NOTRE DAME, Indiana (LifeSiteNews) — The University of Notre Dame renamed its Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) to the Sister Thea Bowman Center but has continued to allow the same pro-LGBT and DEI programs to remain in operation.
The purportedly Catholic university quietly rebranded its former DEI center to the Sister Thea Bowman Center without an official press release earlier this month and notably omitted any mentions of diversity, equity, or inclusion on its new page. However, despite the changes, the Sister Bowman Center continues to host a pro-LGBT Gender Relations Center in addition to other DEI programs.
The name change comes amid the university facing investigations for its DEI initiatives from the Trump administration and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office.
“The Sister Thea Bowman Center exists to provide a welcoming environment where students can foster a culture of belonging and engagement at Notre Dame,” the Sister Bowman Center’s webpage says.
While emphasizing the center’s welcoming environment, there is no longer an explicit mention of DEI initiatives. The “About” page also makes no mention of the Sister Thea Bowman Center’s original name, only that in began in 2022.
The former DEI center is now named for Sister Thea Bowman, the first African American nun to join the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.
Despite its new name, the Sister Thea Bowman Center continues to host several DEI student programs such as the Gender Relations Center (GRC).
The Gender Relations Center, in alignment with Notre Dame’s supposed Catholic identity, is “committed to the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual development of all students,” per its mission statement. The GRC has four main focus areas, including one on “LGBTQ and Allies.”
READ: Pro-abortion Notre Dame prof loses defamation suit against student newspaper
“The LGBTQ and Allies focus area supports peer education about allyship, accompaniment, and cultivating community,” its page states. “In doing so, it opens up room for conversation about how to create a more robust sense of belonging at Notre Dame and beyond for LGBTQ students, allies, and all people.”
While those with same-sex attraction or who identify as “transgender” shouldn’t necessarily be excluded from Catholic universities like Notre Dame, the site fails to mention the Church’s teaching on homosexual acts or gender ideology.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law” and that the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered.” The Catechism is very clear that homosexual activity can never be approved and repeats that “(h)omosexual persons are called to chastity.” Homosexual acts are mortal sins; therefore, anyone who commits these sins and does not repent through the sacrament of confession is in danger of hell.
The Catechism also teaches that there are only two genders: male and female and that “(e)veryone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity.”
READ: Cardinal Burke condemns gender ideology as ‘attack on reason and nature’
The GRC’s “LGBTQ and Allies” section is partnered with the campus’s “LGBTQ” ministry, which also omits any message of Catholic teaching on gender ideology or same-sex attraction but stresses that “all are welcome” on its webpage. They also have a partnership with PrismND, the campus’s official “LGBTQ+” organization for undergraduates, that dons a rainbow flag and shamrock on its homepage.
The Gender Relations Center also has DEI sections on “Gender and Intersectionality” and “Masculinites and Authenticity,” which featured a program this past spring called “Fostering LGBTQ Allyship Across Campus.”
While it has been long regarded as the most prominent Catholic university in America, Notre Dame has increasingly failed to live up to its professed religious identity. Some of the university’s most notorious violations of Catholic principles include participation in LGBT “Pride” Month, mandating COVID-19 vaccines despite their use of fetal cells from aborted babies, insuring abortifacient birth-control methods, inviting pro-abortion former president of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos to deliver its 2023 commencement address, and hosting a drag show.
The sudden office name change appears to be a result of pressure from both the federal and state governments over the university’s DEI practices.
In March, as part of its crackdown on the use of DEI initiatives in higher education, Trump’s Department of Education named Notre Dame, whose provost John McGreevey has underscored that DEI is considered of equal importance with the Catholic faith in its hiring process, among 45 colleges it was probing for alleged racial discrimination in its DEI initiatives.
Two months later, in May, Rokita launched his own investigation into Notre Dame’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies over concerns the policies violate civil rights laws.
READ: Indiana AG launches investigation into University of Notre Dame’s DEI policies
“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,” Rokita wrote in a letter to university president Father Robert Dowd.
The University of Notre Dame did not respond to LifeSiteNews’ request for comment by publication time.
