Search Results for: academic-freedom

Standing Out at the Law School

August 22, 2025

Professor Tamara Kay has left Notre Dame for the University of Pittsburgh after the Indiana courts threw out her lawsuit against The Irish Rover as a meritless attempt to silence free speech. At the same time, Notre Dame’s Law School has surged in national prestige, ranking among the very top in placing graduates in federal clerkships and Supreme Court positions — a success rooted in the school’s fidelity to its Catholic mission. Yet a decades-old exchange between Bill Dempsey and the University’s then–Board Chair foreshadowed Father Jenkins’s eventual accommodation to secular pressures, reminding us that where Notre Dame stands firm in Catholic identity it flourishes, and where it compromises, it fades.

Standing Firm

May 21, 2025

Notre Dame Professor Tamara Kay’s defamation lawsuit against The Irish Rover has been dismissed by both trial and appellate courts, which ruled the student paper’s reporting on her pro-abortion activism was truthful and lawful. Yet Kay presses on, petitioning the state Supreme Court. This case marks a troubling attack on student journalism—and a sobering reflection of the university’s tolerance for dissent from Catholic teaching.

Taking a stand for Catholic values at Notre Dame

December 28, 2023

Merlot Fogarty discusses her experience as a pro-life advocate on campus and explains why she felt compelled to challenge the university’s academic freedom policy by organizing the recent protest against the school’s first drag show.

Rainbow is Thy Fame

December 23, 2023

A sobering reflection on Father Jenkins’s nearly two decades as Notre Dame’s President by Sycamore Trustee and Irish Rover Editor-in-Chief Emerita Mary Frances Myler (ND ’22).

Notre Dame’s Best and Worst Cross Paths

November 19, 2023

Notre Dame students hold prayerful protest to the school’s first drag show brought to campus by the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre.

Queer Film Festival

August 19, 2012

The Queer Film Festival and the Homosexual Issue The Queer Film Festival drew another fault line in Notre Dame’s Catholic identity. The film festival, which began its run at Notre

Vagina Monologues

August 15, 2012

The Vagina Monologues The unyielding and successful insistence of the faculty that Father Jenkins approve The Vagina Monologues is strong evidence of loss of Catholic sensibility. Over the past decade

Books & Documents

August 13, 2012

Books, Documents and Other Readings of Interest Only when faith and reason embrace in harmony can the human spirit rise to the full heights for which God has destined it.

Secularization

August 4, 2012

Secularization at Notre Dame The fading of the Catholic presence on the Notre Dame faculty is the most important issue bearing on the increasing secularization of the school. History demonstrates

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August 4, 2012

PROTECTING NOTRE DAME’S CATHOLIC IDENTITY Join the Fight Fading Catholic ID Notre Dame’s struggle with its Catholic identity has its roots in the declining concentration of those on faculty who

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