In a January article, Fr. John Jenkins argued against adopting institutional neutrality, insisting that universities should use their voices “wisely.” He is right. At a time when the mission of higher education is under attack and expertise is increasingly dismissed, the duty to speak out is more urgent than ever — both for the integrity of this institution and the future of our nation.
Fr. Jenkins cites Harvard’s policy on institutional neutrality: “‘The university has a responsibility to speak out to protect and promote its core function ... [and] defend [its] autonomy and academic freedom when threatened, but it should not issue statements about other public matters.” He instead argues that universities should reject neutrality altogether so that they can “articulate institutional values and the implications that flow from them.”
Fr. Jenkins is right to claim that self-imposed restrictions on a University’s voice are ultimately insufficient. They serve as little more than risk-averse, superficial compromises — band-aids designed to shield the institution from political controversy. In doing so, universities risk sidelining themselves from the most pressing and contentious debates of our time, not out of principle, but out of fear of provoking backlash.
For all the criticisms leveled at Harvard’s approach, it has at least taken a stand on issues that threaten the core functions of the university, detailing the public benefits of NIH grants. Rather than merely forming committees to assess the latest wave of executive orders or dispatching lobbyists to quietly nudge policymakers away from taxing university endowments, Notre Dame should adopt a more proactive and public stance in defending its fundamental mission.
If there were ever a moment for the University to take a stand, that moment is now.
Unfortunately, threats to Notre Dame’s academic functions go far beyond the actions of the past few weeks. While trust in organized religion has fallen, a fact recognized by the University, so too has trust in institutions of higher learning.
And to be clear, much of this is certainly not any one university’s fault. Some of the loudest calls for censorship now come from within — students demanding speech restrictions, pushing to cancel Pride events and film screenings or obsessing over the threat of “wokeness” while admitting its influence is marginal. Meanwhile, university administrators — the very people once accused of stifling debate — are left defending free expression from their own students. You can’t make this up.
But while they fend off attacks from within, an even greater threat comes from outside. The role and impact of universities ultimately depend on a society’s commitment — both stated and revealed — to valuing knowledge. Yet we are living in an era where facts are treated as optional, expertise is dismissed and entire disciplines are cast as ideological threats. Universities cannot naively assume they can simply lobby or subtly negotiate their way out of this climate. The hostility toward higher education is not a passing storm — it is an intentional pillar of the new political order.
It’s no coincidence that NIH funding, academic research and university endowments have been targeted by the new administration. This is a movement that ran on anti-intellectualism and science skepticism — promoting vaccine denialism, denying basic facts about climate change and spouting stolen election conspiracies. This is a movement that has promised to punish public health officials and target institutions of knowledge. To treat these attacks as ordinary policy disagreements would be to misunderstand their intent.
Yes, universities have administrative bloat. Yes, some funding could be spent more efficiently.
But we aren’t working with an administration that takes a scalpel to university excess but instead wields an axe, taking with it the very positive externalities of university research and knowledge dissemination and production.
The dismantling of USAID wasn’t a serious effort to root out waste, fraud or abuse; it was a blunt display of power — a message that said, “We don’t care who suffers, or even dies, as a result of these freezes.” Why should universities expect any more grace when it comes to their federal funding?
This disregard for consequences extends far beyond financial decisions — it reflects a deeper erosion of truth itself — an erosion aided by an unfortunate marriage between rejection of truth and peddling of faith.
To be clear, I commend the University for defending the compatibility of faith and reason. In fact, I took an entire theology course dedicated to this theme and found it both informative and reassuring. But today’s science denialism is neither motivated by theological objection nor scriptural misinterpretation — it is rooted in a broader rejection of truth itself.
The fusion of religious faith with conspiracy politics is not an organic development — it is a deliberate strategy, weaponized by political actors who see religion as a means to an ideological end. It is impossible to focus narrowly on attacks to schools’ federal funding and NIH grants without first acknowledging the broader context — the comments of a president who in his inaugural address said he was “saved by God” to return to the White House, the “Jesus 2020” flags on January 6 and a movement that views Trump as a divine instrument, a modern-day King Cyrus.
Ignoring this dynamic while objecting only to specific policies — on DEI, NIH funding or university governance — misses the larger issue. The fight over higher education is not just a budget battle; it is a battle over the role of knowledge in public life, where political movements cheapen faith and manipulate political beliefs to serve their own ends. If Notre Dame believes that faith and reason are compatible it should spend more effort combating the very movements which encourage people to elevate faith over reason, to bring wooden crosses and “Jesus 2020” banners to a faith-driven insurrection.
This rejection of knowledge — and the refusal to distinguish fact from fiction, often cloaked in Christian undertones — has other real-world consequences. It is a country where people no longer read newspapers, if they read at all. When expertise is dismissed, vaccine uptake plummets under the guise of religious objections and once-eradicated diseases return. In rural Texas, 20 unvaccinated children have been hospitalized with measles and one has died — the first U.S. measles death since 2015. A society that devalues knowledge doesn’t just weaken its universities — it puts its own health, prosperity and future at risk.
It’s worth reminding the current administration that the technological and medical advances which define modern life — including GPS, AI, the internet and mRNA vaccines — owe their existence to federally funded research. Slashing that support isn’t just an attack on academia; it’s a deliberate step toward economic stagnation.
The danger in the hostility lies in the lack of any limiting principle, driven by a belief that the culture of university is more dangerous than losing its breakthroughs. Some would dismantle an entire system of research and innovation to purge “woke” culture from the system. But indiscriminate cuts don’t just target perceived “wokeness” — they gut the very research that fuels medical advances, technological breakthroughs and economic growth. In the rush to purge academia of politics, they risk dismantling the very research and innovation that serve the public good.
In the face of this threat, the University cannot hide behind bureaucracy — renaming DEI offices, forming committees or issuing statements so carefully worded they say nothing at all. The assault on knowledge is not a PR issue; it is an existential one. It demands a clear and unapologetic objection to research cuts and other acts of coercion. The University doesn’t necessarily have to act alone — Notre Dame’s leadership, alongside other leading universities and research institutions, can collectively issue a statement in an unequivocal defense of their academic missions.
The case is clear: A president obsessed with “American greatness” — who stakes his legacy on the stock market and economic growth — should, in theory, be alarmed by the deliberate dismantling of one of the nation’s greatest engines of productivity: its universities.
Does this risk political entanglement? Of course. But Notre Dame has never been shy about engaging in politics when its values demanded it. Fr. Jenkins has criticized both parties when they conflicted with Catholic teaching, condemning family separation under Trump and Biden’s stance on abortion. U.S. bishops have continued to challenge Trump administration policies that violate Catholic social doctrine.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned that “the simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.” Yet by quietly renaming DEI offices and neglecting to publicly defend federally funded research, Notre Dame is doing just that. Is DEI central to the University’s mission of inclusivity or not? Are federal research grants a public good or a wasteful boondoggle? The University’s silence — its committee formations and reliance on lobbyists — signals a willingness to accommodate rather than resist. But a university that truly believes in its mission does not hedge. It leads.
If Fr. Jenkins was right to reject institutional neutrality, then Notre Dame is wrong to retreat into it now. To remain silent as research funding is gutted and expertise is undermined is to concede that knowledge is negotiable. And it fulfills the very neutrality which Fr. Jenkins rejected.
Most importantly, a university that seeks credibility as a moral voice must first be credible in its defense of truth — defending reason as forcefully as it defends faith.
In a country where research is curtailed and facts are discretionary, history won’t ask why Notre Dame played it safe. It will ask why it refused to fight.
Fr. Dowd, if not now, when?
