Students walk out of Mike Pence’s commencement address

‘We walk out in dignity and solidarity with all marginalized people affected by Pence’s politics’


Over 100 students walked out of Mike Pence’s commencement speech at Notre Dame today.

As the Vice President took the mic to begin his address to the Class of 2017, graduates got up and left in protest.

Students leave Mike Pence's graduation address

Students walk out of Mike Pence's graduation address at Notre Dame

Posted by The Tab US on Sunday, May 21, 2017

A graduation event for walkouts is taking place outside Pence’s speech:

Luis Miranda, a graduating student and organizer of the protest explained why he wanted to make a stand against Pence.

“We have so many diverse people on our campus,” he told The Tab. “I have classmates and friends from communities who have been directly targeted by Mike Pence. As governor of Indiana, he has targeted people from the LGBT+ community, he’s fought against sanctuary cities. We could go on and on.”

“But we’re not doing this for the numbers and we’re not doing it because we think we can change Mike Pence,” he explained. “We’re doing this because at this university, we’ve learned about human dignity as part of the Catholic teaching we received – we’re going to stand up for the vulnerable, for the poor, for the marginalized.”

Speaking after the walkout, Luis told The Tab: “It went fantastic. It was so powerful, we’re really happy. I feel like there’s something good that happened here today. I feel very hopeful about the future.”

More to follow.