Notre Dame Trustees Grapple with Backlash to Pro-Abortion Professor’s Appointment

The University of Notre Dame’s trustees and fellows will be discussing the much-maligned appointment of a pro-abortion scholar to a leadership role within the university during their annual winter meetings this week, as the public and internal backlash to the decision continues to escalate.

Notre Dame is experiencing significant backlash from pro-life Catholics in and around the school because of its decision to appoint vocal abortion advocate Susan Ostermann to lead the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the Keough School of International Affairs. Two scholars — Professors Robert Gimello and Diane Desierto — have resigned from the Liu Institute in recent days over Ostermann's appointment.

Trustees and fellows are meeting Wednesday and Thursday in Naples, Fla., and the Ostermann controversy is expected to be part of the agenda, according to two sources familiar with the situation who spoke to National Review on the condition of anonymity. These are annual winter meetings and not special meetings convened because of the Ostermann situation.

Ostermann has been with Notre Dame’s Keough School since 2017 and specializes in South Asian studies. She holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. The Keough School announced Ostermann’s appointment last month. She is set to take over the role on July 1.

“Susan is an exceptional scholar and a deeply engaged teacher whose work reflects the Keough School's commitment to rigorous, interdisciplinary research with real-world impact,” Keough School Dean Mary Gallagher said.

The backlash grew significantly when Father Bill Miscamble, professor emeritus of history at Notre Dame, wrote an article in the ecumenical journal First Things last week expressing opposition to Ostermann’s appointment. He attributed the appointment to Gallagher and Notre Dame provost John McGreevy. Miscamble subsequently wrote a letter to the editor about it in the The Observer, Notre Dame’s most prominent campus paper.

Professor Gimello, emeritus faculty at the Liu Institute whose scholarly work focuses on Buddhism, resigned from his position because of Ostermann’s pro-abortion views.

“Continued formal association with a unit of the University led by such a person is, for me, simply unconscionable — this regardless of whatever considerable talents and accomplishments the appointee might otherwise bring to the job,” he said in a written statement provided to NR. A longtime academic, Gimello has been retired for seven years after working at Notre Dame from 2006-17. He maintained the emeritus fellowship at the Liu Institute after retirement.

Diane Desierto, a law and global affairs professor, also resigned from the Liu Institute amid the growing fallout, she confirmed to National Review.

Ostermann has written numerous op-eds publicly supporting abortion access. Former Notre Dame President Father John Jenkins rebuked her pro-abortion views in 2022. Her pro-abortion perspective also informed her academic work as co-editor of the journal Studies in Comparative International Development, which released a special issue on “Critical Perspectives on Global Reproductive Health” in December 2025.

The articles in the issue take a pro-abortion position and criticize the Catholic Church’s perspective on abortion. Ostermann’s co-editor and op-ed co-author, Tamara Kay, was a professor at Notre Dame who left the school after unsuccessfully suing the Irish Rover, a Catholic student newspaper, for defamation over its coverage of her abortion activism.

Additionally, Ostermann has claimed the pro-life cause is rooted in white supremacy and criticized pregnancy resource centers for supposedly pushing anti-abortion propaganda. Her support for abortion, and denigration of the pro-life position, has renewed the never-ending debate about the extent to which Notre Dame is committed to its Catholic mission.

Ostermann’s position is directly opposed to Notre Dame’s institutional stance and the teaching of the Catholic Church, which opposes abortion in all circumstances and considers it a grave sin. Notre Dame’s Board of Fellows is specifically tasked with safeguarding Notre Dame’s Catholic mission from institutional drift. The fellows include several priests with the Congregation of Holy Cross, the Catholic order that founded the school over 175 years ago and continues to oversee it.

Concerned faculty, alumni, and benefactors have voiced their criticisms to the fellows, urging them to push Notre Dame President Father Robert Dowd to overturn Ostermann’s appointment. It is the first time Father Dowd has been confronted with a controversy related to Notre Dame’s Catholic mission since he assumed the presidency in 2024, succeeding Jenkins in the role.

Moreover, the executive board of Notre Dame Right to Life urged the university to rescind Ostermann’s appointment in another letter to the editor published by The Observer Tuesday night.

“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,” Notre Dame Right to Life president Anna Kelley said in a statement accompanying the letter.

In a statement to The Observer, Ostermann said she will focus on the Liu Institute’s academic research rather than pushing a political agenda. She also voiced respect for Notre Dame’s institutional support for the sanctity of life.

“I have long worked with scholars who hold diverse views on a multitude of issues, and I welcome the opportunity to continue doing so. While I hold my own convictions on complex social and legal issues, I want to be clear: my role as Liu Director is to support the diverse research of our scholars and students, not to advance a personal political agenda,” Ostermann said.

“I am inspired by the University's focus on Integral Human Development, which calls upon all of us to promote the dignity and flourishing of every person. I respect Notre Dame’s institutional position on the sanctity of life at every stage and believe that by fostering a collaborative space that values rigorous inquiry, we contribute in important ways to global development and human well-being.”

Notre Dame is America’s most prominent Catholic school and a globally renowned research institution known to many for its top-ranked football program. This year, a record-high 76 Notre Dame students are converting to Catholicism, in no small part because of Notre Dame’s Catholic atmosphere. At the same time, Notre Dame employs faculty with a wide range of viewpoints because of the value it places on high-quality academics and research.

Notre Dame reiterated its commitment to upholding the sanctity of life in a statement to National Review addressing the ongoing controversy.

“Professor Susan Ostermann is a highly regarded political scientist and legal scholar whose insightful research on regulatory compliance — from forestry conservation in India and Nepal to NSF-funded disaster mitigation in the U.S. territories — demonstrates the rigorous, interdisciplinary expertise required to lead the Liu Institute,” Notre Dame said in a statement.

“Those who serve in leadership positions at Notre Dame do so with the clear understanding that their decision-making as leaders must be guided by and consistent with the University’s Catholic mission. Notre Dame's commitment to upholding the inherent dignity of the human person and the sanctity of life at every stage is unwavering.”