Former Indiana Governor and current Vice President Mike Pence was given a seriously cold reception at Notre Dame Stadium on Sunday. Pence, granted the honor of giving the Notre Dame Class of 2017 commencement address on Sunday, saw a large group of students walk out on him as began his speech.
Dozens (the South Bend Tribune estimates the total number at about 150) of graduating seniors staged a peaceful, civil protest by exiting Notre Dame Stadium. Here below are three different videos, with three different vantage points, of the walk-out.
A large group of students just walked out of Notre Dame's commencement during VP Mike Pence's address. #ND2017 pic.twitter.com/g3dCuqPbXg
— WNDU (@16NewsNow) May 21, 2017
https://twitter.com/JoyceLJenkins/status/866340632775839744
Salute to the students of Notre Dame! Resist! ? pic.twitter.com/Uy65TuSAFa
— Michael Skolnik (@MichaelSkolnik) May 21, 2017
As you can see from the videos above, most of the students walking out on Mike Pence were women, and that’s to be expected given his far-right politics that are extremely restrictive of women’s rights. Pence’s extremist views, based on his personal religious zealotry, resulted in a serious roll back of reproductive rights while he was Governor of Indiana.
Pence did nothing short of declare war on Planned Parenthood in the Hoosier state, resulting in alarmingly high outbreaks of STDs in some of the rural areas.
While the stances and values of Mike Pence may reflect the state as a whole, he is deeply unpopular with the highly educated. The walkout was planned beforehand, led by a group named “We StaND for.”
Here is the mission statement of their Mike Pence walk-out, posted five days ago:
Mike Pence's policies target the most vulnerable groups in our society. Consider showing solidarity these groups by joining #WalkoutND pic.twitter.com/zkJBPSm3mQ
— We StaND For (@WeStandForND) May 16, 2017
The University, founded in 1842 by French immigrants, showed again today why they remain an example of civilized discourse. While Notre Dame does have a reputation as a bastion for the ultra-conservative, it is an elite, noble institution of higher learning where enlightened thought and advanced discussion comes to gather.
We saw that today at Notre Dame Stadium, just like we saw that this past July when Notre Dame leadership thoroughly condemned Lou Holtz’s uncivilized hate-speech, repugnant xenophobia and deplorable bigotry the former Fighting Irish football coach espoused as the 2016 GOP Convention.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes to WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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