Today’s college campuses are full of social justice warriors, snowflakes so prone to anxiety-inducing triggers that “safe zones” have sprouted everywhere to protect them from views different from their own.
Sadly, no university is immune to the spread of intolerance perpetrated by liberals, who demand that any dissenting idea or speech be squelched.
The University of Notre Dame is no different. The Catholic research university near South Bend, Indiana, was selected for the high honor of having a sitting vice president deliver the commencement address. But a couple dozen students decided that they wouldn’t hear the message delivered by Mike Pence, instead rising shortly after he was introduced and walking out.
A video of the walk-out is extraordinary. The crowd cheers when Pence is introduced, but boos loudly when the students rise to walk out.
Pence, always classy, didn’t acknowledge the walkout. But he did chide those purveying the current state of intolerance on campuses by saying in his address that “free speech and civility are waning on campuses across America.”
“Notre Dame is a campus where deliberation is welcomed, where opposing views are debated, and where every speaker, no matter how unpopular or unfashionable, is afforded the right to air their views in the open for all to hear,” he said — even though it apparently failed to rise to that high mark. Still, Pence praised Notre Dame for maintaining an “atmosphere of civility and open debate,” while condemning other campuses where there are “safe zones, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness, all of which amounts to nothing less than suppression of the freedom of speech.”
“The increasing intolerance and suppression of the time-honored tradition of free expression on our campuses jeopardizes the liberties of every American,” Pence said. “This should not and must not be met with silence.”
Nataline Duffy, who attended with her husband Thomas to watch their son graduate, told the Indianapolis Star the walkout was disgraceful.
“We think it’s in poor taste. We think it’s disrespectful. It’s so unnecessary. This is a good man who is coming here for graduation,” she said. “I think better of Notre Dame students that they’d do this kind of thing. But it’s a very small group. I don’t think they represent Notre Dame at all.”