Tom Hanks delivered a commencement address to Harvard’s 2023 graduating class in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Thursday.

The university granted the celebrated actor an honorary degree of arts. He joked that other than playing a Harvard professor in The Da Vinci Code movies, they gave him the degree without him having to do “a lick of work, without having spent any time in class [and] without once walking into that library.” He later quipped, “public global policy is something I scan in the newspaper just before I do the Wordle.”

But then, Hanks became more serious, calling on the graduating students to stand up against the “indifference of a people who have been made weary by struggle.” He continued, saying that indifference “makes citizens into indentured servants.”

In one section, Hanks lashed out at those who would “ban books” in an apparent swipe at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who just announced his...