Students renew petition for porn filter on Notre Dame Wi-Fi

A petition to block pornography websites on campus Wi-Fi at the University of Notre Dame has gathered more than 600 signatures, according to student publication The Irish Rover.

The petition, organized by the student club Students for Child-Oriented Policy, asks university President Father Robert Dowd to implement a campus-wide filter.

“With a filter, every time students attempt to access pornography, they would encounter Notre Dame’s enduring message that pornography is destructive and exploitative,” the petition states. “Further, for those students who struggle themselves with addiction to pornography, it will provide them with an additional opportunity to abstain from use and heal.”

Co-president of Students for Child-Oriented Policy and co-author of the petition Theo Austin said he has hope for the success of the petition under the new leadership of Dowd, who became university president only last June. 

“My hope and prayer is that there will be no need for further labor in this end, that President Dowd will push this change through the admin and porn will be removed from access on university internet,” Austin told The Irish Rover. 

A similar proposal for a campus-wide porn filter at the university in 2023 failed in the student Senate by a vote of 11-24. 

Those in student government who opposed the ban at the time argued the filter would threaten inclusivity or set a bad precedent of banning anything related to LGBTQ+ on campus, according to the student publication The Observer.  

In 2019, Students for Child-Oriented Policy gathered more than 2,400 signatures on a campus-wide petition for a pornography filter that was rejected by then-President Father John Jenkins. Jenkins offered individual opt-in filters instead of the campus-wide filter. 

Student-led initiatives for pornography filters have been successful at other Catholic universities across the nation, including the Catholic University of America, Christendom College, Franciscan University of Steubenville, and Holy Cross College. 

Former president of Catholic University of America John Garvey, now a law professor at Notre Dame, told The Rover the 2019 Notre Dame petition inspired the campaign for a ban at Catholic University, which he then implemented. 

The ban at Catholic University, he told The Rover, “seemed to be fairly uncontroversial among the students, and I was delighted to do what they asked. I’d had it in mind myself, but their request made it all that much easier.” 

The current Notre Dame petition appeals to the university’s Catholic mission and cites the university’s policy for technology and data use, which states students must never “use University resources to post, view, print, store, or send obscene, pornographic, sexually explicit, or offensive material, except for officially approved, legitimate academic or University purposes.”  

“The University has refused to take any steps to enforce this policy prohibiting porn,” the petition states. “We ask that the University rectify this so that their policy may actually affect what it dictates.” 

Neither the Notre Dame president’s office nor Students for Child-Oriented Policy responded to The Lion’s request for comment at publication time.