A video shows dozens of University of Michigan medical students walking out of their White Coat ceremony, an important rite of passage marking students’ transition to future medical professionals, as pro-life professor Dr. Kristin Collier approached the podium to deliver her keynote address.
“Good afternoon, I’m quite honored to have been chosen as this year’s White Coat ceremony speaker,” Dr. Collier, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS), could be heard saying in the video while the medical students walked out.
One Twitter user shared the footage in a tweet, which has since garnered over 66,000 retweets and 558,000 likes as of this writing.
Watch Below:
Incoming medical students walk out at University of Michigan’s white coat ceremony as the keynote speaker is openly anti-abortion pic.twitter.com/Is7KmVV811
— Scorpiio (@PEScorpiio) July 24, 2022
While Dr. Collier’s speech was not expected to be focused on abortion, students nonetheless circulated a petition demanding to remove her as the keynote speaker due to the professor’s personal belief that women should not kill their unborn children.
“Dr. Kristin Collier has shared multiple anti-choice posts on her public social media and has made similar comments in interviews,” lamented the petition, signed by current and incoming medical students at the University of Michigan Medical School.
“These comments are antithetical to the tenets of reproductive justice as restrictions on abortion affect women of color, other marginalized women, and trans people disproportionately,” the students added.
The petition went on to “demand that UM stands in solidarity with us and selects a speaker whose values align with institutional policies, students, and the broader medical community.”
“We demand that the University of Michigan listen to our voices! We demand that the University of Michigan support reproductive justice!! We demand an alternative speaker for this year’s White Coat Ceremony!!!” the students exclaimed in their petition.
One student expressed that she is “scared” to be attending a school in a state in which she may not be able to kill her unborn child in a post-Roe America.
“I’m already scared that I’ve chosen to attend school in a state where I may very well lose my right to a safe abortion, and the decision by UMMS to have Dr. Collier as a keynote speaker makes this even scarier,” the student said. “It makes me seriously doubt whether the school will continue to advocate for reproductive rights.”
The petition to remove Dr. Collier, however, was ultimately denied by University of Michigan Medical School dean, Dr. Marschall Runge.
“The White Coat Ceremony is not a platform for discussion of controversial issues, and Dr. Collier never planned to address a divisive topic as part of her remarks,” Dr. Runge said in a statement.
“Our values speak about honoring the critical importance of diversity of personal thought and ideas, which is foundational to academic freedom and excellence,” Dr. Runge added. “We would not revoke a speaker because they have different personal ideas than others.”
The university said 168 new medical students attended this year’s White Coat ceremony, an initiation ceremony where they took the White Coat Pledge and the Hippocratic Oath.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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