University refuses to clarify its investment history
Does Georgetown University, a Catholic institution of higher education, support and directly benefit from abortion?
Bizarrely, that is an open and uncertain question. One might expect that the Catholic Church—effectively the planet’s foremost institutional defender of the rights of the unborn—might take care to ensure that its universities are not making any money off of a practice which it condemns in no uncertain terms and with no exceptions.
Yet this might not be the case. Georgetown’s student newspaper, The Hoya, recently ran an article announcing that the university was “[making] efforts to avoid investments in companies involved in providing abortion services.” To any devout Catholic, or anyone who knows the abortion politics of the Church, such a conceit is quite frankly baffling. Georgetown is “making efforts” to avoid investing in abortion providers? How on Earth would such investments even happen in the first place? Would not Georgetown—one of the preeminent Catholic universities in the country—mind its affairs to the point that the school could refrain from pouring money, and reaping profits, from businesses that stand so starkly against this core Catholic tenet?
You would think. But you might be wrong. Georgetown, for its part, has clammed up about it. The Hoya inquired as to “whether the university has ever invested in abortion providers in the past.” However, “a university spokesperson declined to say.” The College Fix reached out to Georgetown repeatedly for clarification. Georgetown’s media representative office did not respond to several e-mails requesting comment; when reached by phone, a spokesman recommended we contact Ryan King, a media relations manager at the university. Yet Mr. King did not respond to our repeated inquires, as well. Somebody at Georgetown has apparently ordered the staff to keep their mouths shut about whether or not Georgetown makes money off of abortion.
This is a deeply dispiriting thing to contemplate. It is bad enough that the university has apparently instituted a kind of low-grade coverup regarding its own investment policies. The idea that Georgetown might have been investing in abortion all this time is troubling on a number of levels: for pro-lifers generally, and especially for the Catholic faithful, who have a reasonable expectation that their church’s administrative practices will not directly contravene the faith to which they are pledged. Everyone deserves answers from Georgetown—the public, the Georgetown community, and the Catholic laity alike. With any luck, such answers will be forthcoming soon enough.
MORE: Catholic college gives abortion-rights icon higher billing than pro-life speaker
MORE: Georgetown clamps down on pro-life activists at Planned Parenthood president’s speech
Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter
IMAGE: Flickr
Please join the conversation about our stories on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, MeWe, Rumble, Gab, Minds and Gettr.