‘Woke left’ to be topic of Mike Pence speech at UNC-Chapel Hill

Former Vice President Mike Pence will speak on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus this month, one of various events the potential Republican presidential candidate has taken part in over recent months.

His discussion — entitled “Saving America from the Woke Left” — will be hosted by the UNC College Republicans and conservative group Young America’s Foundation. It will take place on April 26 at the Carolina Union Great Hall.

Pence has hosted a series of discussion events through the Young America’s Foundation, the most recent at the University of Alabama this week. He’s also led discussions at Stanford University and the University of Virginia over the last year.

He is expected to deliver a speech and lead a Q&A session afterward, according to the event’s information page.

At his most recent appearance in Alabama, Pence criticized President Joe Biden’s administration and Biden’s support for the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. He also voiced his opposition to critical race theory — the cross-disciplinary examination of how race and ethnicity factor into U.S. current events and history of racism — being taught in schools.

“It should be banned from every school at every level in every state in America,” Pence said during his Alabama speech.

Pence’s former running mate, former President Donald Trump, is once again campaigning for president. Pence’s UNC-Chapel Hill event will take place weeks after Trump was indicted in New York. He faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree for his alleged role in a scandal involving hush money payments to an adult film star that prosecutors say he was having a sexual relationship with.

He is the first former president to receive a criminal charge and indictment. Pence commented on the indictment during his Alabama event.

“The very idea that you would indict a former president of the United States of America on a 7-year-old campaign finance issue is an outrage,” he said during the Q&A session.

Pence has previously said he is considering running a 2024 presidential campaign, and said in an interview last month with NBC News he will make a decision “by the spring.”

That decision could be complicated by a court order that Pence received to testify before a federal grand jury regarding alleged efforts by Trump to undermine the 2020 election. Trump has since appealed that order.

Tickets for the April 26 event at UNC are available at yaf.org/events. It is free and open to the public.