Dozens of incoming medical students at the University of Michigan Medical School walked out of their own induction ceremony Sunday in protest of the event’s keynote speaker, Dr. Kristin Collier — a Michigan faculty member and primary care physician who has publicly voiced her opposition to abortion rights.
A video shot by Detroit resident Brendan Scorpio shows students who’d just received their white coats in the school’s annual White Coat Ceremony walking out of the auditorium as Collier begins her address. A number of other attendees join them.
“The overall message that the students wanted to push was that reproductive rights, abortion, is health care,” Scorpio, who was there to support an incoming student, told NPR. “Reproductive rights for anyone who is able to give birth are incredibly important and should be something that’s allowed to everyone in the country.”
Scorpio estimated that roughly 70 of the 170 incoming students walked out, followed by some friends and family “in solidarity.” Collier, a graduate of the U-M Medical School, reportedly did not make explicit reference to abortion in her remarks at the ceremony.
Last month, Collier told the Catholic newsletter The Pillar that she and other like-minded health care providers advocate for the “expansion of rights for some of the most vulnerable members of the human family,” referring to fetuses.
“There is no more beautiful testament to the growth of society when it extends rights to a vulnerable population that did not have them before,” Collier said in the interview, which was published the same day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
She has also tweeted her views against abortion rights, writing in May: “I can’t not lament the violence directed at my prenatal sisters in the act of abortion, done in the name of autonomy.”
Prior to the ceremony, a group of students petitioned to have Collier replaced as the keynote speaker, CNN reports.
“While we support the rights of freedom of speech and religion, an anti-choice speaker as a representative of the University of Michigan undermines the University’s position on abortion and supports the non-universal, theology-rooted platform to restrict abortion access, an essential part of medical care,” the petition reads in part.
Elliott Brannon, a medical student who was involved in organizing the petition, told CNN that more than 300 medical students signed it. The medical school currently has 785 students enrolled, according to its website.
The university told numerous outlets in an emailed statement that Collier was voted keynote speaker by the medical school’s honor society.
“The White Coat Ceremony is not a platform for discussion of controversial issues,” the school’s statement said. “Dr. Collier never planned to address a divisive topic as part of her remarks. However, the University of Michigan does not revoke an invitation to a speaker based on their personal beliefs.”
The university said in its statement that it remains “committed to providing high quality, safe reproductive care for patients, across all their reproductive health needs,” including abortion care.