Tamara Kay’s suit, filed in May in St. Joseph County, alleges falsehoods in two articles published by The Irish Rover in the past academic year. The Rover defended its reporting as true in a motion filed earlier this month to dismiss the case, under a law meant to protect people from frivolous lawsuits over matters of public concern.
“The note on my door referenced sexual assault, and the inadequate resources and support for student survivors at Notre Dame,” Kay told The Associated Press via email. “For almost a year, Notre Dame administrators have known — from me directly — that women students were being assaulted with illegal rape drugs, allegedly by male students.”
Notre Dame’s Office of Media Relations didn’t answer repeated requests for comment from the AP. Neither did Kay’s attorney in the lawsuit. DeReuil, the Rover's editor-in-chief during the last academic year, said he is a practicing Catholic and believes“I do wish at times that, I guess, Notre Dame would take, as an institution, a stronger stance in favor of the Catholic position on some of these issues,” he said.
“You’ll face pushback, but you can still be a normal, cheerful, happy student, and still do your schoolwork, and it’s not going to affect you negatively in the long term if you’re standing up for what you believe is true,” he said.