Dupage Policy Journal

Benet Academy high school’s new five-year strategic plan calls for “intentional” measures in admissions, hiring, and financial aid to decrease the amount of white students attending the school.

The 2025–2030 plan states the Catholic college preparatory school will “develop and articulate plans to increase racial, ethnic, and socio-economic diversity among students, faculty, administration and families, and live out that philosophy by being intentional in the admission process, the hiring process, and in financial assistance decisions.

This focus on admitting non-white students comes three years after St. Procopius Abbey, also in Lisle, ended its century-old governance role at Benet, after the high school hired a lesbian girls’ lacrosse coach.

In 2021, Benet rescinded, and later reinstated the coaching offer to Amanda Kammes, who is a lesbian. 

When the high school had first rescinded the coaching offer, Benet released a statement saying it had done so due to its commitment to hiring individuals who “manifest the essential teachings of the Church,” reported Catholic News Agency.

When Benet reversed its decision and hired Kammes, St. Procopius Abbot Austin Murphy said in a statement he was “deeply troubled” by the decision, which “raises the question of what a Catholic high school should require from those who work with and form its students.” 

Oversight of the high school has since shifted to the Diocese of Joliet’s Catholic Schools Office. 

More than 68 percent of residents in Lisle, where Benet is located, are white, according to the American Community Survey, and 16.3 percent of residents are Asian. Only 4.3 percent of Lisle residents ar black, and 7.8 percent are Hispanic. 

Benet does not report the current demographic breakdown of its reported 1,220 enrolled students.