Thread by @kateahart

The Wyoming Senate has voted 16 to 14 to eliminate the U. of Wyoming Gender Studies program. (Bill below). This will not only eliminate not only the gender studies department, but also courses and non-academic programs related to gender.

Please re-tweet to amplify and stop this

This is an unlawful government overreach and attack on academic freedom that would affect 30 academic programs and 105 courses, and limit the ability of students to learn about the many ways gender affects our past, present, and future

wyomingpublicmedia.org/politics-gover…

The bill is vague enough that it’s almost unenforceable, but also I’m sure that’s the point.

It’s meant to cast a chill over faculty speech so that we’re afraid to teach the reality that gender is complex, historically contextualized, and inevitably part of any honest interrogation of our past and present.

What am I supposed to do as someone who teaches the history of Buddhism and other world religions to undergraduate students? Not discuss gender? Pretend it doesn't exist? Or pretend that gender was something that mattered in the past but no longer matters today?

Or perhaps, to give the legislature credit it doesn't deserve, I should teach gender in a way that is "unbiased" or "neutral"? What does that even mean?

Senator Cheri Steinmetz, who brought the amendment forward, was disturbed by descriptions of course goals that alarmed her. Those included "to gain knowledge on multiple forms of oppression and marginalization"...

... "to understand historical and contemporary context in which women, queer and gender nonconforming individuals have exercised their agency"; or "to translate feminist and social justice theories into service and activism."

Those seem... good???

Our past and present DO contain oppression (and not only of women), people who are marginalized DO exercise agency, and I'd be PROUD of students who go on to do service or activism work promoting equality.

Meanwhile, even our students who don't go on to study or work on gender in any professional way should be equipped to understand how gender affects our world.

Healthcare workers should understand how gender affects treatment, teachers should understand how gender affects education, parents should understand how gender affects household labor + child development...heck, even business majors should understand how gender affects marketing

Some people would like you to believe that gender studies is somehow hateful or anti-man. But the majority of people in gender studies that I know want to understand where we've come from, and create a shared future that benefits women, men, and gender non-conforming people

Some people would like you to believe that rogue profs are indoctrinating students with crazy nonsense. But the university has rules and procedures governing what gets taught and how. Trust me, nothing too radical is getting passed by our curriculum committee.

But these decisions about what gets taught are made by the university, and specifically by the faculty.

This is not something for politicians (who by the way never reached out to anyone in gender studies) to decide.

Imagine a future where the legislature votes against the University teaching biology because evolution is taught, religious studies because non-Christian religions are taught, or against economics because capitalism is taught?

I don't want to live in that world.

I haven't seen any national coverage of this yet. I hope that if enough people see this, it will be blocked.

@nytimes @AARWeb @TheAtlantic @mikiebarb @conor64 @WYPublicRadio @LWV @ACLU @SlateGabfest

@nytimes @AARWeb @TheAtlantic @mikiebarb @conor64 @WYPublicRadio @LWV @ACLU @SlateGabfest @JortsTheCat , the Wyoming Senate voted to eliminate gender studies at the University of Wyoming.

You and Jean know that struggles for race, gender, class, and worker equality are all intertwined. Let's stand against authoritarian state censorship!

Reflections and responses 24 hours after going semi-viral with this tweet thread:

A lot more people saw this than I was expecting.

With lots of impressions, comes lots of responses. These were mostly supportive of my thread, but a decent chunk of responses were people celebrating this move by the Wyoming Senate. Most of these seemed to be trolls who hadn't read the thread.

A few directed personal attacks towards me, my appearance, my being "unfulfilled as a woman" (weird), or my qualifications. Some even clearly searched me and sent hate-mail to my university email.

To the trolls and hate mail senders: 1) Who has this kind of time on their hands? 2) Spell my name right, dweebs. 3) If you're going to call me an ugly bitch, please respect the years I spent at Harvard and call me Dr. Ugly Bitch.

But while it's unpleasant to get hate mail, I can't complain. So many people get it so much worse (especially if they are of some minoritized identity), and are still out there every day doing the work.

And as I type in my nice office, Ukrainians are risking their lives fighting authoritarian takeover of a democracy, and democracy, human rights, and free speech advocates are being imprisoned. Twitter is not real life. (Thank God)

However, I do think there is a connection between governments trying to ban gender studies and the situation in Ukraine. Authoritarian governments in places like Hungary, Russia, and China strictly limit academic freedom and free speech. This often starts with gender studies.

In Hungary, for instance, Viktor Orban went after gender studies as the first step towards broader crackdowns. These authoritarians whip up populist anger against "elites" and "academics" and then use that to exert greater control over citizens.

dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your…

Not incidentally, these same authoritarian regimes then engage in kleptocracy.

We should not overlook these very real threats to freedom.

(Note that some commenters are well aware of this similarity and support it nonetheless. Yikes.)

I'm generally not interested in getting into internet arguments with trolls who aren't reading the thread or acting in good faith, so I'm not responding directly to any of that.

Especially because my response to many people is: "That's not how this works, that's not how any of this works!"

But, because I am a dummy, I am going to respond to some general comments and questions.

I should preface by saying that I do not teach gender studies and I am not an expert in it. I am an interloper whose tweets happened to go viral. We should reserve space for people who are experts in this.

What I'm most incensed about is authoritarian government overreach.

"But de-funding a program and eliminating a program are different!"

They're not. The bill as written prevents any funds controlled by the university from going towards gender studies. That means the profs can't get paid, and therefore the courses can't get taught. There's no going around this with private donations.

The legislature is essentially threatening to defund the university if they continue to teach gender studies.

"Gender studies degrees are useless!"

There are three groups of students we can talk about here.

Students who take one gender studies course. Most people who do this do not major in gender studies. They take one course that hopefully enriches whatever field of study they choose.

Students who major in gender studies. There are relatively few of these, and they are driven by personal passion for the subject. They can go onto careers in NGO work, counseling, advocacy, politics, publishing, medicine, law… plenty of things.

Students who never take a gender studies class. This is, frankly, most students. This is perfectly fine – there are lots of cool classes at the university! And no one is forced to take gender studies courses. Don't want to take this course? Don't! It's the student's choice.

(To be perfectly honest, I've never taken a gender studies class! Nor have I taught one. I have benefited greatly from reading scholarship on gender, and from talking with colleagues who work on these issues, but it's not my specialty at all.)

"There are two genders!"

From looking at this thread, seems like gender is a topic that gets people all riled up. Wonder why that is? Maybe we should study the history and sociology of gender, and pay attention to the ways it has been socially constructed over time and been used as a political tool.

Also, #translivesmatter

"I still just don't like gender studies!"

Fine, don't take it! Reasonable people can disagree as to the value of particular academic approaches. I certainly don't agree with everything in the field.

But the issue here is not the particular subject, it's the fact that governments are trying to dictate what universities can teach and what students can learn.

That's blatantly authoritarian, and if you don't care about that, I don't know what to tell you.

"Gender studies saddles people with student debt!"

Student debt is a real problem in this country. We should be working to make college education more accessible and affordable. But to conflate it with gender studies is to totally change the subject.

For instance, gender studies is not uniquely low-return. In terms of average salary after graduation, it's just below psychology and biology, and above tourism and early childhood education. Do you want us to eliminate those majors that the university offers?

Also, I'm proud to teach at a school where the tuition is $5,000/year for in-state students. If you come here, you're not going to go $100,000 into debt. More colleges should be like that.

But gender studies is not what's driving university costs.

Wanna have some real talk? By my rough calculations, cost of the gender studies program at UW is likely at MOST 400,000$ / year. That's for five or six faculty, each of whom probably teaches 100-150 students per year.

Our football coach? $1,600,000 / year

Our university president? $365,000 / year

Provost? $300,000 / year

Multiply that through endless admin positions or other things unrelated to our academic mission, and you get the picture

If you don't like gender studies, fine, but let's not pretend gender studies is the reason college is expensive

"You want to cancel xyz, but you don't want people to cancel gender studies? Hypocrite!"

Do you see me out here advocating for the firing of professors for political beliefs or canceling of university events because the speaker is distasteful to some portion of the university? No. Because I don't generally support those things.

I'm here fighting against government overreach that threatens academic freedom. Don't change the subject.

"Why don't you move somewhere like California where your values align better?"

Wyoming is the Equality State. We were the first state to grant women the right to vote, and the first to have a female governor. Seems to me like a value I endorse.

Check out this great thread for more on Wyoming's history as the Equality State:

https://twitter.com/VirginiaScharff/status/1498388473014722561?s=20&t=NXuIdiikpKHjNGT1mLDDwA

Also, I don't always agree with how this plays out, but a big value in Wyoming is independence from government interference. The legislature telling the University what it can teach doesn't live up to that value.

"Wyoming sucks and the stupid people who live there are backwards rednecks"

I love living in Wyoming. I love being in the mountains where I can mountain bike, cross country ski, and breathe clean air. Plus the cost of living is lower than many places.

I don't always agree politically with everyone here, but for the most part, people here are good, neighborly people. And to paint everyone in Wyoming as stupid or backwards is to fall into negative stereotypes that help no one.

"College degrees should be exclusively focused on getting people jobs!"

College is definitely supposed to help people get jobs, but it's also incredibly limiting to think about education in that way.

An education should train people to be informed and conscientious citizens, to be able to encounter difference respectfully, to understand their place in broader society, and to ask big questions about how they want to live their life.

Not all of that translates directly into job training. But it translates into more informed and open-minded citizens.

"The state legislature has the power to determine what is taught at state schools!"

Read article 7 section 17 of the Wyoming state constitution.
sos.wyo.gov/Forms/Publicat…

"The legislature shall provide by law for the management of the university, its lands and other property by a board of trustees." There is supposed to be separation, with relations btw UW and the legislature mediated by the board of trustees. This bill ignores that law.

The university also has rules and regulations governing how the university is administered. This is organized around the principle of shared governance. That is, the university itself has a voice in how the university is run. The bill ignores those existing rules and regulations

uwyo.edu/regs-policies/…

Were the gender studies profs to be fired, the university would be opening itself up to a lawsuit.

These principles of separation between the legislature and the university are set up to preserve academic freedom. If governments can interfere in academic decisions, academics are not free to pursue the truth, which is their primary goal.

See here for more information about that: aaup.org/issues/academi…

Indeed, if the legislature were to undertake this action, it would threaten the accreditation of the university. ed.gov/accreditation Losing accreditation would make UW worth far less.

That's all for now.

And to all of us, go outside! Pet a dog! Read a book! Don't let your rights get trampled on!