Eliyahu Gasson | opinions editor

Duquesne University President Ken Gormley wasn’t expecting to be at President Donald Trump’s inaugural luncheon on Jan. 20. He wasn’t expecting to go to the inauguration at all. But when his friend and former roommate’s wife’s ticket became available, he thought it would be best for him to attend the historic event as a scholar and a representative of the university.

“The more I can see things, see history taking place, the better opportunity I have to write about it,” Gormley said to The Duke. “When you have an opportunity, you also use these things to try to get some positive things accomplished for the university.”

Gormley said he’s attended a number of presidential events in the past, including one of former President Barack Obama’s inaugurations and the first days of the impeachment trials of former President Bill Clinton and Trump. He planned to attend the ceremony outdoors, but changed his mind when the inauguration was moved indoors due to the cold temperatures expected in Washington, D.C. Either way, he still planned on going to the Capitol for a business meeting that weekend and had plans to stay with U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, his former roommate from Harvard Law School.

“Once the inauguration moved indoors, I was going to just go home because I wasn’t really interested in going to one of these things in a basketball arena or whatever,” he said. “And that night before the last minute, [Warner’s] wife’s ticket became available.”

The ticket he received from Warner was for the main inaugural event in the Capitol Building, an opportunity mainly available to members of Congress and a few dignitaries. His ticket didn’t grant him a seat in the Rotunda, where the official swearing in was taking place, but it did get him a seat in the visitor center downstairs.

“It was a total surprise to me. To be honest, I was wearing a borrowed suit coat from Sen. Warner,” Gormley said.

As Gormley tells it, the interns that organized the event said that “‘those who were spouses could go up to this lunch’ and I said ‘well, does that include me?’ And they said, ‘I guess so.’”

“I had to grab something to eat and then head back to the Warner’s house and get my car and head home, but I figured, oh, I’ll just go up briefly,” he said.

Gormley said that he didn’t speak to many people at the luncheon. He explained that, despite being at the same table, he did not speak to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“I didn’t pay attention, but he was on the other side of the table,” he said. “I didn’t talk to him.”

Also at Gormley’s table was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He said he spoke to Kavanaugh, who he had interviewed for his book “The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr.” Kavanaugh worked for Special Prosecutor Ken Starr in the investigation that led to Clinton’s impeachment.

He met Vice President JD Vance through U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s husband. He also briefly spoke to U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, a Republican from Pennsylvania and a former student of his, U.S. Rep. Suzanne DelBene, a Democrat from Washington and House minority leader U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.

“These conversations were 30 seconds because I was the least important person in the room,” Gormley said. “I didn’t really interact with anyone else because I didn’t know any of these people … I actually left early. I tried not to be impolite, but I wanted to get home.”

Gormley said he went back to Northern Virginia, got his car from the Warners’ house and drove home.

“I got on the road and stopped to get a Dr. Pepper and a chocolate chip cookie to keep me awake, and that was it,” he said.

Reactions from students

A photo of Gormley at the Inauguration from the New York Times garnered attention from Duquesne students. A user on Fizz shared the photo with a caption that read: “This isn’t very spiritan values of him.” The post had over 1,500 likes as of Wednesday night. Posts also went out on Facebook and Instagram expressing either disapproval of his presence at the luncheon or confusion as to how the president of a relatively small Catholic university wound up at the same table as a tech billionaire and a Supreme Court justice.

“That could be a useful experience,” Elizabeth Madden, a senior history major at Duquesne said.

Madden said they understood the negative reactions from people who do not like Trump.

Michael Criscito, a fourth-year pharmacy major, said he was surprised when he first saw the photo.

“I was like ‘wow, he was in the room with the elite’,” he said.

Gormley served as the mayor of Forest Hills, Pa. from 1998 to 2001 and was nominated by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf to fill a vacant seat on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 2015. He is also a registered Democrat.

“… that’s no secret,” Gormely said.

Given what he knew about his past as a politician, Criscito said he didn’t think he was taking a side in favor of Trump.

“I don’t think that it was making any statement politically for him to be there,” he said. “I know that he has written books about Clinton and Reagan and whatnot, so I think he’s probably somebody that was just there for the importance, not because of his views.”

Comments on the Trump Administration

The second Trump administration spared no time in issuing a number of executive orders, some of which have been blocked by the courts due to potentially exceeding the power that the president has.

“I think at least the lawyers on his team have to know that a number of these things are dead on arrival when they get to the courts,” Gormley said.

He explained that one of the executive orders which targets birthright citizenship is “flatly unconstitutional.”

“It directly contravenes the 14th Amendment, and I see no chance of that sticking,” he said.

Gormley said he also objects to Trump’s pardons for the people who were charged for their actions on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol building in an attempt to prevent Vice President Mike Pence from certifying the results of the election. He told The Duke that he had a particular issue with the pardoning of those who engaged in violent acts.

“Violence plays no role in how we resolve our differences as a nation,” he said. “I don’t think that the Trump campaign has always lived up to that notion of civility and civil discourse, and I think the rhetoric has been dangerous at times. I’ve been hoping that once President Trump took office, he would moderate that language to a certain extent.

“I don’t know if that’s going to happen,” Gormley said.