As a sister school of the University of Notre Dame, the all-women’s Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind., shares many activities with its powerhouse neighbor, from social exchanges to Catholic identity to political club memberships.
 
One thing the separate institutions do not share, however, is equal recognition and protections for LGBT students, faculty members, and administrators.

An informal grouping of four students from both schools hopes to change that with a protest at Notre Dame on Wednesday morning.

The action arrives in the wake of outrage over an antigay editorial cartoon that appeared in the independent student-run newspaper, The Observer, on January 13. The cartoon called a baseball bat the “quickest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable.” The newspaper staff apologized for its publication, and the university president denounced it. 
 

Laurel Javors, vice president of the Straight and Gay Alliance at Saint Mary’s, says the insulting cartoon sparked the latest push in the decade-long effort to establish a gay-straight alliance at Notre Dame and to include LGBT students and staff in the university’s nondiscrimination policy. (Notre Dame's policy does not explicitly include sexual orientation, while Saint Mary's does.)

“The comic was really the way of saying, ‘This is why we need a student group,” said the junior social work major, who serves as a liaison on LGBT issues between the two campuses. “Language like this is so pervasive, and having no legal protections from the university makes Notre Dame a less desirable place for a professor or student interested in becoming part of the school.”