(The Daily Signal) — A pro-abortion Notre Dame professor is suing the student newspaper that reported on her inflammatory abortion remarks, claiming that the reporting subjected her to harassment. The student newspaper says her claims are “entirely false.”
Notre Dame professor Tamara Kay takes issue with two stories from The Irish Rover, a conservative-leaning newspaper run by students at the Catholic university. One of these stories, dated October 2022, highlighted that Kay was offering over social media to help students get abortions and had posted a sign on her door that read: “This is a SAFE SPACE to get help and information on ALL Healthcare issues and access — confidentially with care and compassion.”
“For me, abortion is a policy issue” the publication reported Kay saying. “And yes, my view runs afoul of Church teaching, but in other areas, my positions are perfectly aligned [with the Church].”
The other, dated March 2023, covered Kay’s presentation to Notre Dame College Democrats.
Kay’s actions followed the Indiana Legislature’s September 2022 passage of a law banning abortion statewide. Notre Dame is a private Catholic university, and the Catholic Church has explicitly declared abortion a crime against human life.
Kay’s May 2023 complaint specifically names W. Joseph DeReuil, the former editor-in-chief of The Rover and the author of the October 2022 article, and Luke Thompson, the politics editor of The Rover last year and the author of a March 2023 article.
She claims that The Rover articles contained false and defamatory information and that the publication’s reporters never spoke with her — outright stating that “she never said” multiple quotes The Rover attributed to her.
Neither Kay nor Notre Dame immediately responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal.
And DeReuil says everything The Rover published was and is true.
“Through all of the complaints professor Kay has offered against the Rover, and even in the lawsuit itself, it has remained unclear to me what she is objecting to in my presentation of the facts of her abortion advocacy,” DeReuil told The Daily Signal. “The Rover’s reporting simply brought these facts to the attention of the pro-life parts of the Notre Dame community.”
“I am not at all worried about the result of the lawsuit,” he added. “I know that everything we published is true and written in good faith, so I firmly believe that the lawsuit can only be decided in favor of The Irish Rover.”
And in a staff piece titled “We Will Not Be Silenced,” The Rover pushed back on Kay and her claims.
“Professor Kay’s allegations against the Rover are entirely false,” The Rover said. “And her lawsuit reflects only the latest stage in a tenured professor’s baseless public campaign against undergraduates at her own university who had the temerity to publish accurate stories about her very public abortion advocacy.”
Wallace White, a former intern at The Heritage Foundation and The Daily Signal, contributed to this report.
Mary Margaret Olohan
Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter for The Daily Signal.
