Notre Dame’s President Faces an Angry Campus After Getting the Coronavirus

reason, except for pretty much a sick or dying relative,” said Ms. Horan, an international economics and political science major from Los Gatos, Calif.

Ms. Younkle, a biochemistry major from Green Bay, Wis., noted that under campus rules, a single negative rapid test is not enough to clear an exposed student from isolation. But Father Jenkins, she said, “used that as justification to go to this event and contradicted the policies that we’re being held to — it’s not fair.”

Colin Whitehead, 25, a graduate student in theology from Walled Lake, Mich., said that when his brother got married over the summer, he felt he should wear a mask, even during the wedding photos.

“But it was just so hard to keep it on when nobody was wearing one,” he said.

So did he approve of Father Jenkins’s conduct?

“Probably not,” he said. “But I really empathize with him.”

Kathleen Gray reported from South Bend, and Shawn Hubler from Sacramento. Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting from Washington.