscientious objector, Ali refused to serve in the Vietnam War when drafted and was stripped of his titles and his license to fight in many states. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his status as a conscientious objector. He regained his world heavyweight title in 1974, defeating George Foreman. He dethroned Leon Spinks in 1978 to win the title for the third time. When Ali retired in 1981, his career record stood at 56-5, with 37 knockouts.
