NORTHFIELD – Around 80 protesters gathered outside Thomas Aquinas College Saturday in opposition to the school’s selection of Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts as its 2025 commencement speaker.

Under Roberts’ leadership, the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation created Project 2025, its “blueprint” for a new conservative leadership, published in 2023. The more than 900-page document has been criticized for its harsh stance on immigration, suggested rollbacks on environmental protections, reproductive rights for women and planned consolidation of the federal government into a unilaterally conservative body, promising to “dismantle the administrative state.”

The protest was comprised of activists brought together by Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution and its “Rapid Response Network.” They lined the roads outside the college, holding signs containing messages such as “Protect democracy reject Project 2025,” and another bearing a quote from Pope Leo, “You can not follow both Christ and the cruelty of kings.”

“This protest is in line with so many protests that are happening right now and the real movement against authoritarianism that is building throughout the country,” Continuing the Political Revolution organizer Ferd Wulkan said in an interview. “We have religious freedom here. They’re allowed to have their Christian private college, but when they bring in a speaker like this, not just bring in a speaker and have him be the keynote speaker at commencement with young people listening to every word, we’ve got a problem here, because it’s really playing into authoritarianism, sort of the oligarchy that Trump and his minions are trying to create in this country. It’s really an attack on our freedoms.”

Wulkan also referenced President Donald Trump’s initial campaign claims that he was unfamiliar with Project 2025, which was followed by an administration that has implemented many aspects of the plan, such as cuts to diversity equity and inclusion positions and mass deportations.

In a written statement announcing this year’s commencement speakers at the college’s California and Massachusetts campuses, Thomas Aquinas President Paul O’Reilly referred to Roberts as a “longtime friend of the college,” expressing enthusiastic anticipation of his speech.

In an interview Tuesday, Thomas Aquinas Executive Director of College Relations Christopher Weinkopf said Roberts’ background in education and position at the helm of the Heritage Foundation made him, in the college’s view, a “testament to the relevance, durability and value of this sort of education moving forward.”

Weinkopf also referred to the protesters as being “gracious and polite.”

“Following a distinguished career in education, Kevin has become one of the preeminent voices in American public policy and leads the country’s most prominent and influential think tank. We are eager to welcome him for the first time to our New England campus, and we look forward to hearing the words of wisdom he will share with our graduates and their families,” O’Reilly wrote. “[Roberts’] wife, Michelle, is also well-known within our community, as she serves as an educational consultant for Mother of Divine Grace School, founded by our own Laura Berquist.”

Roberts’ speech, a transcript of which was published on the college’s website, references his role with the think tank, and Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, but avoided more political discussion and was centered around education and spreading Christianity.

“Today, graduates, we need you to remember this when you walk out those doors. Our fallen world — mired in the twofold darkness of sin and ignorance — needs you to reject the illusion of the Ivory Tower and instead illuminate it with the light of Truth that this school has instilled in you,” Roberts wrote. “The world is not going to repair itself. Neither can it be repaired from safe remove. For Christians, retreat is surrender, especially if it masquerades as purity. The whole world is mission country today — just like Northfield, Massachusetts, was for the first people who settled here.”

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.