Vice President Mike Pence To Give Notre Dame Commencement Address

Vice President Mike Pence will deliver the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame in May, according to the White House. The event will be held on Sunday, May 21 at the Notre Dame campus in Northern Indiana.

The vice president is an Indiana native and represented East-Central Indiana in Congress before becoming Governor of the state in 2012.

“It is extraordinarily humbling to return to my home state and address the graduates of Notre Dame,” said Vice President Pence said in a statement on Thursday. “The young adults in the Class of 2017 will leave school with the charge and opportunity to make new discoveries and assume leadership roles that will make a profound impact benefiting the lives of millions of people.”

While Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the 2016 Notre Dame graduation, this year marks the first time a vice president will be the commencement speaker. The university traditionally invites the president to speak at the graduation in their first year in office.

In December, Notre Dame students started a petition urging university president Father John Jenkins to break with tradition and not invite the President Trump to speak.

"His hateful rhetoric towards people of color, his embrace of sexual assault, and his utter lack of respect for opposing viewpoints not only render him unfit for the Oval Office, but unfit to set foot on our campus," the petition said in reference to President Trump.

The petition collected thousands of signatures from students and alumni, and there were protests on campus leading up to the decision, according to the Washington Post. The university decided to invite the vice president instead.

“It is fitting that in the 175th year of our founding on Indiana soil that Notre Dame recognize a native son who served our state and now the nation with quiet earnestness, moral conviction and a dedication to the common good characteristic of true statesmen,” Father Jenkins said in a statement.

This is not the first time a commencement speaker has caused controversy at Notre Dame. In 2009, President Barack Obama’s address at Notre Dame was marked with pro-life protests at the campus and a heckler who interrupted the speech.

President Obama at the Notre Dame Commencement via YouTube.

Other presidents who have delivered the commencement address at Notre Dame were Dwight Eisenhower in 1960, Jimmy Carter in 1977, Ronald Regan in 1981, George H.W. Bush in 1992 and George W. Bush in 2001.

Photo at top from the White House website.