Pro-Abortion Advocacy Meets Elite Campus Power

Historic university building surrounded by green grass and trees under a blue sky

Notre Dame just turned an internal faculty appointment into a public referendum on what “Catholic” still means on a world-famous campus.

Story Snapshot

Notre Dame selected Associate Professor Susan Ostermann to lead the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies starting July 1, 2026.
Critics point to her public pro-abortion advocacy in prior op-eds and argue leadership roles signal institutional approval.
Supporters and administrators emphasize academic freedom, professional expertise, and the university’s claim to be a “global Catholic research institution.”
A 2022 pro-abortion op-ed by Ostermann drew a public rebuke from then-President Fr. John Jenkins, setting up today’s conflict.

The appointment that won’t stay “academic”

Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs announced that Susan Ostermann, an associate professor hired in 2017, will become director of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies on July 1, 2026. The job matters: the Liu Institute sits among the provost-listed institutes that shape research priorities, programming, visiting speakers, and reputational signaling. That is why critics aren’t treating this like a routine personnel move, but as a mission-defining decision.

The controversy tracks back to public writing, not private rumor. Ostermann previously co-authored an op-ed supporting abortion access, language critics cite as directly at odds with Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life. The university’s own identity statement supports life “from conception to natural death,” which makes this appointment feel like a collision between two promises Notre Dame makes to the world: faithful Catholic witness and open academic inquiry.

Why leadership titles change the moral math

Universities hire faculty with many viewpoints; readers over 40 have seen that argument for decades. The harder question involves institutional authority. Directorships do not just reward scholarship; they entrust stewardship. Directors recruit fellows, host conferences, shape themes, and act as the face of an institute to donors, alumni, and students. When a Catholic university elevates a public abortion advocate into a top post, common sense says the promotion communicates tolerance at minimum, endorsement at worst.

Notre Dame’s defenders answer with a familiar line: personal views do not necessarily translate into institutional programming, and a research institute benefits from capable leadership regardless of ideology. That distinction sometimes holds for purely technical roles. It strains in a mission-driven institution where leadership functions include moral formation and public representation. Conservative critics are strongest when they stick to that concrete point: directors are symbols as much as managers, and symbols teach.

The 2022 rebuke that made this predictable

This dispute did not pop up from nowhere. In 2022, then-President Fr. John Jenkins publicly condemned a pro-abortion op-ed Ostermann co-authored, stating it did not reflect the university’s views. That episode built an expectation that Notre Dame would draw clear lines between advocacy that contradicts Catholic doctrine and roles that imply trust to represent the institution. The current appointment reopens that old wound and invites the obvious question: what changed?

Administrators and Ostermann have offered statements emphasizing commitment to Notre Dame’s Catholic mission and to the Keough School’s emphasis on “Integral Human Development.” The phrasing matters. Many Catholic institutions try to square circles by adopting shared-good language that sounds compatible with doctrine while avoiding direct engagement with abortion as a foundational life issue. Critics respond, fairly, that “mission” cannot stay an abstract slogan when prior public advocacy was explicit and remains unrecanted.

Power centers: who can reverse it, and who probably won’t

The chain of decision-making has its own story. Keough School Dean Mary Gallagher announced the appointment; Provost John McGreevy approved it; and current Liu director Michael Hockx praised Ostermann as an “inspiring leader.” Reports also describe opposition led by emeritus professor Fr. Wilson Miscamble, who has called the appointment “untenable” and has appealed beyond administrators toward the university’s Board of Fellows. That escalation signals an internal fight that normal faculty grumbling doesn’t produce.

Whether the university reverses course depends less on social media heat than on governance culture. Notre Dame has a record of absorbing controversy and waiting it out, including the 2009 Obama honorary degree dispute that drew condemnation from dozens of bishops yet ended without reversal. That precedent does not prove today will end the same way, but it does show the administration’s tolerance for reputational turbulence when leadership believes it has the authority, process, and allies to stand firm.

The real stake: trust with ordinary Catholics, not elite applause

Many Americans who donate to Catholic education do so for a reason that isn’t fashionable in faculty lounges: they want an institution that will not go wobbly on first principles under cultural pressure. Abortion sits near the center of that trust because it concerns innocent human life and the limits of personal autonomy. When Notre Dame elevates a public abortion advocate, critics see a familiar pattern—elite approval purchased at the price of clarity—then wonder why alumni loyalty erodes.

The university’s best argument rests on competence and scope. Ostermann’s scholarship focuses on South Asia, state capacity, coercion, and law; the Liu Institute’s work intersects policy, disaster mitigation, and regional expertise that matters in a world where China, India, and U.S. interests collide. A serious Catholic university should participate in that intellectual terrain. The question is whether Notre Dame can pursue global influence without treating Catholic teaching as a decoration rather than a duty.

What to watch next as July 1 approaches

The next phase will test whether this becomes a short-lived flare-up or a reshaping moment. Faculty petitions and Board-level appeals could force a clearer institutional explanation of how Notre Dame decides which public positions disqualify a person from mission-facing leadership. If administrators stay quiet, critics will fill the vacuum, and donors will do what they always do when leadership seems evasive: they will quietly redirect their money to places that sound more certain about who they are.

Notre Dame can still reduce damage with a straightforward standard that respects both academic freedom and Catholic identity: teach widely, debate openly, but reserve high-representation leadership posts for those who will not publicly oppose core moral commitments of the institution. That isn’t censorship; it is governance. Every organization draws lines for leadership. The only scandal is pretending a Catholic university should be the one place on earth that never does.