Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will go ahead with her speech to graduates of the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute despite protests from Catholics angered over her role in regulations requiring employers to provide contraception coverage in health plans,
The Washington Post blog Campus Overload reported.
The regulation that would have covered religiously affiliated colleges and hospitals has since been altered. However, Sebeliuis’ invitation drew complaints from church leaders. Washington’s archbishop called the invitation “shocking” and some 27,000 people signed a petition urging the school to find a new speaker, the Post reported.
The event is relatively small as the institute is made up of 500 graduate students, about half who will be graduating. Georgetown, founded in 1789, has a total of over 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
Some 90 students sent a letter to Georgetown President John DeGioia that said, according to the Post, “Many of our students may disagree with some of the speakers who come to Georgetown, but we all feel lucky to attend a university where we hear directly from top leaders in our field of studies.”
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