Eliyahu Gasson | editor-in-chief

Former Vice President Mike Pence urged Americans to “restore a threshold of civility in public life” in the Power Center Ballroom last week during this year’s annual Civil Discourse Series moderated by Duquesne President Ken Gormley.

The Nov. 6 panel, which also featured the Marine Corps Chaplain Alan T. Baker and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, focused on the intersection of faith, democracy and civility in politics and public service.

Pence first ran for office in 1988 and again in 1990 as the Republican candidate for Indiana’s second congressional district. He lost both times to Democratic incumbent Philip R. Sharp.

He said despite his strong faith, he thinks he fell short of his values through the use of negative campaign ads during those elections.

“The Bible tells us as Christian believers to do unto others as we’d have them do unto us. But politics often teaches us to do unto others before they do unto us, and I got caught up in that. When it was all over, I had a very deep sense of regret about what I’d been caught up into,” he said.

Pence went on to tell the crowd that he has tried to live up to his values since his first two attempts to be elected to public office.

“I think democracy depends on heavy doses of civility, and I think the American people long for us to restore a threshold of civility to public life,” he said.

Baker filled in via Zoom for Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives Margaret Kibben, who was unable to attend the panel due to the government shutdown.

He reflected on the role of religion in public institutions like the military — to “ensure that people are able to express their faith.”

“We’re also there to ensure that people are not compelled to have a faith, and that’s really important to today’s discussion of civility in the public square,” he said.

Baker emphasized the role of faith as a way to foster civility in public service roles.

“A chaplain’s role is not to sanctify government. It’s to support the people who work within it, to help them navigate those moral and ethical challenges,” he said.

McNulty followed Baker by talking about the historic attitude of the U.S. toward religion in politics. He said he thinks there has been a widespread misinterpretation of the First Amendment which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”

McNulty said the misconception stems from what the word “establishment” entails and that religion should not be kept out of the public square.

McNulty argued that religion was a crucial part of governance as a way to morally guide public officials, citing George Washington’s farewell address, where the first U.S. president said: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable.”

“You can see that across the board in the founders’ language and their education,” McNulty said. “Yes, no established church, but religious values were just taken as a given and a necessary component of what it meant to ensure civility … and how virtue was necessary for freedom.

Civility in a “post-truth environment”

The panelists addressed the importance of facts in a civil society.

McNulty said that the large volumes of available information has meant accuracy has become less important to most people. He said the remedy is to first understand why truth is important to democracy.

“It starts with, I think, a deeper appreciation for how central that is to our work and then to try to reinforce institutions, publications, voices that care about that. And then we try to weed out, to some extent, those voices that seem to be less concerned about the importance of truth,” McNulty said.

He and Pence both emphasized the importance of a free press.

“I truly do believe that a free and independent press is a bulwark, ultimately, for truth in a free society and it always must be defended,” Pence said.

McNulty said his concern was that the media was moving away from the objective standards set by the press in the 19th century.

“I think if you look at the reforms made in journalism in the 19th century away from what was a much more partisan press into a more objective standard … now we’re going away from that idea,” he said.

Jan. 6, 2021

On Jan. 6, 2021, Pence certified the results of the 2020 presidential election, despite some members of his party and administration calling for him to postpone the certification. In protest, a group of supporters of President Donald Trump broke into the Capitol Building. At one point, the mob shouted slogans calling for Pence to be hanged.

Pence addressed his actions that day, which resulted in former President Joe Biden taking the Oval Office over from Trump and dismissed the idea that he or Trump had the authority to send election results back to the states or postpone the certification votes at all.

“My duty under the Constitution was simply to preside over a joint session of Congress … The American presidency belongs to the American people. There’s maybe no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American presidency,” he said.

Pence told the panel and the audience that denying Trump was hard.

“President Trump was not just my president, he was my friend,” he said. “It may come as a surprise to people looking in and listening in, but for four and a half years together, we never had a cross word with one another.”

Pence said that despite how the administration ended, he is, for the most part, proud of what the second Trump administration has accomplished since the 2024 election.

“I’m very proud that the new Trump administration put back into effect the border policies that we had negotiated during our administration and ended the worst border crisis in history. I’m grateful that they extended all of the Trump-Pence tax cuts from 2017. And I’ve often said if the world knows nothing else, the world should know this: America stands with Israel,” he said.

Emily Theroux, a law student at Duquesne, said she was disappointed to hear many in the audience applaud for Israel, especially as the country continued to block aid into the Gaza Strip following an attack from Hamas, the governing body in Gaza, on Oct. 7, 2023.

“I just personally found that disappointing … Israel has not really backed down, constantly attacking this group of people who are struggling, all under the guise of it being a direct response to the terrorist attacks of Hamas,” she said. “It’s just disappointing now that the conversation regressed in that sense, to just saying that America stands with Israel, full stop, hard send, without any discussion of the conflict in Gaza.”

Student Government Association President Nick Miller gave a speech before the panel. He said he thought the discussion went well, and is happy that he was able to hear directly from accomplished people like Pence and McNulty.

“It does mean a lot to me that I’m fortunate enough to go to a university that offers civil discourse and invites people from both sides of the aisle here over the past couple of years to discuss what civil discourse means, what public service means,” he said.

Rob Zurowsky, a second-year law student, said he thinks the topics discussed applied heavily to him and his future career. His biggest take away was the importance of morality in public life.

“Morality is taking care of one another, being a good person, having a good heart, and I think the elements of faith and being a good person aren’t mutually exclusive to being religious. I think that anyone can be a moral and faithful person,” he said.

Theroux said that despite her disagreements with some of the content, she appreciates that the university was able to organize an event with prominent figures.

“I can’t really overstate how impressed I am with the program itself. I appreciate that President Gormley is pulling speakers for a variety of topics,” she said.

Still, she said, it felt to her like the panelists weren’t serious about extending civility to regular people, only their peers.

“It sounded like [Pence] supports a lot of the current administration’s actions which directly go against the benefit of the working class and immigrants and so many people who it seems like these policies are failing,” she said. “I agree that you should be civil. However, it seems that it’s really only to their political peers and not to everyday Americans that they would like to extend that civility and humanity.”

Eliyahu Gasson can be reached at gassone@duq.edu