Dupage Policy Journal

Steve Cortes, founder of the League of American Workers (LAW) and senior political advisor with CatholicVote, said Benet Academy high school's new strategic plan, which calls for an “intentional” process to admit fewer white students, is “discrimination dressed up in new language.”

The 2025–2030 plan, reported DuPage Policy Journal, 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.

“Benet’s plan isn’t inclusion, it’s discrimination dressed up in new language,” Cortes, a graduate of Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, told DuPage Policy Journal. “Catholics should reject racial engineering in all its forms.”

“Our faith teaches the inherent dignity of every person,” said Cortes. “A policy that punishes some students because of their skin color directly contradicts that teaching.”

Cortes is a former Trump campaign adviser. He previously worked in finance and later became a frequent political analyst on CNBC, CNN, and Fox News, where he emphasized populist themes and Latino outreach.

His comments come after Benet alum Dan Proft, host of Chicago’s Morning Answer on AM 560, said the statement in Benet’s strategic plan is “bigoted” and “the height of arrogance.”

 “These sentimental simpletons will be the docents of diversity within the student body and the faculty because, without their stewardship, non-honkies need not apply as they cannot compete on the merits. Balderdash,” Proft posted on X. “It is this grotesque noblesse oblige that corrupts every institution, academic or otherwise, where it is allowed to take hold.”

“Thus, behold another cautionary tale of a once great institution burning itself on the pyre of fashionable politics,” said Proft.

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In 2021, Benet rescinded, and later reinstated the coaching offer to Amanda Kammes, who is a lesbian. 

When the high school had first rescinded the coaching offer, Benet released a statement saying it had done so due to its commitment to hiring individuals who “manifest the essential teachings of the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

“Since the Benedictine monks lost control of staff and then abdicated completely a few years back in the face of a revolt by cultural Marxist 'Catholics' on the advisory board, the school has become like an 'elite' college, a credential factory with good sports programs and little more," said Proft.

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.