St. Mary’s College, located in Notre Dame, Ind., has reportedly reversed it’s new policy that would allow cross-dressing men to enroll in the all-women school.
Care Anne Ath, the government affairs manager for Human Coalition, posted on X a screenshot of the alleged email in which St. Mary’s President Kate Conboy and Board Chair Maureen Karnatz Smith said the board “has decided that we will return to our previous admission policy.”
🚨🚨BREAKING: @saintmarys has issued a statement REVERSING their admissions policy that would allow biological men to attend the Catholic women’s college.
I just received an alumni email detailing the decision & would like to thank Bishop Kevin Rhoades, the @diocesefwsb, and… pic.twitter.com/ImERzvuOek
— Clare Anne Ath (@clareanneath) December 21, 2023
The college had changed its non-discrimination policy in June 2023 to consider admission for applications “whose sex is female or who consistently live and identify as women,” reported The Observer, the independent student newspaper for the University of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College and Holy Cross College.
The policy reportedly followed the creation of a “President’s Task Force for Gender Identity” by Conboy.
Bishop Kevin Rhoades, who serves the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, issued a statement urging the St. Mary’s board to “correct” the policy.
The desire of Saint Mary’s College to show hospitality to people who identify as transgender is not the problem. The problem is a Catholic woman’s college embracing a definition of woman that is not Catholic.
Read his full statement here.