And on the seventh day we witnessed the best and brightest young minds in America openly reject a Trump administration peon as he tried to give a speech. Notre Dame graduates walked out in droves this morning as Vice President Mike Pence attempted to deliver their commencement speech.
The walk out was organized by a student group called We Stand For who wrote on Facebook the protest was to represent those affected by Pence's actions and politics.
"We invite all students, faculty, and families who will be attending the Commencement ceremony to walk out with us as we take back our graduation and show our dissatisfaction with the University's selection of Mike Pence as honored speaker," the group wrote online. "We also will walk out in dignity and solidarity with all marginalized people affected by Pence's politics, both on this campus and throughout our nation."
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 (@WNDU) May 21, 2017
Students can be seen in all documentation from the event calmly leaving the event without disrupting the proceedings. Ironically, Pence spoke about free speech in his address, complaining about how "political correctness" has gone to far in America.
"While this institution has maintained an atmosphere of civility and open debate, far too many campuses across America have become characterized by speech codes, safe zones, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness — all of which amounts to nothing less than suppression of the freedom of speech," he said in the speech.
Some of the others present booed the protesters, who nevertheless made their message clear and found support for their walk out online.
POWER to the students who walked out of Mike Pence's commencement speech 🌈✊🏽
— Eliel Cruz-Lopez (@elielcruz) May 21, 2017
congratulations to the notre dame students living my dream of publicly telling mike pence that he is bad
— jim b (@jimboch02) May 21, 2017