The content of Vice President Mike Pence’s commencement address at the University of Notre Dame was overshadowed in the media by students who walked out of the ceremony in protest of his policies. But the portion of the vice president’s speech that touched on free speech echoed the sentiments former President Barack Obama shared on the subject just last year in a commencement speech at Howard University and in his speech to Notre Dame’s graduating class of 2009 as well.
Here’s what Obama said at Howard’s commencement ceremony in 2016:
Don’t try to shut folks out, don’t try to shut them down, no matter how much you might disagree with them. There’s been a trend around the country of trying to get colleges to disinvite speakers with a different point of view, or disrupt a politician’s rally. Don’t do that — no matter how ridiculous or offensive you might find the things that come out of their mouths … If the other side has a point, learn from them. If they’re wrong, rebut them. Teach them. Beat them on the battlefield of ideas.
Per presidential tradition fulfilled this year by Pence, President Obama gave a commencement address at Notre Dame in 2009. Given his pro-choice views, Obama, like Pence, faced protests during his appearance. But in his remarks, Obama implored students to engage in the public dialogue with: “Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words,” urging them not to reduce their opponent’s perspective to caricature.
Eight years later, Pence also used his opportunity to send Notre Dame’s class of 2017 into adulthood by urging them to “be leaders for the freedom of thought and expression.”
Sound familiar?
“If the emanations of free speech were charted on a map like infrared heat signatures, one would hope that universities would be the hottest places — red and purple with dispute; not dark blue and white — frozen into cant, orthodoxy, and intellectual stasis,” Pence said.
“Far too many campuses across America have become characterized by speech codes, safe zones, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness,” the vice president observed, “all of which amounts to nothing less than suppression of the freedom of speech.”
“These all-too-common practices are destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge,” he continued. “And they are wholly outside the American tradition.”
Quoting deceased Notre Dame President Theodore Hesburgh, Pence called on graduates to ensure America remains “a place where the endless conversation is harbored and not foreclosed.”
Following the lead of the conservative movement, many liberal thought leaders, like Obama, have spoken out against the culture of censorship promulgated by progressives on college campuses. Unfortunately, however, no matter the vehicle, nothing short of full-throated agreement satisfies the mobs of conformists seeking to monopolize speech at universities from coast to coast.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
