Pence went on to criticize the Biden administration, saying that “the left hand doesn’t know what the far-left hand is doing” and accusing Biden of embracing “wokeism,” which Pence called an “all encompassing assault on American culture and values.”
“I hardly have to tell conservatives on any campus anywhere in America about the assault on the freedom of speech that’s taking place in institutions of higher education,” Pence said. He went on to denounce Critical Race Theory, saying that it is teaching “children as young as kindergarten to be ashamed of their skin color.”
“Critical Race Theory is nothing less than state-sponsored racism and it should be rejected by every parent in every school of every race and creed and color,” Pence said. “America is not a racist country.”
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Pence then encouraged those in attendance to find a way to serve their nation, whether through military service or public office. He then explained that the duty of every public official is to faithfully defend the Constitution.
“I recited that [oath] standing in an inauguration in 2017, on a Bible that I’d used for many years, and on the Bible of Ronald Reagan,” Pence said. “Yours has to be a generation that keeps your oath — keeps our nation’s oath — to the Constitution. And as the Good Book says, ‘You gotta be willing to keep your oath even when it hurts.’” Pence’s quotation came from Psalm 15:4.
Pence again encouraged the students to study the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, encouraging them to “grow, as the Bible says, ‘in wisdom and in stature, in grace before God, in grace before men.’” He encouraged them to develop a vision, quoting Proverbs 29:18, “for without a vision the people perish.”
Referencing the idea that people are created with inalienable rights, Pence said, “The foundation of America is freedom, but the foundation of freedom is faith. Take time in your life, search your heart, and I would say find a way to look into that Creator and see what they have for you.”
Pence Fields Questions From Students
After Pence’s speech, he fielded questions from the audience. While some questioners expressed their admiration for the former vice president, other questions were critical in nature.
One questioner objected to Pence’s sterling endorsement of Reagan throughout his speech, citing the Reagan administration’s foreign policies in Guatemala, El Salvador, Iraq, and Nicaragua, which have often been criticized. The student asked, “Why are you glorifying this man?”
Pence responded by expressing that he’d like to go to the library with the students to show him some “different facts,” going on to say, “When Ronald Reagan came into office, it was a time of great national challenge. And I remember in those days, it was generally a thought that the Soviet Union was on track to dominate the world…but Ronald Reagan had a different view.”
