University of Notre Dame Provost John McGreevy told faculty that it is just as important to hire ‘women and underrepresented minorities’ as it is to hire Catholic faculty ‘deeply committed to our mission.’
SOUTH BEND, Indiana (LifeSiteNews) -- The University of Notre Dame is doubling down on diversity, inclusion, and equity practices despite a growing number of major corporations and institutions of higher learning across the U.S. scaling back their support for the controversial initiatives.
A report published by First Things this week revealed that the school’s provost informed faculty three days before President Trump was sworn in via email that they are looking to “increase the number of women and underrepresented minorities on our faculty.”
John McGreevy also told employees that the move was “equally important” as the first “goal” he laid out in the email, which was “to hire Catholic faculty and other faculty deeply committed to our mission to ensure continuity with our past and our fate as the world’s leading global Catholic research university.”
While it has been long regarded as the most prominent Catholic university in America, Notre Dame has increasingly failed to live up to its professed religious identity. As reported by LifeSiteNews before, the school gave pro-abortion Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden it’s prestigious Laetare Medal. It has also hosted drag shows on campus, celebrated June as “pride month,” and promoted many other pro-LGBT initiatives.
According to First Things, Notre Dame founded the “Office of Institutional Transformation” in 2022 and brought on several DEI staff to promote woke ideology on campus. Salaries for such persons were reportedly north of $6.5 million in total. A “Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” was also established in 2023.
Not all is lost in South Bend, however. Joshua Haskell, a valedictorian for the class of 2024, recent launched a nonprofit that seeks to help college-age men break addictions to pornography.
While enrolled in the school’s honors business program, Haskell published a tell-all article titled “Escaping Porn’s Prison” in The Observer, a student-run newspaper. Haskell said that the response to his essay was “overwhelmingly positive” and that more than 100 of his fellow male students signed up for the program.
Also in 2024, student journalists who exposed a pro-abortion professor filed a lawsuit for over $100,000 to recoup attorney’s fees after defeating a defamation suit triggered by their coverage. An Indiana appeals court eventually sided with the students against the professor and her case was tossed out.
Founded by French priest Fr. Edward Sorin in 1842, the university’s formal name is Notre Dame du Lac, or “Our Lady of the Lake.” While widely popular due to its highly accomplished football team, Notre Dame is also home to the Moreau Seminary for the Congregation of Holy Cross.
In the 1970s, controversial president Fr. Theodore Hesburgh made Notre Dame co-educational and helped draft the heavily criticized Land O’ Lakes statement, a document approved by presidents of various Catholic universities across the U.S. that declared independence from formal Church authority and doctrines.
An alumnus association called the Sycamore Trust and a select number of Catholic professors, including Fr. Wilson Miscamble and Patrick Deneen, are fighting to preserve the university’s Catholic identity.
