Universities in Kansas, Iowa and California plan to shut agencies, and Florida may adopt
Red and blue states are chopping blocks for some of the nation’s oldest women’s research institutions, raising questions about their future.
Some researchers credit the conservative lawmakers ‘ assault on ideological programs and fear that more will take over from the federal and state levels, but others claim that some programs have strayed from their original goal, which is to promote women.
” As fiscal considerations demand institutions tighten their belts or close their doors, they are wise to outsource what were once called’ children’s reports’ programs”, Erika Bachiochi, a colleague at the Ethics &, Public Policy Center, told The College Fix , in a new message.
Bachiochi, author of the book” The Rights of Women”, said most of these programs represent the” Marxist-inflexed” second wave of the feminist movement.
And throughout education,” ‘ women’s studies’ became’ gender studies’ and eventually these programs ( and the wealthy academy writ large ) no more knew how to identify or protect women and their real interests”, she said.
But different female scientists disagree. They lament the shutdown, but they think expanding the scope of research encourages students to think about creating” socially just kingdoms” in a wider sense.
Professor Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, is one of them. The common university recently made the announcement that it would shut down its 50-year-old Feminist Studies Department on July 1.
The Feminist Studies department has collectively come to the decision that it is no longer tenable after many years of struggle, according to Schaeffer in a new email.
She cited a number of causes for the closing, including internal conflicts, operational issues, and university absences.
The ministry went from 12 university in 2017 to 2.5 already, and those remaining faculty are” shouldering an exceedingly large service-load as women of color”, Schaeffer said.
She told The Fix that membership has decreased slightly, but so have enrollments in the Humanities Division in general.
Female reports won’t be completely absent from UCSC. Although no more a ministry, the main still will be offered under the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Department, formed in 2021.
Schaeffer, who chairs the office, said the field of study is “vibrant” and “growing”.
” I have spent my entire 20-year job in the Feminist Studies office, so I can say that the shift of Female Research under the umbrella of CRES will give students the opportunity to take more broad-ranging courses that challenge them to consider female and critical race perspectives from a relational environment in the United States and across borders, with the aim of envisioning more socially just worlds,” she told The Fix.
San Diego State University recently made a similar move, expanding the number of women’s studies departments there.
SDS U’s 54-year-old Department of Women’s Studies is now the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
” Particularly in the past few years, the academic focus of the department has broadened to include LGBTQIA + identity and non-binary expressions”, a November news release states.
According to the university, the new name “more expansive understanding of the field, and more accurately reflects the scholarship that faculty and students currently produce within the department.”
Iowa, Kansas programs closing after half a century
In the red states of Kansas and Iowa, universities also are cutting women’s studies programs, and there’s speculation that Florida public universities may follow.
One, Wichita State University, gave low enrollment and efforts to “reduce administrative costs” as the reasons for cutting its program, established in 1971, The Fix previously reported.
The University of Iowa also plans to eliminate its 50-year-old women’s studies program, pending final approval by the Board of Regents.
Jeneane Beck, a university spokesperson, sent an email to Hyaeweol Choi, the chair of the Department of Gender &, Women Sexuality Studies, asking about the justifications behind the proposal.
The proposed change, which requires the approval of the Board of Regents, is a part of the college’s ongoing administrative restructuring to increase efficiency and position programs for long-term success, according to Beck in a recent email.
The process involved “faculty, who worked hard to make sure the changes reflect student interests and potential career paths,” Beck said.
Others think Florida will eventually make similar cuts.
As the Florida Phoenix reported recently:” The state Board of Governors plans to commission a study of the economic return from Women- and Gender-Studies programs at Florida’s public universities. Legislators reacted to the” trying to stage” an argument to end the programs, according to one lawmaker.
Currently, there are 809 women’s studies programs or departments operating in U. S. higher education institutions, according to a 2024 report by the National Women’s Studies Association.
For more than 50 years, women’s studies programs have provided essential contributions to society, including research on “rape culture”, “gender-based and sexual violence, disparities in healthcare, pay gaps, and other inequities”, according to a statement association President Heidi Lewis sent to The Fix.
” We’ve taught the fundamental distinctions between sex and gender,” the professor said. … We coined intersectionality, the matrix of domination, and ‘ white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,'” Lewis stated.
Association leaders issued a statement last week addressing the recent closures, saying the news” shocked the field and the academy as a whole.”
Any of us have been concerned that the decision of our colleagues might be used against the rest of us. Many of us have asked,’ If they’ve decided they no longer want their department, what’s to stop administrators from deciding we don’t need ours?'” the organization stated.
Donald Trump’s re-election also has sparked renewed fears about “attacks on the field”, including the Republican’s promise to defund schools “pushing critical race theory” and” transgender identity”, according to the statement.
Conservatives say reform, not eliminate, women’s studies
However, there are conservatives who oppose the women’s studies being discontinued from academia.
Carrie Lukas, president of Independent Women’s Forum, told The Fix she would like to see reform, not elimination.
No one who hears this news should mistakenly believe that women’s contributions to history or their distinctive roles in society aren’t worthy of study, Lukas said on Tuesday in an email statement.
Reform, not elimination, is the answer, she said.
According to Lukas,” Women’s history and experiences should be studied without the imposition of a political agenda or as part of an effort to erase biological realities.” Hope that’s the course that colleges and universities will eventually take.
Recent additions to alternative women’s studies initiatives aim to teach traditional viewpoints on women and sexuality.
One is at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic institution in Texas. Last spring, the university launched its master’s program in Catholic women’s and gender studies to study” Catholic understanding of human personhood” and explore “its meaning and application to contemporary circumstances.”
Bachiochi at the Ethics &, Public Policy Center pointed to another, the Mercy Otis Warren Initiative at Arizona State University.
Women scholars who value and work within the expansive canon of Western social and political thought are promoted through the initiative to gain knowledge and support.
According to Bachiochi,” The woman question is a perennial one and how various thinkers in the Western tradition have engaged it merits of thorough study and reflection.” She also stated that women’s studies are still a crucial subject of study.
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