No Notre Dame students walked out before walking on graduation day when Bill Cosby delivered the commencement address 27 years ago. Vice President Mike Pence, who does not socialize with women at venues serving alcohol let alone confuse roofies for olives when making martinis for the gentler sex, received no such warm welcome in South Bend this weekend.
Whyba did Notre Dameba give an honorary degreeba to a guy who gave Quaabaludes to allba thoseba ladies but its graduatesba refused to listen to the viceba president of the United Statesba? Free Jell-O Pudding Pops for any and all who can answer that question asked in a Philadelphia junkyard.
“I would submit that the increasing intolerance and suppression of the time-honored tradition of free expression on our campuses jeopardizes the liberties of every American,” the vice president explained to those gathered. “This should not, and must not be met with silence.”
Missing their own irony and a message they really, really needed to hear, a group of students departed during the vice president’s speech. They did this in the name of inclusion. Pence spoke, more coherently, on the same topic.
The Hoosier, who sat stoically when the cast of Hamilton harangued him from the stage last year, told the college graduates:
This university is a vanguard of freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas at time sadly, when 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. But Notre Dame is an exception, an island in a sea of conformity, so far spared from the noxious wave that seems to be rushing over much of academia. 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.
Pence didn’t need to make the point. The protesting students made it for him.
“Pence’s policies have marginalized our vulnerable sisters and brothers for their religion, skin color, or sexual orientation,” the group We Stand for ND claimed. “We will walk out in silence, with respect for the human dignity of those with whom we disagree and with an invitation to the rest of the community to build an inclusive future together.”
That “inclusive future” strangely means turning a deaf ear to a former Indiana congressman and governor now a heartbeat away from the presidency. Sixty-five thousand dollars a year no longer buys you Introduction to Logic?
Hey, hey, hey! Bill Cosby keeps his honorary degree. Mike Pence gets told to stay away.
Even Dumb Donald knows the brats look like school in the summertime: no class.
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