In the winter of 1876–77, Thomas O'Neill, Jesuit
provincial superior in
St. Louis, sent
John Baptiste Miege to found the school and serve as its first president.
Caspar Henry Borgess, who had come to Detroit from
Cincinnati on May 8, 1870, was cofounder of the school. Originally located at the Trowbridge Mansion on
Jefferson Avenue, in 1890 the school moved across the street to Dowling Hall to accommodate a growing student body. In 1923 news began circulating that the school would move to what was then the city's edge. Then in the late 1920s construction of the new building began at 8400 S. Cambridge near Seven Mile Road, under
John P. McNichols, president of the University of Detroit. This new building was designed by
Malcomson and Higginbotham. Classes at the new campus were scheduled for September 9, 1931, but a
polio epidemic kept schools in the Detroit area closed until September 23. Funds raised paid for restoration of the original chapel (which had become a library in 1968 after
Vatican II) and the addition of several classrooms, an art room, and two new gymnasiums. The faculty endowment, student financial aid, and scholarships also benefited from the campaign. In 2005, after the closing of several
Metro Detroit Catholic schools, University of Detroit Jesuit waived its transfer rules for juniors coming from the closed schools and accepted students with 3.0 or higher
grade point averages. On April 6, 2006, U of D Jesuit began the public phase of a $22 million endowment campaign designed to support tuition assistance, faculty salaries, and other means of strengthening the school's finances. In 2017 the school proposed to buy a shuttered recreational facility and school that the city had placed up for sale. The president of U of D Jesuit tried to reassure neighbors that some sports facilities would be available to the public in the renovated complex. ==Athletics==