Students at the University of Notre Dame, a prominent Catholic institution, are rallying against the appointment of Susan Ostermann, a professor with a history of advocating for abortion, as the new director of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies.
They say the move betrays the school’s commitment to upholding the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.
The Notre Dame Right to Life Executive Board issued a public call for the university to rescind Ostermann’s appointment, which is set to take effect July 1, arguing that her public stances and affiliations directly contradict Catholic teachings on abortion as an intrinsic evil.
In a statement published in the student newspaper The Observer, the group highlighted Ostermann’s work as a member of the Population Council, an organization that collaborated with the Chinese government to promote abortion, contraception and the enforcement of the one-child policy, which they said “violates the dignity of human life.”
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“These and other actions render Ostermann unfit to serve as head of the Liu Institute,” the board wrote.
Ostermann, an associate professor of global affairs and political science hired by Notre Dame in 2017, has co-authored multiple opinion pieces promoting abortion, including a 2022 Chicago Tribune article titled “Lies about abortion have dictated our health policy,” where she and co-author Tamara Kay falsely claimed that “Almost 90% of abortions occur during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy when there are no babies or fetuses. There are only blastocysts or embryos so tiny they are too small to be seen on an abdominal ultrasound.”
She has also described pregnancy and childbirth as “violence against women,” “sexual abuse” and “trauma,” and linked abortion bans to “white supremacy and racism.”
That 2022 Tribune piece prompted then-President Rev. John I. Jenkins to issue a rare public rebuke, stating unequivocally that “their essay does not reflect the views and values of the University of Notre Dame in its tone, arguments or assertions.”
Jenkins added that Notre Dame’s institutional position “recognizes and upholds the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.”
Anna Kelley, president of Notre Dame Right to Life and a Catholic adoptee from China, offered a personal testimony in the group’s statement: “As a Catholic adoptee from China, I take personal offense at this appointment. 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.”
The student opposition echoes broader criticism from faculty and alumni.
Rev. Wilson D. Miscamble, a Holy Cross priest and professor emeritus of history at Notre Dame, labeled the appointment a “travesty” in a critique published in First Things, warning that it would expose “the hollowness of the claim that Catholic character informs all Notre Dame’s endeavors.”
Miscamble has appealed to the university’s Board of Fellows, which includes six Holy Cross priests and six laypeople, to intervene and reverse the decision, citing their “fiduciary responsibility to maintain Notre Dame’s essential character as a Catholic institution of higher learning.”
A number of distinguished senior faculty have also called on administrators to rescind the appointment, according to Miscamble.
