"I'd far more trust Dorothy Day and others who lived the dregs, and those who truly suffered."

You sound like a Catholic Worker recruiter or "venerable" with many, many grievances! Fortunately your grievances don't serve as a substitute for your efforts to press "them to offer parity," as a substitute for hope, for resolution. Every university, of course, rests on the grievances of others -- of some sort -- including ND ( and Harvard, Georgetown, Brown, etc.). 

Which side would Dorothy Day be on? I am sure she would first put to shame the University Administration by the disclosure of her own faults and sins in seeking justice. She would never be self-righteous. She would also probably pray with Fr. Jenkins -- and for him -- in a dorm chapel, and there, remind him that those better than her were far more deprived in the world than she was, but that their worse deprivations would not/could not lessen her own resolve to press the school to offer parity. 

But Dorothy Day was a saint.