After announcing a trans-inclusive admissions policy, Saint Mary’s College in Indiana will reverse course

Months after courageously announcing that transgender women would be considered for admission beginning next fall, Saint Mary’s College, an all-women’s Catholic school in Indiana, has reversed course in the fact of mounting backlash.

The school, whose mission is to “empower women, through education, at all stages in life,” announced in June that it had updated its non-discrimination policy so that admission would be considered for anyone “whose sex is female or who consistently live and identify as women.” In short: They would start to admit trans women.

That flew in the face of the Catholic Church, which officially believes trans identities seek to “annihilate the concept of nature” and reject them entirely.

But many practicing Catholics don’t agree with Church hierarchy on LGBTQ issues, and other all-women’s colleges (including some Catholic ones!) had already become more inclusive on this matter.

Saint Mary’s President Katie Conboy even cited Pope Francis in a letter to students explaining the change, saying that the pope “advocates for love as the appropriate approach to those who are different from ourselves” (emphasis hers). She argued that caring for people who are LGBTQ was very different from affirming their gender identities or sexual orientations, and that a Catholic college admitting trans people didn’t violate any doctrine.

(Why would trans people want to go to a Catholic school? That’s a separate discussion, but everyone has their own reasons for choosing what school they attend, whether it’s the professors and programs, a preference (in this case) for being around other women, the kind of scholarships available, the fact that their parents will only pay for certain kinds of schools, or something else entirely.)

There was predictable opposition to the decision from conservatives, including from Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, who runs the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. He had more power than graduates who could merely threaten to withhold future donations. Rhoades had the ability to block the school from identifying as Catholic, ban the offering of sacraments at campus chapels, and prevent any public celebrations of Mass at the school.

As I said at the time, though, it didn’t seem wise to do any of those things. After all, with around 1,600 students and an endowment of over $200 million, Saint Mary’s was doing just fine on its own. The students who aren’t as rigid when it comes to being around trans women were probably not going to seek a transfer if the school could no longer identify as Catholic or offer religious rituals.

Unfortunately, the pressure campaign worked.

In an email sent to the school on Thursday, Conboy announced that the Board was reversing its decision and undoing the changes to its non-discrimination policy. No trans women will be admitted at the school next year—or in the foreseeable future.

No valid reason was given for the reversal. In short, she said the change created conflict… and conflict is bad... therefore compassion needs to take a back seat to bigotry.

When the Board approved this update, we viewed it as a reflection of our College’s commitment to live our Catholic values as a loving and just community. We believed it affirmed our identity as an inclusive, Catholic, women’s college. It is increasingly clear, however, that the position we took is not shared by all members of our community. Some worried that this was much more than a policy decision: they felt it was a dilution of our mission or even a threat to our Catholic identity. Moreover, we clearly underestimated our community’s genuine desire to be engaged in the process of shaping a policy of such significance. As this last month unfolded, we lost people’s trust and unintentionally created division where we had hoped for unity. For this, we are deeply sorry. 

Taking all these factors into consideration, the Board has decided that we will return to our previous admission policy.

Although this has been a challenging time for our community, we believe that the College should continually grapple with the complexity of living our Catholic values in a changing world. But we also believe the College needs to do so as a community. When we disagree, we must strive to preserve the fabric of our relationships. This, at its core, is what it means to be a part of a vibrant Catholic campus in this moment…

What a cowardly statement. You don’t need to preserve a relationship that’s fundamentally broken especially when the other side is seething with hatred based on their own ignorance.

What happened to loving people who are “different from ourselves”? What happened to assurances that admitting trans women was “not only in line with best practices for today’s college students, but… also encompasses our commitment to operate as a Catholic women’s college”? Was that all bullshit? What sort of moral monsters look at a non-discrimination policy and hit CTRL-Z?

School administrators took a tough stand earlier and they were right to do it! The haters would’ve eventually tired themselves out and gone away. Instead of defending their decision on principle, though, the Board of Trustees caved in to the bigots’ threats.

Was it because of money? Was it the possibility of losing its affiliation with the Catholic Church? If so, why not just say that? Rather than make bigots the bad guys, the email suggests the Trustees—not the critics—were wrong to consider compassion and inclusion when it came to admissions.

It’s not just bad policy; it’s awful public relations.

The email went on to say that this conversation will continue…

To this end, beginning in January, we will introduce a series of listening sessions—both on campus and online for our extended family—to explore what it means to embrace our values as a Catholic, women’s college. We will continue to work toward understanding how a college like ours can become a true home, a place of open doors and open arms, where everyone, with all their differences intact, belongs.

… but that’s also bullshit. There’s no point in “listening” after a conclusion has been reached. More importantly, the school has already committed to rejecting differences and shutting out certain students. How can they understand the importance of “open arms” when they’re coming into the discussion with clenched fists?

Don’t think for a second that the right-wing zealots who lashed out weeks ago will shut up either. They got what they wanted. That means their next step will be demanding the resignation of Conboy and the other Trustees who changed the policy in the summer. They’ll be out for blood, withholding donations and throwing around meaningless words like “woke,” in an effort to drive a stake through the heart of the campus.

That’s my prediction, anyway, because those people always use the same playbook. Instead of taking the moral high ground, the Board at Saint Mary’s surrendered.

They may as well announce a new campus logo featuring a single tear and a white flag.