Notre Dame students lead charge against campus drag show defended by school administration

Students at the University of Notre Dame are encouraging community members and alumni to speak out against an upcoming campus drag show scheduled for Friday.

The drag event is the culmination of a one-credit class called “What a Drag: Drag on Screen — Variations and Meanings,” and will include at least one student performer, whose stage name is “Cordelia.”

Pam Wojcik, the Notre Dame Film, Television, and Theatre professor who teaches the course, defended it in comments to an independent student publication, The Irish Rover, saying it will “give students knowledge about an art form that has been misdescribed,” adding, “Drag won’t turn kids gay.”

But that’s not the concern of protesting students, such as Madelyn Stout, a Notre Dame Senior who is helping lead the pushback.

“I’ve been accused of spreading homophobic rhetoric and of ignoring how the art form of drag is a realization of what ‘it truly means to be a woman,’” she told the Catholic News Agency. “As a young woman who faces a world in which the very essence of womanhood seems to be constantly called into question, I find these sentiments to be deeply unsettling and concerning.” 

A website run by current students, nodragND.org, is promoting awareness of the drag show and planned protests, as well as a scheduled time for prayer and a form to contact school administrators such as Fr. John Jenkins, the university’s president.

As of Monday, Fr. Jenkins and the University had reportedly received nearly 1,000 messages from concerned alumni, community members, current students, and other Catholics questioning the decision to permit the event on campus.

The University’s current public stance cites “academic freedom” as the foundational principle underlying its decision.

“We defend this freedom even when the content of the presentation is objectionable to some or even many,” Fr. Jenkin’s automated reply email on the subject reads, the Daily Wire reports. “The event you reference is part of a one-credit course in Film, Television and Theater on the history of drag, and the principle of academic freedom applies.” 

In a Letter to the Editor in the Notre Dame student publication, The Observer, Stout and fellow student Merlot Fogarty question that argument:  

“Three male artists are being paid to parade around in provocative women’s clothing under the guise of self-expression and bodily autonomy. If this is academic freedom, then the phrase is meaningless. Academic freedom should not be used as a weapon of opinionated activism.” 

In fact, Notre Dame’s own website emphasizes the importance of its Catholic traditions as setting it apart: “The Catholic intellectual and moral traditions are also the University’s point of greatest distinction from the academies of many other fine research institutions.”

Drag performances on academic campuses, however, are becoming an increasingly common occurrence, even at some Christian schools, such as Saint Joseph’s University and Loyola University Chicago, leading faithful supporters to raise objections.

Drag queens and the Catholic community have faced off in the public square on other high-profile occasions this year.

In June, the Los Angeles Dodgers, an MLB baseball team, provoked ire for inviting an anti-Catholic drag troupe known as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to perform and receive a community service award at the team’s Pride Night. The controversial group specializes in sexual drag performances featuring religious mockery, including parodying nuns and Jesus Christ.