- St Mary’s College in Indiana has decided to reverse its decision to allow transgender applicants to the all-women school
- After originally announcing the change in policy last month, President Katie Conboy said they would be reverting to their original applicant policy
- Church leaders, students and alumni had voiced concerns over the allowance of transgender applicants being fundamentally against the Catholic teachings
A Catholic women’s college in Indiana has reversed its decision to allow biological males to attend the institute if they have a history of identifying as a woman.
St Mary’s College, in Notre Dame, had announced in November it would be allowing men who identify as women to enroll at the college in the fall of 2024.
On Thursday morning, President Katie Conboy issued an email to faculty at the college addressing an outcry over their decision.
In the email, first reported by The Daily Signal, Conboy confirmed the board had decided to return to the previous admission policy.
The school’s change had promoted fury from people including Fort Wayne-South Bend Bishop Kevin Rhoades who released a statement condemning the switch.
Conboy said in the email: ‘This has weighed heavily on our minds and in our hearts.
‘There have been many voices responding to us from many places and perspectives. We have listened closely, and we have heard each of you.
‘Some worried that this was much more than a policy decision: they felt it was a dilution of our mission or even a threat to our Catholic identity.
‘Moreover, we clearly underestimated our community’s genuine desire to be engaged in the process of shaping a policy of such significance.
‘As this last month unfolded, we lost people’s trust and unintentionally created division where we had hoped for unity. For this, we are deeply sorry.
‘Taking all these factors into consideration, the Board has decided that we will return to our previous admission policy.
‘Although this has been a challenging time for our community, we believe that the College should continually grapple with the complexity of living our Catholic values in a changing world.’
Bishop Rhoades said in his statement that the college had fundamentally departed from Catholic teaching on the nature of woman.
He added: ‘To call itself a “women’s college” and to admit male students who ‘consistently live and identify as women’ suggests that the college affirms an ideology of gender that separates sex from gender and claims that sexual identity is based on the subjective experience of the individual.’
Since Conboy announced the reversal in policy, students and alumni have expressed delight at the decision.
Claire Bettag, a junior at St Mary’s, told The Daily Signal: ‘I’m so proud of the women at Saint Mary’s who were willing to stand up against this anti-women, anti-Catholic policy. God’s truth will always win.’
Clare Ath, who graduated from the school in 2018, added: ‘When this admissions decision became public hundreds of alumni banded together to stand for the Church and her teachings.
‘While I would hope the reversal is because administrators realized we must teach the truth with love, my guess is the reversal is because alumni banded together, pulled their donations, notified their diocese and media, and said we will not let Our Lady’s college be corrupted by secular gender ideology.’
Patrick Reilly, president and founder of The Cardinal Newman Society, said: ‘This is such welcome news in this season when we celebrate Christ, Wisdom become true man, and Mary, true woman and true Mother of the Son of God.
‘This is the truth which is the foundation of Catholic education and not ‘the complexity of living our Catholic values in a changing world.’
The school was founded in 1844 by the Sisters of the Holy Cross. Its tuition costs around $50,000 per year.
