I went to school back in the '80s, before Gender Studies (or even Feminist Studies) was a thing. I was in the English Department and managed to get out before wokeness had taken root, though. English was a great dumping ground for stuff they couldn't fit in anywhere else … we might be directed to analyze a novel using Marxist criticism or gay criticism, looking for anything the author might have intended to represent a phallus.
Sometime between then and now, Gender Studies programs because something you could actually major in. Joe Biden would like to forgive the loans of all those clowns who went into debt to get a doctorate in Gender Studies and can't find a job outside a Starbucks.
There was much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Christopher Rufo to the board of trustees of New College of Florida, which DeSantis was determined to turn into a respectable university and not a clown college. Rufo says they're making progress:
BREAKING: The New College of Florida board of trustees has directed the administration to abolish its Gender Studies program. We are the first public university in America to begin rolling back the encroachment of queer theory and gender pseudoscience into academic life.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) August 10, 2023
Rufo writes in City Journal:
The faculty has changed, too. Through a combination of cultural incentives and good fortune, many of the most ideological, left-wing faculty members, who presided over the old orthodoxy and expressed strong opposition to the classical liberal arts, have left the university. Aaron Hillegass, a professor who said that he would “burn the college’s buildings to the ground” if he were “more patriotic,” resigned. Nicolas Delon, a professor who justified a violent protest against the new administration, left the college. Liz Leininger, a professor who spread baseless accusations of “McCarthyism” at New College, departed on her own accord.
In total, 36 professors have exited, clearing the way for a large number of new hires interested in pursuing the great human questions rather than maintaining a stifling, left-wing echo chamber. The college’s new cohort of scholars boasts Ph.D.s from institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Northwestern. More importantly, all these professors share a commitment to classical liberal education, which prioritizes the pursuit of “the true, the good, and the beautiful” over the deadening bureaucratic trinity of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
And no more DEI department!
Recommended
The origin story of gender studies (like all of the grievance studies programs) is rooted in political activism. It was not an academic discipline which organically emerged from a body of scholarly work. It's always been, first and foremost, a ideological program.
— i/o (@monitoringbias) August 10, 2023
Exactly, it violates the core commitment of academic life and the classical liberal arts.
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) August 10, 2023
Just dropped my daughter off at a state university in the Midwest. We went to get her books. For every hard science, engineering, or history book, there were at least two gender studies texts or other nonsense textbooks on the shelves.
— Barb (@AIMforesight) August 10, 2023
> abolish its Gender Studies program
— Torin McCabe (@torinmccabe) August 10, 2023
But Chris, how then will we find out "what is a woman"?
I hear the field of Gender Studies is *very* close to an answer
Excellent work.. gender studies is the “underwater basket weaving” we all heard about growing up.
— Cash Is Freedom (@Readonly7863) August 10, 2023
Isn’t that like half the faculty?
— McLovin (@McLovin6Actual) August 10, 2023
“Public university professors, such as those at New College, have a 1st Amendment right to promote gender pseudoscience—but they are not entitled to an unlimited state subsidy for that speech.”
— Suzy Shofar (@suzylebo) August 10, 2023
💥💯
Thank you. That's actually truly brave and strong
— Lincoln Lewis (@lincolnlewisIII) August 10, 2023
Social media has made the mainstream media lose its iron grip on the narrative. Imagine that done in academia.
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