“It is never a good situation for the employee who was terminated in these types of situations,” said Marianne Duddy-Burke of Dignity USA, the largest LGBTQ Catholic advocacy group in the world. “I don’t know of a single situation in which the institution has acknowledged their wrongdoing, but things were particularly heinous in this situation.”
Duddy-Burke points to St. Ignatius’ lack of meaningful discipline against a student for bullying a teacher.
“There, that behavior was condoned,” Duddy-Burke said. “The amount of firepower that was brought against Matt, who was working hard toward making changes in policies and tactics — it was really awful to see how the institution put up those barriers while protecting themselves and dehumanizing this teacher who was loved by the students.”