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On Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, while many members of the Notre Dame community were making their way into the DeBartolo Hall auditorium to listen to a lecture by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a group of students with a different opinion of his presence on campus organized outside of the venue. At 3:30 p.m., members of the organizations Student Coalition for Immigration Advocacy (SCIA), Student Voices for Palestine (SVP), SolidarityND and Notre Dame College Democrats met on DeBartolo Quad to set up for their peaceful protest of the event.
Over the course of the afternoon, student leaders Jocelyn Limón from SCIA, Jamil Allan from SVP, Connor Marrott from SolidarityND, and Olivia Anderson and Trista Brantley from College Democrats established the rules for participants, led chants to demonstrate frustration and spoke on the values of their respective clubs. In particular, SCIA presented anonymous student testimonials from the immigrant student body who felt threatened by DeSantis’ presence on the Notre Dame campus.
“We think that Notre Dame’s Catholic values don’t align with the anti-immigrant and refugee rhetoric used by Ron DeSantis,” stated SCIA President Jocelyn Limón, “Notre Dame prides itself on the love that God has for all his children and inviting someone who spreads hate doesn’t align with this sentiment. We value free speech and it is within Notre Dame’s right to invite any speaker. That being said, we also think it’s within our rights as students to call out hypocrisy between the words and actions of the university.”
While the protest was led by student leaders, the event was approved and monitored by the Student Activities Office (SAO). “It was always our intent to have the event approved by the university so we would not put the students involved at risk,” stated SolidarityND Board Member Connor Marrott, “If we did not receive approval we would not have gone through with the protest.” While by no means easy to organize, the students involved in planning the protest expressed appreciation to the university. “The fact that SAO, a body within the university, allowed us to express our opposition to the event shows that Notre Dame does give a voice to its students that feel marginalized to some degree,” stated Limón.
Running from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., the protest went largely uncontested. It was not until roughly 5:15 p.m., the concluding time of DeSantis’ event, that students and faculty from the Notre Dame community witnessed the ongoing protest. That being said, all parties remained respectful of one another. “At no point in time did we or the people leaving the event engage in verbal or physical conflict. I was really proud to see that Notre Dame students were able to coexist within these intense disagreements,” Marrott stated, “I think Notre Dame students have a unique understanding of human dignity whether or not disagreements occur.”
After the successful completion of the protest, student leaders were left hopeful for the future of demonstration on the Notre Dame campus. Upon its conclusion, Marrott expressed his gratitude to the students who made their voices heard. “It’s about building community in resistance to hate and that’s something I look forward to continuing and offering to students. So stay tuned for more protests.”