340 incoming medical students stage walk out on pro-life keynote speaker

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University of Michigan Medical Students Walk Out on Pro-Life Speaker at Initiation Ceremony

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Incoming University of Michigan Medical School students staged a walkout of the school’s White Coat Ceremony Sunday to protest the choice of a pro-life doctor as the ceremony’s keynote speaker.

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Students had previously attempted to pressure the administration to cancel the speech of Dr. Kristin Collier, a pro-life assistant professor of medicine at the university; they submitted a petition claiming that the choice of her as a speaker made them “doubt whether the school will continue to advocate for reproductive rights.”

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However, the school’s dean, Dr. Marschall Runge, refused to disinvite her, citing the “critical importance of diversity of personal thought and ideas, which is foundational to academic freedom and excellence.”

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Collier’s speech was not political at all, nor was it planned to be. She did not talk about abortion or praise the overturning of Roe v. Wade. She simply gave advice to the students before they entered their profession.

Students wanted to cancel her simply because publicly expressed pro-life beliefs. They could not stand to hear from a speaker with whom they disagreed, even when she was not espousing her views to them.

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