Notre Dame DEI investigation expanded after school ignores AG letter

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has expanded the investigation into the University of Notre Dame after the Catholic institution failed to show paperwork detailing its diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

Rokita recently filed a civil investigative demand With Notre Dame, a formal step that can precede a civil lawsuit.

“Just because the universities say they are complying with state law does not make it so,” Rokita said in a news release. He has also filed a civil investigative demand with Butler University.

Rokita first issued a letter to Notre Dame in May asking about the school’s compliance with federal and state civil rights laws.

“Publicly available materials suggest that various aspects of Notre Dame’s operations may be governed by University policies that treat individuals—including students, prospective students, faculty, staff, and job applicants—differently based on the individuals’ race or ethnicity; employ race in a negative manner; or utilize racial stereotyping,” stated Rokita’s May 9 letter to Notre Dame President Rev. Robert Dowd.

This was in response to the university’s 2033 Strategic Framework published in August 2023. The plan emphasized Notre Dame’s efforts to recruit students and job applicants of certain racial and ethnic groups.

Rokita’s letter stated that a nonprofit university that engages in racial discrimination represents an unlawful abuse of authority.

The attorney general also cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court case Students for Fair Admission, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. This case clarified that universities cannot use racially discriminatory practices for any reason, even promotion of diversity.

“Thus, virtually all forms of racial discrimination—even those employed in service of the interests of diversity, equity, and inclusion—are unlawful,” Rokita stated in the May letter. “Likewise, discriminatory practices perpetuated ‘for whatever reasons,’ and even with good intentions, still jeopardize and are inconsistent with a university’s nonprofit status.”

The University of Notre Dame was requested to send all documents and communications regarding their hiring and admissions processes by June 9. Rokita also asked for a written explanation of the university’s tracking procedure for racial and diversity goals and events.

Rokita sent a follow up letter on Aug. 6 about his expansion of the investigation.

“It is not an adequate response to my inquiry to offer an assurance that Notre Dame complies with civil rights laws but not to produce any of the materials requested by my letter that would allow for an independent assessment by my office of the University’s compliance,” said Rokita. “The University’s unsubstantiated claim that it follows the law does not make it so, and the concerns I raised in my May 9 Letter remain.”

Rokita sent a formal civil investigative demand with the letter asking the university to provide the previously requested documents and information. He set a deadline for Aug. 27.

Is stated: “Notre Dame’s religious mission does not grant the University a license to discriminate on the basis of race, and the critically important First Amendment right to free exercise of religion—of which I am, as you note, a staunch defender—does not bar my office from vindicating the state’s ‘fundamental, overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination in education.’”

The Office of the Indiana Attorney General has not released a statement on whether Notre Dame met the Aug. 27 deadline. The College Fix has reached out to their office for comment.

The University of Notre Dame has not responded to The College Fix’s request for comment

Following Rokita’s queries, the University of Notre Dame changed the name of its Center for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion without a news release on Aug. 13, according to The Observer. 

It is now the Sister Thea Bowman Center after a black Catholic woman who the university posthumously awarded the Laetare Medal for “genius” American Catholics, according to the student newspaper.

There was no mention of the center moving away from its diversity, equity, and inclusion functions. 

Sycamore Trust, an organization dedicated to preserving the Catholic identity of the University of Notre Dame, called the renaming “hapless” in an email to The College Fix.

Sycamore Trust Chairman Bill Dempsey pointed to a January email by the university’s provost John McGreevy that hiring racial and gender minorities was just as important as hiring Catholics at Notre Dame.

“From our perspective, the policy is infirm because it portends a reduction in Catholic faculty hiring,” Dempsey said in an email. “In fact, this has likely already occurred during the rapid expansion of DEI. Several years ago for the first time the university began embargoing information about the proportion of Catholics on the faculty.” 

Sycamore Trust and others are worried about DEI’s effect on the Catholic character of the school.

Notre Dame President Dowd defended DEI practices in 2021 to the Irish Rover.

“What we try to do is build a campus and community that is going to be diverse in appropriate ways and inclusive, and it’s hard for me to imagine how we can do that without taking that [race] into consideration in the admissions process,” Dowd said at the time.

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