Notre Dame officials portrayed as rebuffing family of suicide victim

An in depth report at Politics Daily, the online newspaper, portrays University of Notre Dame officials as stonewalling the family of a 19-year-old freshman at Notre Dame's sister school, Saint Mary's College, who committed suicide in September, 10 days after reporting that she had been fondled against her will by a Notre Dame football player.

"We got kind of a double whack,'' says Lizzy's plain-talking 85-year-old grandfather, Bill Seeberg, a WWII Marine veteran and Notre Dame alum from the Class of '44. No, make that a triple: "First Lizzy's death, then two weeks later finding out about the assault; because we're old folks who couldn't understand such things, our kids kept that part from us -- wasn't that nice of them?''

Then came the galling refusal of Notre Dame President Father John Jenkins to meet with the Seebergs, or even read the letter they'd written him, on advice of counsel: "You've got a priest who's the head of it -- a priest! You have an assault and a death; why in God's name wouldn't he come to Mary and Tom'' and throw his arms around them? "That's what mystifies me – that's what makes you so damn mad,'' Bill Seeberg says.

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