Two Notre Dame Students Resign to Protest Professional-Abortion Appointment
Two esteemed scholars have resigned their affiliations with the University of Notre Dame’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies in protest over the appointment of pro-abortion advocate Susan Ostermann as its new director
That is a move pro-life critics decry as a betrayal of the Catholic university’s commitment to the sanctity of human life.
Robert Gimello, a research professor emeritus of theology and an expert on Buddhism who served as an emeritus fellow of the Liu Institute, and Diane Desierto, a professor of law and of global affairs who was a fellow, severed ties with the institute following the January 8 announcement of Ostermann’s appointment, effective July 1.
Gimello, in a statement, described continued association with a unit led by Ostermann as “simply unconscionable — this regardless of whatever considerable talents and accomplishments the appointee might otherwise bring to the job.”
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He expressed disturbance that the leader of Notre Dame’s “Asian face” holds views at odds with Catholic moral principles affecting Asia, including abortion, adding: “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 fears the appointment suggests to Asian associates and scholars that Notre Dame is at odds with the Church it claims to represent.
Ostermann, an associate professor of global affairs and political science at Notre Dame’s Keough School of Public Affairs hired in 2017, has co-authored 11 columns between May 2022 and May 2024 arguing for legal abortion and against prohibitions.
She has linked pro-life opposition to abortion with white supremacy, described laws banning abortion as “forced pregnancy and childbirth” that amount to “violence,” “sexual abuse,” and “trauma,” called crisis-pregnancy centers “anti-abortion rights propaganda sites” that are “fraudulent,” and advocated for Congress to cut off Medicaid funds to states that do not legalize abortion and ensure access through at least one clinic.
Ostermann has also described abortion as “freedom-enhancing” and “consistent with integral human development,” a Catholic social-justice principle that the Keough School describes as its mission.
Additionally, she has served as a consultant for the Population Council, which advocates for abortion.
The resignations follow student opposition from Notre Dame Right to Life, whose executive board published a letter in the student newspaper The Observer calling for the university to rescind Ostermann’s appointment.
The letter highlighted Ostermann’s work with the Population Council, which collaborated with the Chinese government to promote abortion, contraception, and the enforcement of the one-child policy, stating it “violates the dignity of human life.”
The board wrote, “These and other actions render Ostermann unfit to serve as head of the Liu Institute.”
Anna Kelley, president of Notre Dame Right to Life and a Catholic adoptee from China, provided a personal testimony in the letter: “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.”
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.”
