According to a report, the University of Notre Dame seemingly refused to invite Trump to speak to this year's graduating class. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, was also not contacted.
(LifeSiteNews) -- The University of Notre Dame has seemingly refused to extend President Donald Trump an invitation to speak to this year’s graduating class, breaking a nearly 70-year tradition of asking the commander-in-chief to do so.
According to The College Fix, the school has not clarified if it plans to invite Trump for its May 17 ceremonies. Reporter Claire Harrington says that “other reputable sources” have found the same.
In her report, Harrington also quoted Bill Dempsey, chairman of the Sycamore Trust, an alumni association that seeks to preserve the Catholic identity of the school.
“While neither the university nor President Trump’s office would say whether he had been invited, it seems clear he was not,” Dempsey said in a statement.
Dempsey also noted that Vance, a Catholic, has not been contacted by the school.
Vance’s “absence from the university’s commencement plans additionally conspicuous, especially after Notre Dame invited Trump’s previous vice president,” he remarked.
Notre Dame made national news in 2017 when it announced that then-Vice President Mike Pence, and not Trump, would be the speaker for its commencement. Fr. John Jenkins, the university’s president at the time, praised Pence’s “quiet earnestness” while expressing worry that if Trump appeared it would cause a “circus.”
Notre Dame traditionally invites presidents to speak at its graduation during their first year in office and has done so since 1960, the most controversial being pro-abortion President Barack Obama in 2009, whose appearance Jenkins defended despite massive blowback that even saw 80-plus persons, including priests, arrested on campus for peacefully protesting the speech.
In addition to Obama’s 2009 appearance, pro-abortion and gay “marriage” Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg appeared in 2016 and Vice President Joe Biden was given its Laetare Medal that same year.
Since then, the university willingly complied with Obama’s contraception mandate, officially sanctioned a student group for homosexuals, denied recognition to a marriage advocacy student group, and has promoted DEI hiring initiatives and celebrated June as “Pride Month” while also hosting a drag show on campus in 2023.
