Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published on the College Fix on June 10, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission.
Following the College Fix’s recent report of a doctoral student’s drag show recital mocking the Catholic Mass at the University of Nebraska, an advocacy group sent a demand letter calling for accountability from the school’s music department director.
Catholic League President William Donohue told the Fix the group has not received a response from the school or Professor Felix Olschofka, the director of the Glenn Korff School of Music, since sending the letter on June 2.
“Having served as a professor for 16 years, and having been a board member of the National Association of Scholars for 20 years, I realize that college officials are under no legal obligation to respond to complaints about staff or students who are engaged in unethical practices,” Donohue told the Fix.
He also said, “It is highly unlikely that such complaints are ignored,” as “files are typically kept on such matters.”
“By also contacting the accrediting body, the Higher Learning Commission, it is hoped that my complaint against the University of Nebraska will similarly be noted,” Donohue said.
In the letter addressed to Professor Olschofka, Donohue condemned the doctoral student’s performance as a “serious act of anti-Catholic bigotry.”
“Reportedly, the final recital of his music degree took place at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Lincoln. It was a drag performance that viciously mocked the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; central aspects of it were debased,” Donohue wrote.
Academic freedom is important, but also “open to abuse.” “Trashing a world religion surely would qualify,” he wrote.
He also wrote that if a student mocked Jewish or Muslim beliefs to meet course requirements, most would rightfully protest. Catholic students deserve the same respect.
“That is why those professors who are responsible for sanctioning this blatant example of anti-Catholic bigotry need to be held accountable,” Donohue wrote.
The Fix reached out to Professor Felix Olschofka, the Glenn Korff School of Music, and UN media relations to inquire about their response to the letter. None responded.
The Fix previously reached out to the doctoral student, Joseph Willette, but did not receive a response to multiple inquiries.
However, Willette discussed the Fix‘s coverage of his recital in a recent video posted on his Instagram.
“Recently, the performance of my doctoral document titled ‘Mass of Perpetual Indulgence’ has garnered a significant amount of backlash,” he said.
[RELATED: NU Student’s Graduation Project Mocks Catholic Mass With Drag Performance]
“My mass is a queer spiritual ritual that is concerned with the redemption of queerness sexuality within the realm of spirituality,” Willette said.
Willette said the Fix reached out to him for comment, but he chose not to respond. Since the article was published, it has garnered attention from conservative advocates and organizations, including the Catholic League, he said.
He urged his followers to “not seek out these publications.”
.@UNLincoln graduate student Joseph Willette REALLY doesn’t like that the College Fix, which he calls a ‘tabloid,’ called attention to his anti-Catholic ‘Mass of Perpetual Indulgence.’ pic.twitter.com/1ZAznOsi3t
— The College Fix (@CollegeFix) June 9, 2025
A conservative higher education commentator said the professors responsible for the performance should “face scrutiny.”
The letter “rightly demands accountability for professors who sanctioned this intellectually shallow and offensive drag performance,” Minding the Campus editor Jared Gould, who is also Catholic, told the Fix.
Gould also said:
The University of Nebraska should rigorously reassess the academic standards that permitted this performance to qualify as a doctoral-level achievement. Professors who endorsed this work must face scrutiny for approving what amounts to cliché cultural vandalism rather than substantive scholarship. The university should undertake a formal review of the school’s approval process for degree requirements, ensuring future projects uphold a higher standard of intellectual merit. Readers should note that professors have been dismissed for far less—consider Erika López Prater, fired from Hamline University for showing images of the Prophet Muhammad in her global art course.
Gould told the Fix that awarding a doctorate for “subpar theater that recycles tired tropes against the Catholic Church undermines the integrity of the degree.”
Doctoral work ought to produce original insights and challenge conventions, yet this student’s work “was neither innovative nor daring.”
“Genuine innovation would have entailed examining another religion, though the student likely steered clear, hesitant to offend the prevailing leftist attitudes on campus,” Gould said.
Similarly, Catholic Diocese of Lincoln spokesman Dennis Kellogg told the Fix that the diocese “is certainly upset about the initial reports of what appears to be a very offensive act.” It is “working to gather more information at this time,” he said.
Doctoral student Joseph Willette’s recital, posted to YouTube last month, imitated various parts of the Mass, including the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, the Fix reported.
In the video, a drag artist can be seen performing near the front of the church while instrumentalists play on stage at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church of Lincoln, Nebraska.
Image: Screenshot of enjoeyment “Addressing Recent Controversy Surrounding ‘Mass of Perpetual Indulgence'” on Instagram
