Vice President Kamala Harris laughs during a “Fight For Our Freedoms” event at the College of Southern Nevada-Cheyenne campus Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023, in North Las Vegas.
Friday, Oct. 13, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Most of the students inside the theater at the College of Southern Nevada North Las Vegas campus raised their hands high in the air on a cue from Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris, who was visiting CSN as part of the White House’s Fight for Our Freedoms College Tour, had asked: Who here between kindergarten and 12th grade participated in an active shooter drill at school?
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Harris said. “I take us back to the point that elections matter, and it is critically important that we have courage and leadership to take on this issue and just have reasonable approaches to something that is affecting us in profound ways.”
Harris’ monthlong tour of college and university campuses was created in an effort to encourage younger populations — namely, college students — to vote.
CSN’s North Las Vegas campus — a community college, Hispanic-Serving Institution and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution — was the eighth stop on the tour.
Harris will visit around a dozen campuses in seven states once she’s completed the tour, the White House said.
The series of events focuses “on key issues that disproportionately impact young people across the country — from reproductive freedom and gun safety to climate action, voting rights, LGBTQ+ equality and book bans.”
Harris was preceded by performances from CSN’s award-winning mariachi team — Mariachi Plata — and a local West African drum and step team.
Students filled the theater with energy as Harris entered to roaring applause, cheers and the ruffling of blue and white pom poms.
She began her almost hour-long Q&A with Annie Gonzalez — a local performer, producer and activist for immigration rights — encouraging the audience filled with college students to vote. It was a message Harris repeated throughout the panel.
Harris said this generation of students has the unique experiences of watching the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, living with climate change, dealing with the consequences of rolling back women’s reproductive rights with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and growing up with active-shooter drills in school.
“The issues that are at stake in our country right now are not intellectual or academic for you,” Harris said. “These are lived experiences, and what I know about you, and your style of leadership is that you’re not having it.”
Harris said the younger generation was “prepared to take control of these issues in a way that we uplift the life of the people (and) in a way that we protect freedoms.”
It all starts with voting, she stressed.
In the 2020 presidential election, the United States saw the highest rate of participation by young voters, she said, and many students in the audience gladly raised their hand when she asked who was part of that drive. She then criticized states that have passed laws making it more difficult to vote, singling out a new law in Georgia that bans distributing food or drink to voters waiting in line.
Harris stressed the need for stronger gun control legislation, urging the enhancement of universal background checks and red flag laws, and the need for an assault weapons ban. Red flag laws are active in 19 states, including Nevada, permitting law enforcement to temporarily remove firearms from someone who could be a danger to themselves or the community.
“It’s not rocket science in terms of what we need to do, OK, but you’ve got a bunch of feckless people who lack courage who are in the United States Congress who are pushing a false choice (in the Second Amendment),” Harris said.
Harris also revealed that President Joe Biden’s administration was “on-track to invest $1 trillion in addressing the climate crisis around adaptation and resilience and investing in a clean energy economy.” It’s all work that Harris said she was “very proud of.”
Her parting advice drew applause from the students. Harris’ message: Students should not let people tell them “no” or limit them based on age, race or gender.
“You will, in your life and career, have a few if not many experiences, where you are the only one (in a room) … and what I want you to remember is that we are all in that room with you; I want you to remember that when you walk in those rooms, you come with people and you carry the voice of people (who) are so proud of you,” Harris said. “Always believe in what can be, unburdened by what has been, that is what I want for you.”
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