Fallout Continues at Notre Dame Over Pro-Abortion Appointee| National Catholic Register

Two scholars have resigned from their roles with the University of Notre Dame’s Asian studies institute because the university has named an outspoken advocate of legal abortion as its next director.

Meanwhile, the head of the university’s pro-life group is calling on Notre Dame to withdraw the appointment.

Robert Gimello, a research professor emeritus of theology who is an expert on Buddhism, and Diane Desierto, a professor of law and of global affairs, told the Register they have cut ties with the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies over the announcement last month that Susan Ostermann will become the institute’s new leader starting July 1.

Gimello, explaining his resignation, called Ostermann “a scholar who has repeatedly, publicly, and adamantly proclaimed her opposition to (verging at times, it seems to me, on contempt for) the Catholic Church’s firm teaching that protection and nourishment of human life, from the moment of conception until natural death, is a sacred duty incumbent upon the whole human community.”

“Continued formal association with a unit of the University led by such a person is, for me, simply unconscionable — this regardless of whatever considerable talents and accomplishments the appointee might otherwise bring to the job,” Gimello told the Register by email.

Anna Kelley, a senior and president of Notre Dame Right to Life, is one of nine members of the group’s executive board who signed a letter calling on Notre Dame to rescind the appointment of Ostermann.

“As a Catholic adoptee from China, I take personal offense at this appointment,” Kelley said as part of a letter to the editor from the group published Wednesday by The Observer, a student newspaper. “I am so blessed to have escaped the fate that Professor Ostermann’s work has inflicted on so many innocent Chinese lives. Because I have been given the gift of life, I am choosing to speak out with my own testimony to bring attention to the real-life consequences that her ideology promotes.”

Ostermann, contacted midday Wednesday by the Register, could not immediately be reached for comment. But in a statement to the Register last week, she said she is “fully committed to maintaining an environment of academic freedom where a plurality of voices can flourish.”

“I have long worked with scholars who hold diverse views on a multitude of issues, and I welcome the opportunity to continue doing so. While I hold my own convictions on complex social and legal issues, I want to be clear: my role is to support the diverse research of our scholars and students, not to advance a personal political agenda,” Ostermann said Jan. 29.

Ostermann, an associate professor of global affairs and political science at Notre Dame’s Keough School for Public Affairs, between May 2022 and May 2024 co-authored 11 columns for newspapers and opinion websites arguing for legal abortion and against attempts to prohibit it.

In the articles, Ostermann links opposition to abortion to white supremacy and describes laws banning abortion as “forced pregnancy and childbirth” that amount to “violence,” “sexual abuse” and “trauma.”

She also calls crisis-pregnancy centers “anti-abortion rights propaganda sites” and describes them as “fraudulent” and calls for Congress to cut off Medicaid funds to any state that doesn’t legalize abortion and “ensure access through at least one clinic within its borders.”

In her writing, she calls abortion “freedom-enhancing” and “consistent with integral human development,” which is a Catholic social-justice principle that Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, which houses the Liu Institute, describes as its “mission” and “decisive for how we conceptualize research, teaching, policy and practice, advocacy, and global partnerships.”

Ostermann has also served as a consultant for the Population Council, which advocates for contraception and abortion.

Notre Dame announced Ostermann’s appointment to lead the Liu Institute on Jan. 8, as the Register reported in mid-January. And, as the Register reported last week, the university has stood by the appointment despite calls from some faculty members to reverse it. Notre Dame last week described Ostermann as “a highly regarded political scientist and legal scholar” and a “deeply committed educator” who “is well prepared to expand the Institute’s global partnerships and create impactful research opportunities that advance our dedication to serving as the preeminent global Catholic research institution.”

The resignations from the Liu Institute come after criticism of the appointment of Ostermann last week by Holy Cross Father Wilson Miscamble, a professor emeritus of history and former chairman of the department at Notre Dame; O. Carter Snead, a current professor of law and of political science at the university; and Bill Dempsey, founding president of Sycamore Trust, an independent organization that advocates for Notre Dame to uphold its Catholic identity.

In a written statement last week, Notre Dame alluded to the conflict over Ostermann’s views on abortion, which the Catholic Church calls a “crime against human life” that should be prohibited by law (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2272, 2273).

“Those who serve in leadership positions at Notre Dame do so with the clear understanding that their decision-making as leaders must be guided by and consistent with the University’s Catholic mission,” the university said. “Notre Dame’s commitment to upholding the inherent dignity of the human person and the sanctity of life at every stage is unwavering.”

The Liu Institute’s website lists 107 fellows (including Mary Gallagher, the dean of the Keough School, who appointed Ostermann) and 14 emeritus fellows. 

Before the resignations, Gimello was an emeritus fellow of the Liu Institute, while Desierto was a fellow.

The title “fellow” is not a paid position, but it is a formal affiliation with an institute for a fixed term that offers access to grants, collaboration on Asia-related research projects, and participation in events and programming sponsored by the institute.

As a scholar who has focused on Asia, Gimello told the Register, he is disturbed that the leader of what he called Notre Dame’s “Asian face” would hold views at odds with Catholic moral principles that affect Asia, including abortion.

“I doubt that anyone so hostile to, or dismissive of, those views — as this newly appointed person seems clearly to be — even if she were to try to muffle her hostility, could do justice to Notre Dame’s properly Catholic endeavors in and about Asia,” Gimello said. “I fear now that this appointment will suggest to our Asian associates, and to scholars of Asia at other institutions here and abroad, that Notre Dame is deeply at odds with the Church that it claims to represent in the realms of higher education.”

A spokesman for Notre Dame, asked Wednesday about the faculty resignations and the pro-life student’s statement, said the university stands by its statement of last week.