Notre Dame Students Plan To Walk Out Of Mike Pence Speech

SOUTH BEND, IN – Vice President Mike Pence's Notre Dame commencement speech Sunday will be boycotted by a group of students as they walk out out when he begins, one of the students told the South Bend Tribune. Protest organizer Bryan Ricketts told the newspaper he expects 50 to 100 fellow graduating students to silently leave just as the vice president starts speaking to nearly 2,100 graduating students and their families.

Friends and family in the audience may join in the walkout, which is being organized by a group of student activist groups on campus called We StaND For, the newspaper reports. Walkout organizers say it is intended to protest policies he defended during his governorship. Pence took aim at LGBTQ individuals, immigrants and refugees. (To receive more Indianapolis news and breaking alerts, please subscribe here.)

In 2015, Pence signed into law a "religious Freedom" bill that would have allowed businesses and individuals to refuse services to LGBTQ, but he was pressured by the business community to change the law. Also in 2015, Pence ordered state agencies to stop resettling Syrian refugees, but – in response – Notre Dame President the Rev. John I. Jenkins issued a statement urging Americans to welcome Syrian refugees, noting they were fleeing violence in their homeland.

Though Ricketts sees a growing openness for LGBTQ students at Notre Dame, the progress has taken a long time, he told The National Catholic reporter. However, Ricketts said he's leaving Notre Dame as the school becomes more willing to talk about LGBT issues than the one he encountered five years ago.

"I see that many people want to live out their Catholic faith by allowing everyone to feel welcomed," he told the newspaper. "And there are plenty of LGBT people here who are also faithful to Catholicism and who continue to be practicing Catholics. I don't think there's necessarily any conflict between the two. Notre Dame is a place where all that is being sorted out."

University officials don’t plan to stop the walkout, and student organizers have contacted Notre Dame Security Police to make them aware of their plans and said they will leave quietly.

“We would intervene in any protest only if the ceremony was seriously disrupted or anyone’s safety was put at risk,” Notre Dame spokesman Paul Browne said Wednesday in an email to the South Bend Tribune. “We expect neither.”

Caption: Some Notre Dame University students are planning to boycott Sunday's commencement speech by Mike Pence.

Photo Credit: Brendan Thorne/Getty Images News/Getty Images