Read the transcript
The transcript has been formatted and lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Marcus Cole, the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School:
Religious liberty—the most fundamental of human rights, but how do we define this right in practice? It is advocating asylum for Hazara Muslims in Afghanistan fleeing ISIS and the Taliban. It’s defending Uighur Muslims from persecution in China. It’s protecting Iranian citizens where conversion to Christianity can mean death. At Notre Dame, we train lawyers to be a force for good. To protect the rights and freedoms of all, regardless of belief.
I’m Marcus Cole, and I’m fighting for religious liberty.
Introduction:
Welcome to Notre Dame Stories, the official podcast of the University of Notre Dame. Here we take you along the journey where curiosity becomes a breakthrough for people using knowledge as a means for good in the world.
Jenna Liberto:
G. Marcus Cole, the Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law, leads the oldest Catholic law school in the United States. Widely known for a legal approach informed and inspired by faith, religious liberty is not the sole focus at Notre Dame Law School, but it is foundational in the fight to uphold so many other rights. Dean Cole explains all of that in our conversation, but before that, how his Notre Dame story started in Pittsburgh as a young boy with a paper route.
Dean Cole, it’s such a pleasure to be with you. Thank you for hosting us here. I’m excited for our conversation.
Dean G. Marcus Cole:
Thank you for being here.
Jenna Liberto:
Absolutely. I’d like to start by asking you the question we ask all our guests. Our series is called Notre Dame Stories, so share as much of yours as you’d like to.
Dean G. Marcus Cole:
Yeah, so I grew up in the Terrace Village housing projects in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a very Catholic family. I’m the second oldest of five kids, and when I was a kid, my mom told me and my older brother that we had to help the family make ends meet. So I sold newspapers. I sold the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. But my mom told us we had two jobs on Sundays—the first was to sell newspapers, but the second was to serve as altar boys at our church, our parish, St. Agnes Church, which was down the hill from the projects where we lived.
And so we did that seven days a week—sold those newspapers, and, on Sundays, we sold papers and then went to serve as altar boys at Mass. But on fall Sunday mornings, we got up super early, before the sun was out, and we ran to go sell our newspapers, and then we ran to St. Agnes Church to be altar boys, because my older brother and I knew that if we were altar boys at that first Mass on Sunday mornings in the fall, we could then run home and watch the rebroadcast of the Notre Dame football games that were played the day before. And we lived for those games. That was our team. We were Catholic kids, and this was our team.
And we made a pact as little boys that, when we grew up, there was only one college for us—we were both going to go to Notre Dame. I applied to Notre Dame and I didn’t get in, and I was devastated. So I went to my fallback school, Cornell University, and I’m glad I did because I met my wife there—I’ve been married for 37 years—and I never gave up my love for Notre Dame. So I went on to practice law, and then I joined the faculty at Stanford University, and I was there at Stanford for 22 years when I got a call asking if I were interested in coming to Notre Dame. And my wife knew that we didn’t even need to talk about it.
Jenna Liberto:
So let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about what makes the Notre Dame Law School what it is. Not only are you training future lawyers, but you’re providing experiences in such unique ways. You operate a number of clinics, and we’d certainly love to hear about those that help marginalized people, but what would you share about the DNA—the foundation—of this place? What makes it different?
G. Marcus Cole:
Yeah, so we think we’re doing something different here. We bring in students who have demonstrated an interest in serving others and serving their communities before they even get here. We want to train lawyers who see law not just as a profession, but as a vocation. We want them to believe that God has placed them in this place to serve others and to be a real force for good in the world.
Jenna Liberto:
What does that look like when your students go out into the world? Can you give me an example of what … that’s our mission in action now, out past the Notre Dame campus?
G. Marcus Cole:
Yes. OK, so I talked to first-year students on the first day of orientation—I give them examples of Notre Dame lawyers in the past. I give them the example of Father David Link, who was a longtime dean at this law school. He graduated from this law school, went out to practice tax law, and made partner in a very prestigious Chicago law firm, but [he] really wanted to give back. And so he left that practice to come back here to teach tax law and eventually became dean, and was dean here for 24 years. And then, after stepping down from being dean to care for his wife who was dying of cancer, he then, after she passed away, he looked for another way to be of service, and he took the advice of Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., who was the president of the University at the time, and decided to become a priest. And so, he spent the rest of his life ministering to prisoners in the seven prisons of Northern Indiana.
I also talk about John Crowley, who is a Notre Dame graduate who went to practice law in Indianapolis and learned that his two children had a rare disease called Pompe disease, and they were going to die from it. And so he researched the disease and found out that there were only two scientists working on this disease in the world, and they weren’t in contact with each other. So he brought those researchers together to try to come up with a cure for the disease, and he was successful, and wound up building one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the United States.
There’s Judge Ann Claire Williams, who was a 1974 graduate of Notre Dame Law School, who was the first African American woman to graduate from Notre Dame Law School. She went on to become a district attorney in Chicago. Later, she was elevated to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She served honorably there until her retirement. And when she was retired, she was not done being a Notre Dame lawyer. She decided she was going to dedicate her life to improving outcomes for women all over Africa. So she traveled to Africa to train lawyers to deal with domestic violence issues and issues regarding children—girls’ education—and has been very influential all across Africa in establishing courts and in training judges to help women’s issues. Those are just some of the examples of what we mean by a Notre Dame lawyer.
Jenna Liberto:
Thanks for sharing those examples, and I know there are many more. This year’s What Would You Fight For? story on religious liberties focused on the fight over land known as Oak Flat in Arizona …
Voice-over:
Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative was created to stand up for the rights of people of different faiths. Since 2021, they’ve worked with the Apache tribe in the legal battle to protect their sacred land in Oak Flat, Arizona, and filed an amicus brief to help appeal the case to the US Supreme Court. What would you fight for? Fighting for religious liberty. We are the Fighting Irish.
Jenna Liberto:
Before we dive a little bit deeper, tell me about this case.
G. Marcus Cole:
Yeah. So Oak Flat is an area on federal land in Arizona that has been, for centuries, sacred to the Apache in Arizona. It is an area of land where girls coming-of-age to become women are initiated into adulthood. And it’s the only place for the Apache in Arizona where these ceremonies are conducted. This has been true for centuries, and, for the last 50 years or so, federal law protected Oak Flat because of its religious significance to the Apache.
However, recently, a copper mining company discovered a copper seam under Oak Flat and has asked the state of Arizona to condemn the land and transfer the mineral rights to them so that they could strip-mine Oak Flat. And doing so would completely destroy Oak Flat and the religious site for the Apache. So this is a difficult case because the Apache don’t own this land, it is owned by the federal government, but the question is whether their ancient religious practices ought to be respected and protected from copper mining interests who would destroy the land and … would not be in a position to restore it to its original nature. And so this is an important case because this is a case where a land-based religion is at risk because of economic interests.
Jenna Liberto:
Can you talk a little bit more about some of the complexities with a case like this, or, in general, talk about a land-based religion versus one that some of our viewers might be more familiar with?
G. Marcus Cole:
Yeah. So if you think about traditional Christian religions, I’m Catholic, I can practice my faith anywhere. I don’t need to go into a particular church or particular site to practice my faith. My brother is a Catholic priest and he’s actually celebrated Mass in my home. And so my faith … isn't anchored to any particular place. And that’s true for a lot of faiths.
But not all faiths have those characteristics, and there are some faiths [in which] the religious practice depends upon the existence of and respect for the place where they conduct their ceremonies. And so the question becomes whether we’re only going to protect religions that look like ours or whether we will recognize that faith takes many forms and, if we’re not going to protect the other forms of religious practice, then we need to start making judgments and parsing between who we’re going to protect and who we’re not. And once we start making those kind of judgments, then it’s just only a matter of time before my particular faith becomes the minority faith that isn’t protected. So if we’re going to protect religion and faith and belief, we need to do it for all people or for none at all.
Jenna Liberto:
Is there anything, in particular, working on this case or considering whether it was something Notre Dame wanted to fight for that you learned, or maybe your students, you were able to expose your students to that was new?
G. Marcus Cole:
Yeah. I think a case like this is critically important for who we are and whether we actually mean what we say when we say that we’re fighting for religious freedom for all people of all beliefs and for people of no belief at all. I think it’s important for students to experience the depth of commitment of people of different faiths from their own, and to recognize the importance of protecting those people and their religious practices. I think our students learned a lot about religions that are not commonly practiced across the United States. And I think that our students also learned a lot of sensitivity with regard to their clients.
They learn how to ask questions that are respectful and to probe deeply into the convictions and sincerity of belief. That’s so important to cases like this.
Jenna Liberto:
Certainly, religious liberty is not the only focus at Notre Dame Law School, but could you talk for a minute about how it does serve as a basis for other freedoms that you work to protect?
G. Marcus Cole:
Yes. To me, religious freedom is … there’s a reason why it’s the first freedom mentioned in our Constitution. Religious freedom, or what some people think of as “freedom of conscience” or “freedom of belief,” is critical to all other freedoms. Freedom of speech is meaningless if you don’t believe what you have to say. Freedom of the press is meaningless unless people can hold and share their convictions. All of our freedoms are really rooted in our individual identity and our ability to flourish as individuals with our own perspectives and our own beliefs. And if we don’t protect that, then protection of the other freedoms that we have is a waste of time, it’s really meaningless.
Jenna Liberto:
Tell me more about your students. We talked a little bit about the different kind of lawyer that walks out of these doors. What types of future lawyers are looking to come here? You spoke about vocation and kind of a higher calling, but talk about the students that are attracted [here]; you were certainly one of them.
G. Marcus Cole:
I’m really proud of our students and the students that we attract here. Our students tend to be people who have demonstrated a commitment to others before they even get here. And, in large part, that’s why we select them to be here. They come here hoping not just to learn the fundamental skills that are required for the practice of law, but they want to be exposed to an array of ideas and theories and approaches that will benefit them in the future.
One of the things we’re proudest of is how seriously our students here take freedom of speech in this place. They recognize that for them to be able to make the best arguments on behalf of their clients, they will have to understand the best arguments in opposition to their clients, which means they need to be exposed to all ideas. I often say to our students that you have to be exposed to ideas here, even offensive ideas here, before you go out into the real world, because your clients will be exposed to those ideas. And you can’t wait for the first time that you experience an offensive idea or a difficult concept to be when you’re representing someone else. You need to experience those things here.
And I also tell them that a lawyer who’s afraid of a word or an idea is like a medical student who’s afraid of the sight of blood. We deal in ideas, and even difficult and offensive ones, and you need to be prepared to do that. But our students protect that environment of freedom of speech. They recognize that they're going to hear opposing opinions from their classmates, sometimes, from their professors, but they respect that—they respect that process and they want to be in an environment where they will engage people who are different, people who disagree with them, and they can do it and they can do it here without being disagreeable.
Jenna Liberto:
Finally, Marcus, would you just share why … is it so important, not just to the students here on campus, but to the world, that Notre Dame Law School educates in the way that it does?
G. Marcus Cole:
Yeah. I think this place is very special because we take our Catholic values and our Catholic mission very seriously. I think that everything we do here is rooted in the core concepts of Catholic social teaching: human dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity. Human dignity: We recognize that every human being is created in the likeness and image of God, and we try to live that every day here. By solidarity, we try to recognize that, no matter what your background or your identity or what your beliefs are, we’re all in the same boat together. And by subsidiarity, I mean we each have to take personal responsibility for maintaining an environment of dignity and respect. An environment of solidarity. It doesn’t work if just a few of us are respecting that environment. This environment that we have here is unique, and it requires the individual efforts and perspectives of every member of this community to make it work and make it happen. And I think that when our students leave here, they go out into a world where they can be leaders and they can make a difference in the world because of what they’ve learned here.
Jenna Liberto:
Thank you for your leadership; thank you for this conversation.
G. Marcus Cole:
Thank you.
Jenna Liberto:
If you love the What Would You Fight For? series, there’s more online. You can go to fightingfor.nd.edu. Here on Notre Dame Stories, we’re sharing more of the conversation with the people fighting to be a force for good in the world. You can find more episodes at stories.nd.edu or subscribe wherever you listen to or watch your podcasts.
