NEW YORK
The Paper
Fordham Offers “No Comment” To Allegations of 1960’s Clergy Abuse
by Peter Mullin
Co-Sports Editor
with Bill Donahue
Co-Editor-in-Chief
In April of 1994 an 18-year-old freshman walked into the office of the Dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, a place that, according to the University’s mission statement, concerns itself with fostering an “environment that celebrates and protects the dignity of the human person.” Inside the confines of that office the young woman started the process of protecting that dignity. She told the Dean a story of how, after a night of drinking in the city, her philosophy professor took advantage of her in his office. By the end of the semester, her professor had resigned.
Ten years later that scene would come to national attention in an article by Joseph Feuerherd published in the National Catholic Reporter. The story detailed the alleged 1994 sexual misconduct of Deal W. Hudson, a top advisor to George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, while he was a tenured professor of philosophy at Fordham.
That July, Fordham spokeswoman Elizabeth Schmalz issued a statement to NCR saying, “Sexual Harassment is not tolerated at Fordham University.” It continued, “Fordham followed its policy rigorously in this case and initiated an investigation into the matter upon receipt of the student’s complaint.”
The Dean in the NCR article, described as “sympathetic” and giving “every indication that he believed [the girl’s] story,” was Father Joseph M. McShane, S.J., Fordham University’s current president. In 1994, it appears that he listened intently to the aggrieved student and quickly iniated actions to remove Mr. Hudson from his position. And in 2004, Father McShane presided over the University when it publicly and explicitly denounced sexual harassment after the allegations against Mr. Hudson surfaced in the media.
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