td6624 wrote:pohboydomer wrote:
But for virtually all non-Catholics at ND (based upon your post, you might end up being the exception), it's never been an issue. You let the 10-second prayer at the start of a few professors' class roll past. You won't even know when or where weekly mass is. You will never set foot in the chapel in the law school. You just live your life and accept that there might be people of faith taking their faith seriously around you.
Maybe she'd be uncomfortable attending an institution that refuses to allow a gay student group to form and that refuses to add sexual orientation to it's non-discrimination clause. And maybe she wants to go to a university that can have a performance of the Vagina Monologues without a months-long debate over whether or not it should be allowed. Get real. It's tolerable for non-Catholics, but you're just indignantly missing the point.
Ah, how quaint. Rather than address the issues pertaining to Notre Dame Law School, you choose to misrepresent a number of particular causes that occur among the undergraduate student body (ignoring the fact that they are essentially irrelevant to the operation of the law school) and insist that I must be "indignant[]" in missing the point.
Notre Dame (the undergraduate institution, in an event unrelated to the law school) has allowed a "gay student group" to form, the University's official "Core Council," which is not a formal advocacy group. A number of students continue to run an unofficially recognized group known as "AllianceND," which, while not formally recognized by the university, has been "allow[ed]...to form" and engages in regular protests and demonstrations without obstruction from the university (such as its "Gay? Fine by me" campaign).
Notre Dame has not included "sexual orientation to it's [sic] non-discrimination clause," but, beyond my knowledge, perhaps you're familiar with some explicit, overt act committed by the university that denied a student admission because of sexual orientation. Certainly, the bare fact, standing alone, that a school lacks a particular formal "non-discrimination clause" can be symbolic, but it may be entirely unrelated to any actual acts of discrimination.
Notre Dame (the undergraduate institution, in an event unrelated to the law school) did, in fact, have a debate about whether to allow the Vagina Monologues to perform. It was a long, spirited debate. Maybe you don't think that people should talk about theatrical performances that, by their nature, are designed to stir up debate and dialogue, and should instead unquestionably and blindly accept them without rote consideration. And in the end, the university authorized it. And in the end, students eventually stopped performing it.
Now, maybe you (and I mean you, not the OP) have thin enough skin where you're concerned about a number of issues that will never touch the average law student's life unless they go hunting for ways to become offended. But the OP expressed concern about the Catholic and religious nature of the institution, not the particular socially conservative issue positions of the university. The OP's concerns were about priests and prayers and chapels.
But now that you've opened up your own irrelevant concerns about the law school, it's quite obvious that your perspective is one blinded by some kind of anti-Notre Dame agenda driven, in part, by a particular political point of view. And that's perfectly fine. There are a number of liberals at Notre Dame, who, during their time, found time and opportunity to get as outraged as you are about a number of barely-relevant issues that rarely affected them personally, much less the law school. And, appropriately enough, there are a number of conservatives at Notre Dame, who, during their time, found time and opportunity to get as outraged as you are about a number of barely-relevant issues, coming down on the opposite side--shocked that the university would allow a formal gay student group, stunned that protesters would be allowed to picket concerning gay issues, outraged that the university authorized the performance of the Vagina Monologues.
But for you, and the others, in this thread, I haven't seen a case for Davis. I've seen bashing of Notre Dame and a series of cries that I must be "indignantly missing the point," when, in fact, it's who you issued a number of concerns the OP never had and aired them out in this discussion.
Finally, it appears that a number of you (Teoeo included) are fairly illiterate, so I'll try again. I was deconstructing some of the OP's concerns about Notre Dame, and I built a positive case for ND. But I also noted that "If you can't get over the fact that some people might choose to express their Catholic faith," he shouldn't go; that "I can't say a whole lot" about Davis; that "I'll let the Davis defenders speak up, because I don't really have anything negative to say about them"; and that Davis is "good in California."
So, there we go. I doubt I'll earn any "+1s" or be told that I "pwned" anyone or have anyone so snappy as to reply to a thread of mine with a "TITCR," devoid of any actual content. But, to the degree that I can actually help the OP rather than snipe at the posters in this thread, I am happy to do so.
rad law: you raise a fair point about native Californians. I'd like to know where the OP is from. But if the OP has any inclination to go to New York, ND is a far better option. If the OP would be quite happy to take any job available in California, Davis is certainly the safer choice.