Petition reaches over 600 signatures

The Students for Child-Oriented Policy (SCOP) recently hosted its annual White Ribbon Against Pornography (WRAP) week, with the specific focus of implementing a pornography filter on the campus Wi-Fi. On March 24, SCOP announced a petition, written by co-presidents Theo Austin and Kate Apelian, that “call[s] for Notre Dame President Fr. Robert Dowd, C.S.C., to take immediate action to promote a pornography-free campus.” As of publishing, the petition has been signed by over 600 students.

This year’s WRAP week movement against pornography was not the first instance of a student-led push for a filter. SCOP’s petition comes two years after the most recent proposal, which was voted down in the Student Senate in 2023. And in 2019, SCOP initiated a campus-wide petition with over 2400 signatures that was rejected by then-university president Father John Jenkins, C.S.C.

But despite the past failures, SCOP noted that the new presidency under Father Robert Dowd, C.S.C. provides a renewed hope for a filter. Austin told the Rover, “My hope and prayer is that there will be no need for further labor in this end, that President Dowd will push this change through the admin and porn will be removed from access on University internet.” 

Similar student-led initiatives for a pornography filter have been successful at other Catholic universities, including Franciscan University of Steubenville, Christendom College, and Holy Cross College—in 2009—as well as the Catholic University of America (CUA). 

During his tenure as CUA president, John Garvey implemented a pornography filter in 2019, following student requests. Garvey is now the JJ Clynes Visiting Professor of Law at Notre Dame’s Law School. He told the Rover, “[The CUA ban] seemed to be fairly uncontroversial among the students, and I was delighted to do what they asked. I’d had it in mind myself, but their request made it all that much easier.”

CUA’s filter was inspired by SCOP’s original petition in 2019, after a CUA student read that Notre Dame’s motion to block pornography on its Wi-Fi failed. 

That same year, CUA’s student government passed a resolution to “prohibit access to the top 200 pornography websites through the campus network.” It was subsequently implemented by then-university president Garvey. 

Despite the possibility of students getting around the filter, Garvey supported the students’ initiative. “It makes a statement,” he explained. “Catholic universities exist to teach students, among other things, how to live a life of virtue.” He continued, “If you can prevent a certain amount of it from being accessible or appearing on computers, the fewer invitations [there are] to engage in things that you probably shouldn’t in the first place.”

SCOP’s petition makes a similar argument: “With a filter, every time students attempt to access pornography, they would encounter Notre Dame’s enduring message that pornography is destructive and exploitative. Further, for those students who struggle themselves with addiction to pornography, it will provide them with an additional opportunity to abstain from use and heal.”

Garvey continued, “It seemed to everyone like a good idea. … I think that most people were coming to recognize that it’s a fairly unhealthy phenomenon. You see the American Bar Association, the National Institutes of Health, even the United Nations saying it’s a bad thing.”

SCOP’s petition cites university policy, “Responsible Use of Data & Information Technology Resources Policy,” which states, “When using Notre Dame’s information technology resources, users must … Never use University resources to post, view, print, store, or send obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit, or offensive material, except for officially approved, legitimate academic or University purposes.” 

The petition continues, “Our University’s own policy acknowledges this danger of pornography, condemning its access on campus using any Notre Dame technology resources, including the campus internet. … The University has refused to take any steps to enforce this policy prohibiting porn. We ask that the University rectify this so that their policy may actually affect what it dictates.”

Garvey also noted that a Wi-Fi filter “is easier to put in place if the student government is behind it.” In 2023, student senators John Soza and Ayden Ellis attempted that by proposing a porn filter to student government. After lengthy debate, it failed in an anonymous vote, 11-24. Arguments opposing the filter expressed concerns that a filter would threaten inclusivity or set a bad precedent of “ban[ning] anything related to the LGBTQ+ community on campus.” One senator upheld the “value in the free will to choose not to watch porn instead of having someone else choose for you.”

Before the 2023 student senate proposal, a 2018 SCOP Petition received 2400 signatures by university students, alumni, faculty, and staff. It was rejected by then-president Fr. Jenkins, who offered individual, opt-in filters in place of a campus Wi-Fi filter. To this, SCOP responded, “An ‘opt-in’ filter would teach that degrading others, especially women, is a matter of individual choice. It would say to students, ‘If you choose to go the extra mile to respect women, we support you.’”

Regarding the technological implementation of a filter, the Office of Information Technologies (OIT) told Soza in 2023, “Attempting to implement such a filter would have both technology and staff costs as we do not currently have the devices we would need to operate for this.” In 2019, however, then-head of OIT told SCOP that implementation of a filter “would be neither technologically difficult nor costly.” 

While acknowledging the limitations of a website-specific ban, Garvey said that at CUA “[the filter] was fairly easy to put in place and as effective as it could be.”

In addition to the petition for a pornography filter, SCOP’s WRAP week included other events focused on the harms of pornography and sexual violence. 

The week began with tabling to inform students about pornography and its negative effects in Duncan Student Center. Josh Haskell, Notre Dame alumnus and founder of Ethos National, delivered a lecture on his work combating pornography. Ethos National is a multi-college program dedicated to helping college men break their addiction to pornography. To conclude WRAP week, SCOP held a screening of Sound of Freedom, a 2023 film about child sex-trafficking. 

Austin reflected on the week, saying, “This [work] is important because this university is founded to be a force for good, that our students may be formed to effect change in our world. We want Fr. Dowd to know we are on his side.”

More information on SCOP programming and the proposed porn filter can be found on SCOP’s website. 

Jack Krieger is a freshman studying international economics and constitutional studies. He liked Sound of Freedom far better than Hollywood did. Reach him at jkrieger@nd.edu.

Photo Credit: Matt Cashore

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