Professors of women’s, gender and sexuality studies urge presidents, provosts and other leaders to defend the future of higher education.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views, positions or policies of their employer, nor should this post be considered an official statement or endorsement by the employer.
Dear college and university presidents, provosts and other academic leaders:
Academic leaders are frequently asked by trustees, alums, faculty and increasingly students: What is the legacy you want to leave after your tenure at an educational institution?
With the current administration’s attempts to gut higher education, that question is a particularly weighty one. Your response to the Trump administration’s efforts to withdraw funds for academic research; prohibit diversity, equity and inclusion practices at universities and colleges; and attack accreditation organizations, will mark the terms of all current leaders in higher education.
As academics, administrators, journalists and others have argued, it is imperative that academic leaders take a firm stance against “unprecedented government overreach and political interference.” But what does this look like on individual campuses? How will individual leaders respond to these pressures as they weigh budgetary and other challenges their institutions face? What indeed will be left of our institutions in four years and beyond?
It is in the best interest of academic institutions—and the U.S. as a whole—for our leaders to stridently defend their core mission of educating students in ways that allow them to develop to their fullest potential. In order to do so, lessons from interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching that challenge ideologies, systems of privilege and structures that oppress or exploit some for the advantage of others, are essential.
Academic leaders have a long history of facing turbulent times head on. The post-Civil War period ushered in fraught decisions about whether to admit women and African Americans to study alongside white men. Debates over teaching controversial topics, such as evolution in the early 1900s, led to bitter disagreements between academic leaders and politicians, some that continue in the present day. Curricular changes during WWII to support “public welfare” via technical training divided campuses. And political upheaval during the 1970s sparked protests and government interventions that required academic leaders to make weighty decisions that impacted the future of higher education.
We find ourselves again in turbulent times. After a half-century of work to establish the academic field of women’s, gender and sexuality studies—as well as Africana studies, Jewish studies, Indigenous studies, disability studies and other programs offering critical, interdisciplinary training to students—we are seeing an international campaign to delegitimize and dismantle academic degree programs reflecting and amplifying the demographic and scholarly diversity many academic leaders have long championed.
These attacks are often based on mistaken assumptions that our graduates will not be employable—which is in direct contradiction to the data collected about the successes of these graduates.
It is no coincidence that Hungary’s autocratic leader, Viktor Orbán, stripped accreditation from all gender studies programs in 2018. Since then, similar campaigns targeting LGBTQ+ and DEI initiatives in higher education, and beyond, have been mirrored by conservative lawmakers in other countries, including the United States.
We’ve also seen high-profile program closures of WGS and other interdisciplinary programs across North America:
- The closure of New College of Florida’s gender studies program, one of the first acts in the conservative takeover of the institution, in 2023.
- The elimination of the women’s and gender studies program at Ball State University.
- The elimination of gender studies at the University of Toledo after the Republican-dominated Ohio legislature passed a law giving public university trustees (who are appointed by the governor) more authority to cut academic programs.
- The Kansas Board of Regents voted to dissolve the Department of Women, Ethnicity and Intersectional Studies at Wichita State University.
- Rhode Island College has suspended its gender and women’s studies program.
- The elimination of the feminist studies Ph.D. program at University of California, Santa Cruz, due to lack of faculty.
- The suspension of admissions to the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University, one of Canada’s largest institutions of higher education.
WGSS programs are also being consolidated with other programs:
- Purdue University announced a controversial plan in 2020 to consolidate several ethnic studies and interdisciplinary programs—including WGSS, the African American Studies and Research Center, American studies, Asian American studies, global studies, critical disabilities studies, and Native American and Indigenous studies—into a single School of Interdisciplinary Studies as a budget-trimming measure.
- The University of Iowa recently proposed merging African American studies; American studies; gender, women’s and sexuality studies; Jewish studies; Latina/o/x studies; and Native American and Indigenous studies into a new School of Social and Cultural Analysis. (The Iowa Board of Regents declined to approve the creation of the new school and corresponding department closures in February 2025, so those departments and programs remain open for now.)
In fact, data collected from WGS program directors in 2018 showed that approximately 13 percent of the 300+ WGS programs surveyed had been merged with other areas and/or lost department or independent status. According to the National Women’s Studies Association, these consolidations continued to rise during COVID and beyond.
Many of these institutions cite financial pressures on higher education as the main driver for closures and consolidations. Most also highlight the comparatively low number of degrees granted in these areas. We question the wisdom of this strategy since most of these small interdisciplinary programs function with limited departmental overhead and serve a wide variety of students through general education courses and campus wide programming.
In fact, market intelligence firms that assist institutions with optimizing degree offerings often identify small interdisciplinary programs as an asset. These data informed approaches to decision making have increasingly led firms to question strategies such as “cutting small programs simply because they are small.”
One academic optimization strategist (who declined to be named, citing concerns about the current political environment) spoke with one of the authors about the cost-effectiveness of many small interdisciplinary programs. Across a range of institutions–from small private colleges to public research universities—their firm found that course offerings in fields related to cultural and gender studies frequently serve a large number of students in proportion to their faculty, making them a significant asset to institutions. Faculty in these areas often serve in multiple areas—in joint positions, or via crosslisting—which further enhances student exposure to a broad variety of disciplinary perspectives and subject matters. Rather than being a financial drain, market intelligence firms are increasingly recognizing these interdisciplinary programs provide an outsized contribution to academic institutions.
Rising student interest is also an important indicator of the contributions made by these small, but influential programs. The number of degrees in cultural and gender studies’ fields—including majors, minors and certificates—has remained steady or increased at most institutions in recent years. Course enrollments have also increased. These course offerings often contribute to general education requirements and other campus priorities. They address timely topics like reproductive healthcare, immigration and international politics that draw the attention of increasingly diverse communities of students. The campus wide programming common among interdisciplinary programs is also critical to many institutions’ educational missions, as well as their unique character.
Ultimately, academic leaders should not be cowed into making decisions solely on data about how many majors graduate from each unit nor false equivalencies like ROI (return on investment) studies comparing small fields like WGS to much larger, more overtly lucrative areas like civil engineering and nursing. Yet, it is important to note that students in medical, scientific and technology fields also benefit from diverse programming that promotes cultural humility and compassion as they offer healthcare, build infrastructure and contend with digital and technological challenges spanning across many different communities. Employers agree skills taught in critical interdisciplinary programs are crucial as graduates enter a diverse, complex global workforce.
For administrators in higher education—particularly presidents, provosts and leaders in academic affairs—this is clearly one of those turning points that college historians (not to mention future trustees) will revisit in the decades to come.
What will be the legacy of your leadership? Obviously, institutional survival and hopefully thriving are end goals for all administrators. But beyond that, what is the legacy you want to leave to your campus, and for U.S. higher education more broadly? While no single leader can champion all things—especially if financial resources are scarce—where do you want your energies to go and make the most impact for your current and future students?
We believe that the survival, and thriving, of women’s, gender and sexuality studies, as well as programs like Africana studies, Indigenous studies and disability studies, will be the mark of strong and resilient academic institutions moving forward. The crucial skills these small, interdisciplinary programs teach—critical thinking, active listening, collaboration, and cultural humility—will be what graduates bring to a wide variety of careers as representatives of their alma maters.
Sincerely,
Carrie N. Baker, Michele Tracy Berger, Christa Craven and Janell Hobson
Ms. Classroom wants to hear from educators and students being impacted by legislation attacking public education, higher education, gender, race and sexuality studies, activism and social justice in education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs for our series, ‘Banned! Voices from the Classroom.’ Submit pitches and/or op-eds and reflections (between 500-800 words) to Ms. contributing editor Aviva Dove-Viebahn at adove-viebahn@msmagazine.com. Posts will be accepted on a rolling basis.
