On Tuesday morning, the University announced it has refiled its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, suing Kathleen Sebelius, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and others for relief from the coercive HHS insurance mandate.
Notre Dame deserves the entire campus community's support and gratitude for taking this courageous step "neither lightly nor gladly, but with sober determination," as Fr. Jenkins put it in an announcement accompanying the University's initial May 21, 2012 filing (which was dismissed on technical grounds last December). This decision is one that bespeaks real institutional courage and a willingness to speak truth to power, which is never easily done, and only at great cost.
I am very proud of both the University's decision to renew its litigation - a decision that was surely more difficult than her initial decision to sue - and the way in which her leadership arrived at this decision.
Fr. Jenkins said, in his presidential inaugural address in September of 2005:
"The struggle to be a great Catholic university in a world that has become both increasingly secular and more radically religious has placed Notre Dame in a unique position at the heart of the most complex issues facing our society. We have not just an opportunity, but a duty to think and speak and act in ways that will guide, inspire and heal - not just for the followers of the Catholic faith, but for all our neighbors in the nation and the world."
With this decision, Notre Dame has done just that.
Thank you, Fr. Jenkins and the leadership of Our Lady's University, for making this courageous witness against an unjust law. I sincerely applaud your decision to do so.
Michael Bradley
senior
Dillon Hall
Dec. 3
