Students at Georgetown University filled the auditorium at Gaston Hall as former Vice President Mike Pence prepared to speak at an event organized by an on-campus organization called Georgetown University Politics. While the seats were filled, many attendees were not there to see Pence speak. Instead, several students wanted to display their disdain for the actions displayed by the former Vice President and former President Donald Trump while in office. Approximately ten minutes into his speech, a group of about 50 students locked arms and left the venue.
“Our protest against Mike Pence was not about Mike Pence. It was about being there for each other as a community on the night that our university decided to invite this man, to legitimize this man on the stage of Gaston Hall,” Georgetown University student Sanchi Rohira told the Georgetown Voice.
Pence dismissed the group’s actions by saying that they were “walking out on people who might have a different point of view.” However, the matter is much more complicated to the students who made the decision to walk out. For more than an hour, students stood on the steps of Gaston Hall and called out Pence’s remarks regarding LGBTIA+ rights and reproductive rights.
“Of course, we all understand the importance of free speech and of bipartisanship and of showing all sides of an argument,” Georgetown University student Soraya Bata told Margaret Hartigan and Anthony Bonavita of the Georgetown Voice.
“What we’re contesting is that it’s unacceptable to be racist, to be homophobic, to be xenophobic, to use rhetoric that promotes violence such as replacement theory, which [are things] that Pence has engaged in a lot.”
