Notre Dame's Anti-Gay Problem
When a university watches a student newspaper run a cartoon that advocates beating LGBT people into vegetables, you know you have an anti-gay problem on your hands. Such is the case with the University of Notre Dame, which continues to receive flak for publishing a comic strip that ran with the joke, "How do you turn a fruit into a vegetable?" Answer: "A bat."
And if you think that's bad, know that the editors of the paper almost let fly an alternative punchline: "AIDS."
The issue here goes much deeper and a whole lot farther than just one comic strip. The truth is that the University of Notre Dame has had a hand in fostering a culture of homophobia where LGBT students, faculty and alums are told that they're less than and inferior to straight folks.
The University has fought tooth and nail to prevent sexual orientation from being added to its non-discrimination policy -- despite the fact that many other Catholic institutions have included it -- and the University has consistently denied efforts by LGBT students to form groups on campus. Why? Well, the simple answer is homophobia. But the longer answer is that leaders at Notre Dame must believe that in order to maintain a Catholic identity, they also have to peddle discrimination.
Heidi Schlumpf, a University of Notre Dame alum (and someone who worked at the student newspaper during her college days), wrote that student newspapers make mistakes. But publishing a cartoon that turns gay bashing into comedy? That goes beyond a simple mistake. That touches on a schoolwide culture.
"As the adviser to a student newspaper at the university where I teach, I understand that student journalists make mistakes, which can become opportunities to learn," Schlumpf writes. "But this, combined with the university's refusal to give official recognition to a gay/straight alliance group, raises real questions about an intolerant and homophobic culture on campus."
She's right. This cartoon isn't an isolated incident. It's part of a culture set by Notre Dame where the university says it's OK to discriminate against LGBT students. It goes to part of a culture at Notre Dame where school officials cancel queer-friendly films. It goes to part of a culture where the University won't recognize LGBT groups on campus because it might show LGBT students some dignity.
Mix all of that together in one big Catholic cauldron, and you get an environment ripe for the types of "jokes" where LGBT people are made fun of, or worse, where brutally beating LGBT people is turned into a comic strip.
Yes, the student newspaper at Notre Dame did apologize -- albeit, many say, half-heartedly -- for running the comic strip, and the University itself issued an apology, too.
But let's get beyond apologies, and let's get to action. What's one way to make sure a strip like this never appears again in any Notre Dame publication? Instilling values throughout the university that say LGBT-bashing won't be tolerated, and that LGBT people are welcome at the table inside the campus of Notre Dame.
Anything less means that anti-LGBT cartoons (like the one below which started this whole thing) won't be a thing of the past at Notre Dame, but rather a product of present university values.
(Top) Photo credit: mac7327
Michael Jones
is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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