Editors’ note: A longer version of this essay is slated for publication in an upcoming issue of The Jesuit Educational Quarterly.
This past March, Georgetown University Law Center fended off an extraordinary incident of unprecedented government overreach when the chief federal prosecutor for our district, interim U.S. Attorney Edward R. Martin Jr., opened an inquiry into the content of our curriculum. Such incursions constitute a threat of the highest order to our nation’s First Amendment values. Now more than ever, it is urgent to stand up for our university’s autonomy to make curricular decisions based on its Jesuit mission.
Over the past several months, many other institutions in the United States have been subject to intense scrutiny from the federal government regarding a perceived threat that comes under the umbrella of what is termed D.E.I. The acronym, short for “diversity, equity and inclusion,” generally refers to a set of programs and practices focused on fair treatment and greater participation, especially of people who have been marginalized or underrepresented in work, educational or other settings.
In various orders, memoranda and letters, the current presidential administration has offered a specific narrative and interpretation of why D.E.I. programs and practices should be eliminated. According to an executive order dated Jan. 21, such practices “not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.” Accordingly, the executive order requires government agencies to combat “illegal” D.E.I. preferences, mandates, policies, programs and activities, including in the private sector.
In a memorandum to “All Federal Agencies,” dated July 29, the U.S. Department of Justice seems to have upped the ante, with extensive guidance for rooting out “illegal” preferential treatment of underrepresented persons and groups by federally funded entities. It instructs: “Preferential treatment occurs when a federally funded entity provides opportunities, benefits, or advantages to individuals or groups based on protected characteristics in a way that disadvantages other qualified persons, including such practices portrayed as ‘preferential’ to certain groups. Such practices violate federal law unless they meet very narrow exceptions.” The memorandum proceeds to detail the practices and proxies that it considers to be unlawful discrimination.
Diverse Identities and Needs
The often unstated premise for the attack on D.E.I. programs and policies is that they necessarily push down or squash the identity and interests of those who are not the beneficiaries of these efforts. This zero-sum-game vision sorts the world into undeserving winners and otherwise deserving losers, and in the scramble for scarce resources, this vision concludes that D.E.I. is unjust and unfair.
But this is not the only way to see and respond to a world of diverse identities and needs. Through the lens of a less individualistic worldview, what comes into relief are the historical, social and cultural gaps and flaws in the mythic exhortation to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” through hard work and individual achievement.
Most poignantly, what emerges through this lens is how particularized attention and care for the growth and development of those who have been historically excluded or who have suffered from discrimination is not a zero-sum game but an opportunity for the harmonious growth of the entire community and all of its participants.
At educational institutions, similar efforts to sustain learning communities that encourage encounter amid deep differences help to foster settings that lead to the kind of growth and insight that inspire and drive the core of their missions.
Jesuit and Catholic
As the mission statement of Georgetown University holds: “[S]erious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding.”
In other words, the educational environment that we aim to foster and support is best nourished by working to get all the voices in the room and participating in the conversation. Implicit in this statement is the commitment to build an educational environment that gathers, respects and sustains people of different faiths, cultures and beliefs. And this work is often grounded in specific attention to the social, cultural and historical realities that have led to exclusion.
In contemporary political terms, the mission of Georgetown is closely aligned with many aspects of D.E.I. principles and practices. But for a Catholic and Jesuit university like Georgetown, the principle involved is not one that is a product of contemporary concerns about the mandates of justice. It is, rather, a principle—and a worldview—that is central to centuries-old Catholic and Jesuit teachings and practices.
D.E.I. values and Catholic social teaching
An extensive line of Catholic social thought commentary could also sustain many approaches to D.E.I. practices and programs. But these teachings rest on their own theological and philosophical foundations. For example, core constitutions from the Second Vatican Council provide abundant insight into how church teaching meshes with the values of human dignity and the unity of the human family, as well as contemporary reflections on democracy and pluralism. In the encyclicals of all the popes since Vatican II, one can also easily find a throughline of analysis on how church teaching sustains the values of inclusion and full participation in a diverse world.
For example, in “Populorum Progressio” (1967), Pope Paul VI set out a vision of radical inclusion based on solidarity in action, so that “no one is left behind as development advances.” The pope also identified obstacles to solidarity and sources of injustice, such as inequity in trade relationships and the sense of isolation that emerges from nationalism and racism.
Similarly, in “Sollicitudo Rei Socialis” (1987), Pope John Paul II offered an extended reflection on how the practice of solidarity can help to foster a vision of radical inclusion: “Solidarity helps us to see the ‘other’…as our ‘neighbor,’ a ‘helper’ (cf. Gen 2:18-20), to be made a sharer, on a par with ourselves, in the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God.”
In “Caritas in Veritate” (2009), Pope Benedict deepened the social, cultural and economic implications of a theological understanding of human community patterned on the dynamic life of communion at the heart of the Trinity. Within this vision, unity in diversity is not a zero-sum game that sorts people into “winners” and “losers.” Instead, true openness to the distinct reality of other persons leads not to a “loss of individual identity” but rather to “profound interpenetration.”
And in “Fratelli Tutti” (2020), Pope Francis’ reflections on social friendship offered a path to fostering a greater sense of inclusion. “Only a gaze transformed by charity can enable the dignity of others to be recognized and, as a consequence, the poor to be acknowledged and valued in their dignity, respected in their identity and culture, and thus truly integrated into society,” he wrote. From this perspective, those on the “periphery” are to be included because they truly have something to offer: “For they have another way of looking at things; they see aspects of reality that are invisible to the centres of power where weighty decisions are made.” Specifically with regard to the inclusion of migrants, he notes: “[A]n individual and a people are only fruitful and productive if they are able to develop a creative openness to others.”
Finally, it would also be important to note that Catholics in specific regions of the world also look to their regional conferences of Catholic bishops for reflections and guidance that can inform their work to respond to social and cultural challenges in their region. For example, in their pastoral letter “Brothers and Sisters to Us” (1979), the bishops of the United States set forth a strong condemnation of racism as a sin, noting that the responsibility “to resist and undo injustices” of racism extends beyond the realm of personal fault. They wrote: “The sin is social in nature in that each of us, in varying degrees, is responsible. All of us in some measure are accomplices.” The breadth of the shared duty to work for justice is clear: “The absence of personal fault for an evil does not absolve one of all responsibility. We must seek to resist and undo injustices we have not caused, lest we become bystanders who tacitly endorse evil and so share in guilt in it.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Longstanding, wide-ranging and deep sources within the Catholic social thought tradition clearly articulate the moral imperative to foster appreciation for diversity and the values of equity and inclusion, and the responsibilities that flow from these values.
Jesuit mission and pedagogy
The driving mission of a Jesuit university is rooted not only in the obligations that flow from the Gospels and the beliefs of the Catholic Church, but also in the history, spirituality and charism of St. Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuit order.
As the Jesuit historian John O’Malley wrote in Tradition and Transition: Historical Perspectives on Vatican II, the Jesuits’ distinctive contribution to the church’s efforts to understand and respectfully engage with other peoples, cultures and belief systems throughout the globe is characterized by the pastoral principle of accommodation to times, places and circumstances, with manifold examples of “radical adaptation” and “sweeping inculturation.”
In contemporary terms, decrees from the 34th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (1995) capture well the Jesuit commitments to promote cross-cultural understanding (No. 4) and interreligious dialogue (No. 5). And as the Jesuit theologian David Hollenbach explained in a 2016 essay, the pursuit of interreligious and cross-cultural understanding is considered to be “an essential expression of Christian love for one’s neighbor and universal respect for the dignity and rights of all people.”
In 2022, referring specifically to the mission and identity of Jesuit universities, the current superior general of the Society of Jesus, Arturo Sosa, highlighted the mutual benefits of culturally diverse educational environments. He explained: “Because ‘the world is our home,’ as the first Jesuits said, every culture that dwells in it is our sister. That is why we want to go beyond multiculturality and open ourselves to interculturality as a process of human enrichment.”
It is also important to note the mandatory nature of Jesuit institutional alignment with the Jesuit mission. Every seven years, each Jesuit university is required to engage in a “Mission Priority Examen” through which it is accountable to the Jesuit order. Ultimately, reports are reviewed by the Jesuit superior general to determine if priorities are aligned with the Jesuit and Catholic mission.
Thus, for Georgetown, the animating principle of our mission statement—that “serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding”—is not an optional encouragement but the mandatory foundation for every aspect of our institution.
First Amendment freedoms
Recent government scrutiny and invasive inquiry into university curricula and programming have resulted in a completely unprecedented and astounding unconstitutional attack on the freedom and integrity of academic institutions—and in some cases, also on the precious value of religious freedom.
The threats are not hypothetical. On Feb. 14, the Department of Education issued a letter setting forth the department’s views on the Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. It informed schools that they could not legally consider race in a wide variety of activities, including “hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”
Two weeks later, the department issued a broad follow-up letter, saying that it would investigate schools that “us[ed] racial classifications and race-based policies to further DEI objectives, ‘equity,’ a racially-oriented vision of social justice or similar goals.”
In March, Mr. Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, moved from these declarations about the law and threats of investigation to an attempt to coerce compliance. His letter to the dean of Georgetown Law opened:
It has come to my attention reliably that Georgetown Law School continues to teach and promote DEI. This is unacceptable. I have begun an inquiry into this and would welcome your response to the following questions:
First, have you eliminated all DEI from your school and its curriculum? Second, if DEI is found in your courses or teaching in anyway [sic], will you move swiftly to remove it?
The letter from the person holding authority as the chief federal prosecutor for the district also included a direct threat to Georgetown Law’s current students and alumni: “At this time, you should know that no applicant for our fellows program, our summer internship, or employment in our office who is a student or affiliated with a law school or university that continues to teach and utilize DEI will be considered.”
The response on March 6 of William Treanor, then the dean of the law school, emphasized the foundational bedrock of Georgetown University’s Catholic and Jesuit mission. After quoting the Georgetown mission statement—“serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding”—he explained: “For us at Georgetown, this principle is a moral and educational imperative. It is a principle that defines our mission as a Catholic and Jesuit institution.”
Dean Treanor explained the flatly unconstitutional nature of the interim U.S. attorney’s inquiry and challenge: “Your letter challenges Georgetown’s ability to define our mission as an educational institution.” He further noted: “The First Amendment, however, guarantees that the government cannot direct what Georgetown and its faculty teach and how to teach it. The Supreme Court has continually affirmed that among the freedoms central to a university’s First Amendment rights are its abilities to determine, on academic grounds, who may teach, what to teach, and how to teach it.”
Dean Treanor’s response also expressed alarm with the nature of the interim U.S. attorney’s threat:
Your letter informs me that your office will deny our students and graduates government employment opportunities until you, as Interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, approve of our curriculum. Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear, as is the attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution.
While Mr. Martin’s nomination was subsequently withdrawn, other challenges remain—and new fronts of attack on the independence of Jesuit and other universities open every day.
Free speech rights
It is well established that the First Amendment protects the free speech rights of organizations as well as individuals. For example, in NRA v. Vullo, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the National Rifle Association had First Amendment rights and that, as a result, New York State financial regulators could not punish the organization for its gun promotion advocacy.
So, too, do universities have First Amendment rights as organizations. It is well established that for universities this First Amendment right includes the right to determine their curriculum. In a now classic statement of the “four essential freedoms” of a university in Sweezy v. New Hampshire, Justice Felix Frankfurter explained that “[it] is the business of a university to provide that atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment and creation. It is an atmosphere in which there prevail ‘the four essential freedoms’ of a university—to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.” Embracing Frankfurter’s concurrence in Sweezy, the court in Univ. of Michigan v. Ewing wrote, “Academic freedom thrives…on autonomous decisionmaking by the academy itself.”
As an institution whose free speech rights are protected by the First Amendment, a Jesuit university, like any university, has the right to control its own curriculum—“to determine for itself on academic grounds…what may be taught [and] how it shall be taught.”
Contrary to the actions and threats of Mr. Martin, because Jesuit universities have the constitutionally protected right to control their curriculum, they have the right to teach the values and practices that align with what he terms “D.E.I.” Federal prosecutors have no authority to dictate what a Jesuit university—or any university—teaches.
A second reason why a prosecutor cannot dictate what a Jesuit university teaches lies in the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. In challenging Georgetown’s ability to control our curriculum, Mr. Martin was asserting that he had the authority to decide what should be taught at a religiously affiliated university.
As the U.S. Supreme Court held in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru (2020), it is clear that the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom protects a religious institution’s autonomy, especially in these kinds of decisions that go to the heart of an institution’s “central mission.” Nothing is more central to our mission than our ability to teach the values and practices that reflect and sustain our mission.
What is at stake in the recent conflicts between the current presidential administration and institutional efforts to protect the autonomy to shape their own curricula? In our case, nothing less than our nation’s most dearly held values, including religious freedom. The mission-driven vision for education that emerges from Catholic social thought and Jesuit mission is a precious gift for our entire polity. We owe it to our fellow citizens to protect this “moral and educational imperative” with every fiber of our being.
This article appears in October 2025.
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts