Catholic women's college in Indiana reverses policy change allowing applicants who ‘identify as women’

Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, reversed a recent decision to allow biological males to attend the university if they have a history of identifying as a woman.

Last month, President Katie Conboy told the faculty about the policy change in an email obtained by Fox News Digital.

"Saint Mary’s will consider undergraduate applicants whose sex assigned at birth is female or who consistently live and identify as women," Conboy emailed.

The school’s policy change drew harsh criticism from people like Fort Wayne-South Bend Bishop Kevin Rhoades, who reportedly urged the school to reverse course because the policy went against Catholic teachings.

On Wednesday, Conboy and the chair of the school’s board of trustees, Maureen Smith, emailed the Saint Mary's College community saying the school would return to its previous admission policy.

"Most Catholic schools are in a death spiral in terms of attendance; many have simply gone from all-boys/all-girls to co-ed in response. See this as just another doing the same; I’d take it as a sign it will be closed within 10 years or so."

Catholic Universities directly mirror the same increase / decrease in attendance as public univerities.

Notre Dame has been more or less the same attendance this decade, minus the plandemic dip that affected all schools equally. As compared against their Catholic-affiliated peers, they are certainly doing no worse. Meanwhile, Saint Louis University remarkably lept into the Top 10 this year. By chance I happen to know 2 SLU grad-school grads and both loved the place.

St. Mary's College almost identical to Notre Dame per enrollment changes. Interestingly, this chart contains similarly-sized public universities in the same state; per comparison, St. Mary's fared better than most in 2023 enrollment, and St. Mary's Of The Woods -- traditionally a school for Catholic novitiates -- saw an enrollment increase.

Finally, nationally, K-12 Catholic feeder school enrollment has stayed steady between 1.6-1.8M, nearly recovered from the plandemic dip that identically affected all school enrollment.

It didn't even last a week, Ronlim...

St. Mary's College reverses policy to admit transgender students
"St. Mary’s College, an all-female Catholic university, has reversed its policy to accept transgender students. The decision received push back from an Indiana bishop.
Days later, Indiana Bishop Kevin Rhoades, whose diocese includes South Bend, urged St. Mary’s board of trustees to “reject ideologies of gender that contradict the authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church” and “to correct its admissions policy.”
The board obliged on Dec. 21. In a letter addressed to the Saint Mary’s College community, Conboy and the board president wrote that it had become “increasingly clear … 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,” the letter reads. “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.”
Opponents of the former policy praised the college’s change of course, arguing that allowing men who identify as women into an all-female school goes against Catholic teaching.
“The desire of Saint Mary’s College to show hospitality to people who identify as transgender is not the problem,” wrote Bishop Rhoades in an open letter. “The problem is a Catholic woman’s college embracing a definition of woman that is not Catholic.”

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