Students walk out on Pence

This article is more than 12 months old

May 23, 2017 06:00 am

WASHINGTON: Dozens of students at Indiana's Notre Dame University protested White House policies on Sunday by walking out of a commencement speech by US Vice-President Mike Pence, who criticised political correctness at American colleges.

The members of the graduating class - dressed in cap and gowns together with some 2,000 classmates - stood up and quietly left the school's football stadium when Mr Pence began delivering his speech, videos posted online showed. Others cheered and some booed.

Notre Dame is one of the country's most prominent Catholic universities.

Mr Pence, who received an honorary degree from the university, said that "far too many campuses across America have become characterised 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".

"These all-too-common practices are destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge, and they are wholly outside the America tradition," he added.- AFP