THE INDEPENDENT
TO UNCOVER
NEWSPAPER SERVING
THE TRUTH
NOTRE DAME, SAINT MARY’S
AND REPORT
AND HOLY CROSS
IT ACCURATELY
VOLUME 59, ISSUE 47 | WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2025 | NDSMCOBSERVER.COM
Student government election uncontested Sophomore Jerry Vielhauser and junior Sonia Lumley will be the only presidential ticket on ballot
Courtesy of Jerry Vilhauer and Sonia Lumley
running — and giv ing back to the campus which has given so much to them. Originally from Sy racuse, New York, Vielhauer is majoring in political science w ith minors in constitutional studies, business economics and philosophy. Lumley, from Merced, California, is another political science major w ith a minor in the Hesburgh program in public ser v ice. Vielhauer, who tops the ticket as the presidential candidate, emphasized he is “all about Christian leadership, ser vant leadership” and stressed his love for the Notre Dame communit y. “[During] admitted student days, when I stepped in the Basilica, it was just like a surreal experience. I didn’t want to leave, and so I was blessed enough to be
Presumptive vice president Sonia Lumley (left) and presumptive president Jerry Vielhauer (right) posing in front of Hesburgh Library. The junior-sophomore ticket will be the only option on the ballot this spring.
see ELECTION PAGE 3
By K ATIE MUCHNICK and LIAM KELLY Ma nag ing Editor a nd Not re Da me News Editor
Sophomore Gerald (Jerr y) Vielhauer and junior Sonia Lumley are running unopposed in today’s student body president and v ice president election. This is the first instance of a student government ticket running unopposed since 2012, and only the second time in the histor y of Notre Dame’s student government. In an inter v iew w ith The Obser ver, Vielhauer and Lumley expressed their longheld goal to run for the highest political office in student government. The pair met through a mutual student government friend after expressing interest in running. They credit their experience w ith Notre Dame’s communit y as the motivation for
EDITORIAL
Endorsement: Abstain, then abolish StuGov Today, for only the second time in Notre Dame history, a ticket for student body president and vice president will face the polls unopposed. When this last happened 13 years ago, 42.7% of voters pulled the lever for ‘abstain,’ not including the thousands who did not vote. We encourage you to follow their example and abstain. Or don’t open the email. It doesn’t particularly matter. This is not to say anything about the candidates in this year’s election, who present as decent and well-intentioned individuals who will do a respectable job. But they’re winning anyway, so you may as well register your protest with the system.
Last year, The Observer decided to break its decadeslong tradition of endorsing one of the tickets, instead advising our readers to “take a look” at student government and make their own decision, laying out the failures of a sprawling bureaucratic network that fails to achieve campaign promises or much else. We’ve taken a look, and have come to the conclusion that it is a failed project. Abolition is the remedy. We’ve asked ourselves whether the ticket seeking office can do a good job, and found that a “good job” is impossible given the nature of this system and the cosplay function that student leaders are shoehorned into. Obviously, student government isn’t going anywhere,
STUDENT LOANS
AMERICAN IN ROME
Observer Editorial Board
NEWS PAGE 4
VIEWPOINT PAGE 6
but it could at least be stripped of its excess. A democratically elected student body president serving as symbolic leader at official functions — without the theatrics or bureaucratic sprawl — would be a marked improvement. Instead, we’ve watched student government burn through hundreds of thousands of dollars on initiatives that generate more meetings than results. In some ways, it is a good thing that there is only one ticket on the ballot. It shatters the pretense of the usual popularity contest election and confirms what many already suspect — student government isn’t a battleground of ideas, but an exercise in selfselection. In the past, we’ve see ENDORSEMENT PAGE 6
GRAMMY AWARDS SCENE PAGE 7
University sued for price fixing Observer Staff Report
Notre Dame continues to fight a class-action lawsuit alleging it engaged in tuition price fix ing w ith other elite universities. Twelve of the seventeen defendants in the case have agreed to settle for a combined $320 million. The lawsuit, filed in
Januar y 2022, alleges that a group of universities including Notre Dame, Har vard, Yale and MIT, among others, illegally colluded to limit the amount of financial aid offered to prospective students. Universities have been legally exempt from see LAWSUIT PAGE 3
LIAM KELLY | The Observer
The Main Building as seen from God Quad. The University remains in litigation over alleged price fixing, even as other colleges have settled.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL SPORTS PAGE 8
MEN’S BASKETBALL SPORTS PAGE 12