How long will it take Notre Dame to expand its non-discrimination policies to protect LGBTQ+ students?

At Notre Dame, hearing hateful comments about LGBTQ+ people is more likely than landing tails on a coin flip. According to the 2022 Inclusive Campus Survey, approximately 59% of all respondents heard students make disparaging comments about the LGBT community on campus.

Another sobering fact: the University’s “first and only LGBTQ+ undergraduate student organization” is younger than the students who attend this University. PrismND is celebrating its 10-year anniversary this weekend. Institutional recognition for PrismND is a sign of the University’s efforts to promote inclusivity, but LGBTQ+ organizations have not always been accepted on campus. 

Students have asked for more welcoming spaces for LGBTQ+ students at Notre Dame since as early as 1972, according to past Observer articles. There were decades of struggle between administrators and students to establish an LGBTQ+ group before the University recognized PrismND ten years ago.

While the University’s movement toward a more inclusive campus environment is commendable, protection and support of the LGBTQ+ community is still not ingrained in Notre Dame’s culture. Members of the LGBTQ+ community have reported higher rates of adverse experiences on campus than non-LGBTQ+ students.

According to the 2022 Inclusive Campus Student Survey, 56% of nonbinary or transgender respondents said they experienced adverse treatment on campus due to their gender identity. The survey reports 48% of LGBQ men and 35% of LGBQ women have experienced adverse treatment due to their sexual orientation at Notre Dame.

As part of du Lac — Notre Dame’s standard of conduct for students — the University includes “The Spirit of Inclusion” statement that says Notre Dame welcomes and values all students.

“We welcome all people, regardless of color, gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social or economic class and nationality, for example, precisely because of Christ’s calling to treat others as we desire to be treated,” the statement says. “We value gay and lesbian members of this community as we value all members of this community. We condemn harassment of any kind, and University policies proscribe it.”

Despite this statement, there is no mention of gender expression and sexual orientation in its notice of non-discrimination. 

According to the notice, “The University of Notre Dame does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or age in the administration of any of its educational programs, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, athletic and other school-administered programs, or in employment.”

In 2021, the U.S. Department of Education confirmed Title IX protects students from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Out of the U.S. News top-50 universities in 2022, Notre Dame and Pepperdine University are the only two schools that do not protect gender identity and sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies.

Even our sister school across the street, Saint Mary’s, includes sexual orientation and gender expression in its non-discrimination policy. 

When asked why Notre Dame does not include “gender identity” or “sexual orientation” in its notice of non-discrimination, University spokesperson Sue Ryan said in an email that Notre Dame’s non-discrimination policy is a recitation of legally-protected characteristics.

According to the University’s policy on sexual and discriminatory harassment, no type of sexual or discriminatory harassment is tolerated, and all incidents of intolerant or disrespectful conduct will be addressed. The policy, which can be read on the website of the Office of Institutional Equity, states that the University is dedicated to responding quickly and thoroughly to all reports of sexual or discriminatory harassment and to enforcing the University's non-retaliation policy.

In 2022, junior Pablo Oropeza and senior Dane Sherman began Irish4Inclusion, an initiative that sought to change the non-discrimination clause to include sexual orientation, gender identity and religion. The cause received over 1,000 signatures from undergraduates, professors and residence hall councils. But the initiatives did not have enough signatures to reach University administration. 

(Editor’s note: Dane Sherman is a viewpoint columnist for The Observer.)

In a Letter to the Editor written to The Observer co-signed by Oropeza and hundreds of other students, an anonymous student described the harassment experienced at the hands of a roommate. The letter said the roommate called the anonymous student homophobic slurs for hanging a bisexual flag. 

“I met with my rector about this, and I was told they could facilitate a conversation between my roommate and I, but that there was nothing else they could do — because they told me I was not protected in the nondiscrimination policy,” the student wrote in the letter.

Irish4Inclusion has not been the only initiative to ask for a change in the University’s notice of non-discrimination. In 1985, then-University President Fr. Edward “Monk” Malloy created the Task Force on Marriage, Family and Other Life Commitments. The task force’s report included sections on “homosexuality” and “nondiscrimination policies.” It  proposed “The University should include ‘sex’ and ‘sexual orientation’ as part of its nondiscrimination policies,” according to LGBTQ ND, a project that documents 20th-century LGBTQ+ student activism at Notre Dame and St. Mary's.

Thirty-six years later, this aspect of the policy remains unchanged. 

The approval of PrismND was a win for the advancement of LGBTQ+ inclusion and representation at Notre Dame. But it’s not where LGBTQ+ rights on campus should end. We cannot let our University become complacent. We cannot let intolerance and discrimination fester or grow. LGBTQ+ students should have the same protections as others named in the non-discrimination statement.