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This past Friday, the Notre Dame Police Department (NDPD) detained senior Libby Garnett, who has been charged with unauthorized squatting and inadvertent arson. Firefighters were dispatched in response to a small fire on North Quad, in front of Farley Hall. The origin of the blaze was traced to a firepit dug in the quad, surrounded by s’mores remnants and half-eaten hot dogs. Upon discovering Garnett sleeping soundly in a tent pitched beside the fire pit, the police were notified. Garnett was taken in for questioning but pleaded the third in a grave misunderstanding of the constitution, claiming that it was her right as an American to quarter herself on any quad she saw fit, with or without consent. 

In an exclusive interview with Scholastic, Garnett explained the motive behind her move onto the quad: “To quote Mary Todd Lincoln, ‘The quad was calling and I had to go.’

“Upon arriving at my off-campus apartment in August, I was utterly unprepared for the lack of quad. I’m considering taking legal
action against The 87 for their neglectful failure to provide what Maslow once called ‘the foundation upon which all other needs are built.'

Garnett had appa rently eluded the authorities for a total of five weeks before being forcibly removed from her residence on
North Quad. NDPD had to rent a U-Haul to transport the dining table, 60-inch plasma TV, queen-size bed, and relatively well-done full size forgery of “Washington Crossing the Delaware” found within the tent. According to Garnett, Architectural Digest declined to tour her tent for their viral “Open Door: Inside Celebrity Homes” series on YouTube, but did comment that said tent was both “impressive” and "disconcerting.”

In a press release under the Farley Arch, colloquially referred to as the Farch, Farley rector Maeve Orlowski-Scherer stated that “quadding is inherently political. If you ask me, Libby’s actions point to the loss of third spaces that this nation has suffered in the past two decades, and also to the critical need to create more. When students take to the quad, they express basic human needs. We should hear that expression.”

Police reports indicated that Garnett was using her iPhone hotspot to take Zoom meetings and identified for bathing in St. Joseph’s lake. However, North Quad’s lack of natural resources such as food, water and Nerds Gummy Clusters led the authorities to suspect that Garnett was aided by Farley residents in what The Observer is calling “The Great Quad-in of 2025.” Everyone is a suspect.

At the time of this article’s release, Garnett remains in custody. It is unclear whether she will remain on track to graduate in May. On this matter, she commented: “Everyone knows that the number one thing employers look for in a candidate is a bachelor's degree in English and Philosophy. Without mine, how will I ever get a job?” Garnett’s upcoming prose-poetry memoir The Quad Also Rises is now available for purchase exclusively at the folding table set up in front of Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore — cash, Venmo and barter only.