Who’s in charge at Georgetown?

When a former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood winds up getting a job teaching in the Health Systems department at Georgetown University, it’s more than a problem of how that might be perceived. Though Georgetown is one of America’s more liberal Catholic universities, it is still…..a Catholic university.

And Roberta Lynn Geidner-Antoniotti has taught in the nursing school there since 2005, it turns out.

“Ms. Geidner-Antoniotti has also served as acting project director of the Emergency Contraception Public Awareness Campaign, in which capacity she “initiated [a] national campaign to promote emergency contraception services through 140 affiliates resulting in significant growth in provision of care to prevent unintended pregnancies.” Later, as vice president of Women’s Capital Corporation, she “recruited, based on experience in women’s reproductive health, to develop product expansion and marketing opportunities in public health sector for women’s pharmaceutical product, PlanB emergency contraception.” During her tenure the Emergency Contraception Public Awareness Campaign, she “increased sales 175% in public sector by securing significant purchasing agreements with federal, state and local government and private family planning agencies.”

But wait…there’s more. Georgetown seems to have a pretty cozy relationship with PP. See, the university has this program….well, let them explain:

“The Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program (WLPPFP) accepts applications from organizations located in the Washington, D.C. area that would like to host a Women’s Law Fellow for the upcoming Fellowship year,” notes the web site of the Georgetown University Law Center. “The Women’s Law Fellow must be assigned to work on legal and public policy issues affecting the status of women … If your organization is awarded a Women’s Law Fellow, the $37,500 annual stipend will be covered by WLPPFP through a grant to your organization.”

Sounds good, right? One might think any number of good organizations worthy of an esteemed relationship with Georgetown.

But here’s the lede of that story:

“The Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program at one of the nation’s leading Jesuit universities placed a fellowship winner with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, according to the university’s web site.”

Right off hand, one can think of at least two different groups that might be interested in questioning the school’s identity and policy with regard to the Catholic church…..the US bishops, and prospective students and their parents.