When the Vice President Comes to Campus

By Hunter Morrow, Chairman, University of Iowa YAF

When I founded my Young Americans for Freedom chapter three years ago at the University of Iowa (UI), I never imagined that we would host a Vice President of the United States. As a freshman at UI, I encountered many liberal professors, even one who was a self-professed communist. He and I constantly debated issues, including freedom of speech, Second Amendment rights, and government welfare, but the already-liberal students in the class would side with him before I had a chance to change their minds.

Then I discovered Young America’s Foundation, the parent organization of Young Americans for Freedom, after watching a YAF campus lecture by Ben Shapiro on YouTube. When I learned that a YAF chapter didn’t exist at UI, I elected to start one myself to bring a conservative voice to our campus, which had scarcely been present before.

Our chapter’s first two years of operation were successful, as we organized in favor of a border wall—

Vice President Mike Pence speaks at the University of Iowa as part of YAF’s Preserving American Liberty & Freedom Lecture Series.

drawing pushback from liberal groups on campus—and hosted conservative lectures featuring commentator Elisha Krauss and 37th Treasurer of the United States Bay Buchanan.

But when COVID-19 restrictions came to campus, our chapter was hit hard. Therefore, in 2021, we wanted to return to campus activism in full force. That is why we jumped at the exciting opportunity to bring Vice President Mike Pence to campus through YAF.

Vice President Pence is a strong voice for conservative principles, especially those that we hold dear in our YAF chapter—individual freedom, a strong national defense, free enterprise, “When I founded my Young Americans for Freedom chapter, I never imagined that we would host a Vice President of the United States.”

— HUNTER MORROW and traditional values. We felt that his presence would energize apathetic conservatives on campus, and that is exactly what happened.

Early on in the planning process, our chapter, like many YAF chapters, met pushback from both our student government and liberal students on campus. While university administrators were willing to work with us, the student government denied our budget request for the event—based on a “precedent” that was not stated in any written policy or practiced within the last two years. We gathered recent examples that contradicted the student government’s

About Vice President Mike Pence

Young America’s Foundation has worked closely with Vice President Mike Pence for two decades to inspire countless young people with the ideas of individual freedom, free enterprise, a strong national defense, and traditional values.

The Vice President has addressed Foundation audiences at student conferences nationwide, educating America’s future leaders on a broad range of important topics, including American exceptionalism, U.S. foreign policy, national security, the right to life, and many others. He and his wife, Second Lady Karen Pence, have visited the Reagan Ranch multiple times along with their family.

Today, as YAF’s Ronald Reagan Presidential Scholar, Vice President Pence hosts a video podcast, American Freedom (see page eight), to communicate conservative values through one of today’s most popular mediums; publishes a regular op-ed on issues

Vice President Mike Pence addresses YAF’s 41st annual National Conservative Student Conference in 2019. Vice President Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, along with their daughter, Charlotte Pence Bond, and son-in-law, Henry Bond, visit the Reagan Ranch in 2021.

relevant to the next generation; and continues to address audiences at the Foundation’s life-changing student conferences.

He also delivers his pro-freedom message directly to young people nationwide through YAF’s unrivaled campus lecture program (see page 21). He joins a long line of distinguished leaders—including Lady Margaret Thatcher, Attorneys General Ed Meese and John Ashcroft, Ben Shapiro, William F. Buckley, Jr., Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Michael Reagan, among others—who have given YAF campus lectures and understood the importance of educating and inspiring young people with our nation’s founding principles. ————————————————————————— To learn more about YAF’s campus lecture tour featuring Vice President Mike Pence, please contact YAF Vice President Patrick X. Coyle at pcoyle@yaf.org or 1-800-USA-1776.

The executive board members of the University of Iowa YAF chapter meet with Vice President Pence backstage prior to his speech to a packed campus audience.

The University of Iowa YAF chapter thanks Vice President Pence on Twitter for speaking to the campus audience.

University of Iowa YAF leader Mary Weston takes a selfie with Vice President Pence.

claims, forcing them to change their stance.

Our YAF chapter even invited liberal student groups on campus to attend our lecture and ask questions of Vice President Pence during the questionand-answer portion of the event. However, they opted to vainly protest the lecture and tear down our flyers rather than participate in a dialogue.

After months of planning with Young America’s Foundation, the big day finally arrived. UI students lined up in droves outside of the Iowa Memorial Union to hear Vice President Pence speak, as a small group of protestors tried to deter attendees from entering the venue. Our UI YAF vice chairman, Garrison Allen, maintained our respectful approach, speaking with some of these protestors and again inviting them inside. In response, he was met with vulgar language and middle fingers, and one protestor called him a “subhuman insect” for promoting conservative thought.

Vice President Pence’s speech—part of YAF’s Preserving American Liberty & Freedom Lecture Series—was titled “How to Save America from the Woke Left.” The Vice President boldly delivered a message of freedom, optimism, and respect for the U.S. Constitution to a crowd of 600 students and community members, as well as tens of thousands of online viewers. Chants of “USA” rang out when he took the stage and again when a protestor tried to shout him down. UI

Hunter Morrow, chairman of the University of Iowa YAF chapter, introduces Vice President Mike Pence to the campus audience and online viewers.

A student asks a question of Vice President Pence following his speech. YAF leader Hunter Morrow meets with Vice President Pence, a highlight of Morrow’s experience at the University of Iowa.

YAF members and other students left inspired and encouraged to fight for conservative values.

For me, the highlight of the night was meeting Vice President Pence backstage with a small group of our YAF chapter’s leaders and members. He was extremely personable, sharing his thoughts on the conservative wave in Virginia and taking the time to learn about UI YAF’s work on campus and about each of us personally. He told me he was proud of the work our YAF chapter was doing, something that will always stick with me.

We would not have been able to achieve such an ambitious goal without the unwavering support of Young America’s Foundation. YAF helped us advertise our event and work with university administrators throughout the entire process. The YAF staff provided us with the resources and tools necessary to overcome obstacles. There is no better organization within the Conservative Movement for students to be involved with.

The success of this event has given University of Iowa YAF a more prominent platform on campus. With Young America’s Foundation’s help, we are excited to continue challenging the status quo on campus by hosting more conservative speakers, facilitating discussion and debate, and fighting our university’s anti-free speech policies in the process!