What’s the controversy behind the new head of Notre Dame’s Liu Institute?

Bishop Kevin Rhoades described the appointment as a 'scandal.'

The University of Notre Dame announced last month the appointment of researcher Susan Ostermann, an outspoken advocate of legal abortion, to head one of its academic institutes.

The appointment has generated considerable controversy, both within and beyond the university community.

This week, Fort Wayne-South Bend Bishop Kevin Rhoades issued a statement on the situation, saying the appointment is a scandal, and calling on Notre Dame leadership to “rectify this situation.”

What is the root of the controversy? What are the requirements for professors at a Catholic university? And what happens if the University of Notre Dame ignores the bishop’s call to take action?

The Pillar takes a look.

University of Notre Dame. Credit: RebeccaDLev / Shutterstock.

Who is Susan Ostermann?

Susan Ostermann is a researcher and professor at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs.

With a background in political science and litigation, Ostermann’s research interests include regulatory compliance, with a focus on South Asia.

On Jan. 8, Notre Dame announced that Ostermann had been named director of the university’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies within the Keough School of Global Affairs.

Though Ostermann has worked as a professor at Notre Dame since 2017, her appointment to a position of leadership prompted widespread backlash, due to her extensive record of advocating vocally for legal abortion and her criticism of the pro-life movement.

Among the objections to Ostermann’s appointment, two professors affiliated with the Liu Institute resigned in protest, and the university’s Right to Life executive board called for the appointment to be rescinded.

What has Ostermann said about abortion?

Ostermann is a public advocate of legal abortion.

She has written or co-written numerous op-eds on the subject in recent years, defending abortion as critical for the freedom and wellbeing of women, and criticizing pregnancy help centers as deceptive and pro-life laws as oppressive.

Ostermann has said that abortion respects the dignity of women and that laws against abortion

“have their roots in white supremacy and racism.”

In addition, she has made the argument that abortion is consistent with “integral human development,” a Catholic social principle cited by Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs as foundational in its work.

Ostermann also serves as a consultant for the Population Council, an international group that advocates for abortion and contraception overseas.

Last month, Ostermann said that while she has her “own convictions on complex social and legal issues,” she “respect[s] Notre Dame’s institutional position on the sanctity of life at every stage.”

What has Notre Dame said about the appointment?

The university has defended the appointment of Ostermann, calling her “a highly regarded political scientist and legal scholar” with “the rigorous, interdisciplinary expertise required to lead the Liu Institute.”

The university said in a statement that its commitment to upholding the sanctity of life is “unwavering” and reiterated that its leaders understand their obligation to make decisions that are “consistent with the University’s Catholic mission.”

In 2010, Notre Dame made an institutional statement on support for the sanctity of human life.

“Consistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church on such issues as abortion, research involving human embryos, euthanasia, the death penalty, and other related life issues, the University of Notre Dame recognizes and upholds the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death,” it said in April 2010.

What has the local bishop said?

Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend weighed in with a lengthy statement on Feb. 11, voicing “dismay” and “strong opposition” to Ostermann’s appointment, which he described as a “scandal.”

He said Ostermann’s vocal advocacy for legal abortion should “disqualify her from an administrative and leadership role at a Catholic university.”

“This appointment understandably creates confusion in the public mind as to Notre Dame’s fidelity to its Catholic mission. Many faculty, students, alumni, and benefactors of Notre Dame have reached out to me to express their shock, sadness, confusion, and disappointment,” Rhoades said.

The bishop also responded to the idea that such an appointment should be protected in the name of academic freedom.

“Academic freedom concerns the liberty of faculty to conduct research according to their own professional judgment and interests. This appointment, by contrast, concerns the official administrative appointment to lead an academic unit. Such appointments have profound impact on the integrity of Notre Dame’s public witness as a Catholic university,” he said.

Rhoades praised Notre Dame for its many positive expressions of faith and defense of Church teaching. He voiced hope that Ostermann would change her views and encouraged the Notre Dame community to pray for the university’s commitment to the Gospel of Life.

He called on university leadership to “rectify this situation,” noting that the appointment does not go into effect until July.

What authority does Bishop Rhoades have over Notre Dame?

Pope John Paul II’s 1990 apostolic constitution Ex corde Ecclesiae lays out the role of a bishop in overseeing the Catholic character of Catholic universities within a diocese:

“Each bishop has a responsibility to promote the welfare of the Catholic Universities in his diocese and has the right and duty to watch over the preservation and strengthening of their Catholic character. If problems should arise concerning this Catholic character, the local bishop is to take the initiatives necessary to resolve the matter, working with the competent university authorities in accordance with established procedures and, if necessary, with the help of the Holy See.”

Concretely, though, a bishop’s practical ability to intervene into the internal affairs of a university in his territory is somewhat limited. If a bishop believes a Catholic university is not living up to its mission in critical ways, he could issue a formal warning, and subsequently could prohibit the university from identifying itself as Catholic, or prohibit the reservation of the Blessed Sacrament in some campus chapels, or public celebration of the Mass at the university.

But a bishop can also raise his concerns at the Vatican’s Dicastery for Education and Culture, and urge a Vatican intervention into the issue.

Does a faculty member at a Catholic college have to get a mandatum?

Canon law states that “Those who teach theological disciplines in any institutes of higher studies whatsoever must have a mandate from the competent ecclesiastical authority.”

The USCCB explains that this mandatum “is fundamentally an acknowledgment by church authority that a Catholic professor of a theological discipline is teaching within the full communion of the Catholic Church.”

Since Ostermann is not teaching a theological discipline, she is not required to get a mandatum from the bishop.

But Ex corde Ecclesiae does say that all teachers and administrators “are to be informed about the Catholic identity of the Institution and its implications, and about their responsibility to promote, or at least to respect, that identity.”

Why does it matter how the director of an Asian Institute views abortion?

Ex corde Ecclesiae speaks about the need for university teachers to develop their content and research “within the framework of a coherent world vision.”

In leading the Liu Institute, Ostermann will be setting the tone for the institute’s stance on social and policy issues, and its approach to researching complex problems, critics have said.

Students from Notre Dame Right to Life stressed that in their view, “[t]his issue is neither abstract nor ideological.”

“The claim that Ostermann’s personal beliefs will have no influence on her work as head of the Liu Institute is erroneous and naive. The work done by the Keough School of Global Affairs must be informed by the preeminent right to life and the dignity of the human person,” they said in an open letter.

Notre Dame Right to Life president Anna Kelley also stressed that Ostermann’s views have “real-life consequences.”

“As a Catholic adoptee from China, I take personal offense at this appointment,” she said in the letter.

“I am so blessed to have escaped the fate that Professor Ostermann’s work has inflicted on so many innocent Chinese lives,” she said in an apparent reference to China’s one-child policy, which has been implemented in large part through forced abortions.