Medical students walk out of ceremony in protest of speaker

After the University of Michigan failed to reconsider the keynote speaker for their white coat ceremony, medical students walked out in protest.
Dr. Kristin Collier, an assistant professor of medicine, spoke at the Sunday white coat ceremony, an event in which new medical students are welcomed and given a lab coat. Before the ceremony, more than 340 incoming and current University of Michigan medical students signed a petition opposing Collier as the keynote speaker, according to The Michigan Daily.

The petition states: “This is not simply a disagreement on personal opinion; through our demand we are standing up in solidarity against groups who are trying to take away human rights and restrict medical care.”

Collier has shared her opinion about abortion publicly. “Holding on to a view of feminism where one fights for the rights of all women and girls, especially those who are most vulnerable. I can’t not lament the violence directed at my prenatal sisters in the act of abortion, done in the name of autonomy,” she shared on social media earlier this year.