In response to a series of federal laws from the Trump administration that revoke tax-exempt status for private schools that use racial preferences, Notre Dame has renamed its diversity offices and recast faculty hiring around its Catholic mission over the past two years. If they were to maintain their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and lose the tax exemption, Notre Dame would have owed more than 500 million dollars last year, the Observer reported.
Despite such changes, the universities’ 10-year strategic plan establishes the goal for a more diverse campus with specific expectations, and several programs retain an explicit racial focus.
The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service published the newest rules on DEI programs on September 4. The rules would deny tax-exempt status to any private school that considers race in admissions, scholarships, or other programs, even if the school says its goal is to increase diversity or make up for past discrimination. Specifically, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement, “Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature.”
As a result, the university shifted its approach to faculty hiring since the second Trump administration took office on January 20, 2025.
Initially, on January 17, Provost John McGreevy wrote in an email to Notre Dame faculty that hiring new Catholic professors is one goal, and increasing the number of women and underrepresented minorities on the faculty is a “second overlapping and equally important goal,” according to the National Catholic Register. He also said a hiring guide would take effect on July 1, 2025.
On January 21, however, President Trump signed an executive order targeting DEI. By September, McGreevy’s emphasis had changed. In a September 3, 2025 letter to faculty, McGreevy wrote that Notre Dame was “proceeding with a slate of faculty searches” while “many of our peer institutions have stopped faculty hiring.”
Rather than repeating the diversity goal, McGreevy announced a task force on “mission faculty hiring,” chaired by Father John Jenkins, C.S.C., the university’s president emeritus. The provost wrote that “one important dimension” of faculty hiring “is hiring faculty who are committed to our distinctive Catholic mission.” The letter did not mention diversity, women, or underrepresented faculty.
The university has since created a senior position for this new effort. On September 11, Notre Dame named James Schmiedeler vice president and associate provost for faculty recruitment support. He will help departments with “hiring for Notre Dame’s Catholic mission.” Schmiedeler has experience in “inclusive” hiring practices as he currently serves as the College of Engineering’s associate dean for faculty advancement and inclusion, and the announcement says he will also “help integrate mission hiring with the University’s commitment to building a beloved community.”
Nevertheless, DEI-adjacent language remains present in the mission of the Provost’s Office. The “Inclusive Excellence” page of the office’s website says Notre Dame “is called to be a community distinguished by its inclusivity” and that its mission “depends on ensuring that seekers of truth from every background and intellectual perspective feel welcomed.”
Assistant Provost Keona L. Lewis is currently leading these efforts for “Inclusive Excellence.” When Notre Dame hired Lewis in 2023, her title was “assistant provost for academic diversity and inclusion.” The provost’s staff directory now lists her only as “Assistant Provost.”
In March 2025, the Department of Education (DoE) opened investigations into Notre Dame and 44 other universities over their partnerships with The PhD Project, a doctoral program that allegedly “unlawfully limits eligibility based on the race of participants.” In February 2026, the DoE determined that the schools violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and Notre Dame was among 31 that agreed to end their affiliation with the program.
Separately, in May 2025, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita opened his own inquiry into Notre Dame’s DEI practices, which he later expanded with civil investigative demands. Rokita’s inquiry cited Notre Dame 2033, the 10-year strategic plan the university released in 2023 to set its academic and institutional priorities. The plan, which still contains its diversity goals, states, “Becoming more diverse and strengthening the university’s Catholic mission is a single project, not two parallel tasks,” and that “aspirations for faculty and staff hiring and retention need to be articulated and programs to ensure an inclusive campus expanded.”
Notre Dame has also renamed its two main diversity offices without changing their leadership. In August 2025, the Center for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion became the Sister Thea Bowman Center. A month later, the Office of Institutional Transformation became the Office of Belonging, Engagement, and Mission, which is still led by vice president, the Rev. Hugh Page, who also serves as an advisor to the president.
Student programs show a similar pattern of new language for existing programs. In 2023, Campus Ministry advertised the “Plunge Retreat for First-Year Black Students,” which was open to all first-year students “but is especially geared toward Black students.” This year’s page renamed the event to “The Plunge: Black First-Year Retreat” and drops that line, clarifying that the retreat is open to all first-year students. Separate Asian and Latino first-year retreats were held the same weekend.
The retreats are run with Multicultural Student Programs and Services, which made a similar change to its bias workshop. In 2024, its “Microaggression Intervention at Notre Dame” workshop aimed to help students “understand the nature of racial microaggressions,” according to an archived version of its page. It is now called “MiND Workshop: Understanding Bias, Interrupting Exclusion,” and its description no longer mentions race. The office also lists 62 affiliated clubs, including the Black Student Association, the Latinx Student Alliance, and Graduate Students Against Racial Injustice.
Similarly, the College of Engineering introduced Yvette Rodriguez in 2022 as its “Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” Her title is now “Wilma Sanchez Director of Inclusive Excellence,” and each engineering department now has a faculty director of “inclusive excellence.”
The Rover interviewed several students who expressed their concerns with Notre Dame’s response to Trump’s DEI policies in the perspective of her Catholic mission. A junior who lives in O’Neill Family Hall told the Rover, “Notre Dame should oppose both diversity and pure meritocracy by favoring its Catholic mission in the most authentic way.”
Another junior political science major told the Rover, “Diversity is an essential part of Catholic social teaching, which emphasizes spreading the Gospel of love to everyone. … [T]he university should ground its hiring decisions in its Catholic mission rather than on the modern notion of diversity.”
Luke Severson is a sophomore political science major. His favorite hobby is listening to Dr. Taylor Marshall lectures. Contact him at lseverso@nd.edu.