Their website clearly deals in misleading, soothing palaver for the sake of reassuring their donor base. The fact is they declared their autonomy from both the Jesuits and the Archdiocese in 1969, and reconstituted themselves as an independent, separately-incorporated entity under a lay board of directors.
Read it and weep (LINK).
From the Wikipedia link
“In 1969, the board of trustees was reorganized to include a majority of nonclerical members, which officially made the university an independent institution”
I did not doubt your statement about 1969. I wondered how Fordham can still claim to be Catholic. It almost seems like false representation.