So the ghastly ghostly one’s scheduled speech at this years commencement at University of Notre Dame is being protested by senior students “who say that Pence's presence on campus will make them feel unsafe to have someone who openly is offensive but also demeaning of their humanity and of their life and of their identity.”
According to campusreform.org
Mike Pence will be the first U.S. vice president to deliver the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, which traditionally invites the president during his first year in office.
- Liberal students have been agitating against the potential invitation of Trump, circulating a petition in December and holding a rally Monday.
- The ND College Republicans are pleased with the decision, saying they are "honored" that the former Indiana governor will return to his home state for the speech.
The #NotMyCommencementSpeaker is a visual campaign.
For seniors Imanne Mondane and Jourdyhn Williams, the University’s selection of Mike Pence as this year’s Commencement speaker represents an endorsement of the values supported by President Donald Trump, which they said silences certain minority groups. To combat what they believe will be the adverse effects Pence will have on campus, Mondane and Williams launched the #notmycommencementspeaker campaign, which took place throughout the past week and consisted of students “holding a whiteboard in [their] hands with direct quotes from Pence that are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic,” according to the campaign’s Facebook page.
Republicans on campus are very excited about Pence as the speaker.
“The protests by the College Democrats are not unexpected. Since November, Democrats are in total denial that the American people lost faith in their vision for the country,” Burke told Campus Reform. “The American people have spoken and they have clearly stated that they feel that the Republican vision for the country is a vast improvement over the ideology of the Democratic Party, as the American people put Republicans in the White House and both Houses of Congress.”
...no comment.
It’s not clear that Trump was ever invited to speak at the commencement anyway.
Some more on the purpose of the whiteboard action:
“What we want to do is give a voice to those who have been silenced,” Mondane said.“It’s not even a matter of feeling like they have been silenced — they have been silenced on our campus and in our country,” she said.
…
Once all the photos have been collected, Mondane and Williams said they will assemble Facebook and Twitter pages to tell the stories of students who participated in the campaign. These pages will “hopefully” serve as the first step in fostering a greater dialogue about Pence’s invitation, Mondane said.
“We’re going to have a follow-up discussion in the weeks to come,” Mondane said. “Everyone is welcome to the discussion, and we’re going to have an event and advertise, but we really want to get the voices there who may not agree with us and who may take issue with what we’re doing. We both have an equal platform, and we’re on an equal playing field where one narrative isn’t totally dominant of the other”