Colleges and Universities

Colleges and universities are both incubators of feminist awakening and contested ground in the struggle over equity, inclusion and the freedom to learn.

Looking to Black and Indigenous Foremothers to Resist Erasure

PUBLISHED 7/2/2026 by

Free Black women and Indigenous women are the foremothers of generations of African Americans. Yet they remain largely absent from the official story of American freedom. Their lives, contributions and descendants have been systematically erased—from colonial records and legal classifications to public memory itself.

That erasure began in the earliest colonial records. The 1620 Virginia census recorded “four Indians in the service of several planters,” alongside 15 Negro men and 17 Negro women, reducing people to categories that obscured their identities, families and histories. Over the centuries, laws, court decisions and public institutions repeatedly reinforced that disappearance.

The best celebration of 250 years of American freedom—after the fireworks and celebrations by a newly blue-painted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are over—could be a visit to a cool, air-conditioned archive. In the quiet, anyone can search the records for the full story, of the enslaved and freeborn, Indian and African. Anyone can defy censorship and erasure with an open mind and a pencil, no fees required. 

When it Comes to Consent, ‘Yes Means Yes’ Is Not Enough

PUBLISHED 6/20/2026 by

In 1993, Saturday Night Live parodied a new affirmative consent policy at Antioch College with a sketch starring Mike Myers who asks explicit consent for each intimate act such as, “May I elevate the level of sexual intimacy by feeling your buttocks?” The joke landed because the policy seemed absurd—the punchline signaling political correctness run amok.

Decades later, affirmative consent policies like Antioch’s are now standard at universities across the country.

The arc from national ridicule to national norm was driven by survivors, educators, researchers and students themselves who pushed for a shift from “no means no” toward “yes means yes.” Advocates sought to articulate that women are not merely gatekeepers—survivors are not culpable for not articulating “no” (i.e. silence doesn’t equal consent). Instead, it’s on everyone to make sure they have a clear “yes.” This movement simultaneously sought to emphasize women’s sexual agency, empowering them to actively express “yes” to desired sexual encounters. 

Yet despite widespread adoption of affirmative consent policies on campuses, not much has changed. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, rates of sexual violence on college campuses remain high, with one in five women and one in 16 men experiencing assault, and over 40 percent experiencing sexually harassing behavior.

This persistence suggests that consent alone cannot bear the weight we place upon it.

Resisting in Plain Sight: Six Everyday Acts of Resistance in the Age of Trump

PUBLISHED 6/18/2026 by

The Trump administration’s relentless assaults on anything that threatens its narrow vision of the status quo—one rooted firmly in patriarchy and racism—have made something unexpectedly clear: Authoritarians target culture because culture shapes how we understand ourselves.

Activities we once considered leisure, education or self-expression have become forms of resistance, simply because they affirm the people and communities this administration seeks to silence, exclude or erase.

Here are six examples.

My Women’s Studies Department Is Closing. The Need for Feminist History Isn’t.

PUBLISHED 6/9/2026 by

In August, the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Texas at Austin will close. I joined the department last year after leaving the University of Iowa’s Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies department, which also closed this year. As programs in women’s studies, ethnic studies and Black studies disappear across the country, I’ve found myself reflecting on how I became a feminist historian—and why this work matters now more than ever.

Back in 2005, as an undergraduate student at San Francisco State University, I took a course on feminist activists and read Angela Davis’ Women, Race, and Class. Davis argued that the experiences of Black women could only be understood through the intersecting forces of race, gender and class—and that confronting racism, misogyny and poverty was essential to liberation. From that moment, I knew a feminist view of history could transform how I understood present-day inequality and how I wanted to teach those ideas to future students.

For years, I brought that framework into the classroom, helping students connect the histories of voting rights, reproductive justice, racial discrimination and gendered violence to the challenges they see unfolding around them today. As feminist studies and ethnic studies programs come under increasing attack, I remain convinced that this work is indispensable. Nearly 45 years after Davis historicized the triad of women, race and class, we still need that critical lens to understand our world—and to defend human dignity and justice within it.

A (Brief) History of Women’s Rights, 1600 to Present

PUBLISHED 6/3/2026 by and

From the Haudenosaunee women who successfully challenged warfare in the 17th century, to today’s feminist organizers defending democracy, reproductive freedom and civil rights, the struggle for women’s equality has never been a straight line. It is a story of persistence, resistance and collective action spanning centuries.

Compiled by editors at Ms. and researchers from the National Women’s History Alliance, this women’s history timeline traces the interconnected histories of feminism, abolition, labor organizing, civil rights, reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ liberation and democratic participation.

No timeline can fully capture more than 400 years of feminist history, let alone every movement, leader, victory and setback that has shaped the ongoing fight for equality. Rather than offering a comprehensive account, this chronology highlights pivotal moments and turning points that help tell the story of how women have expanded the boundaries of freedom, democracy and human rights in the United States and beyond.

The timeline is part of Ms. magazine’s FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists project, a multimedia essay series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by examining the women and feminist movements that have worked to make the nation’s founding promises more fully realized. Through reported features, essays, interviews and historical analysis, FEMINIST 250 explores not only where we have been, but where we must go next to achieve true equality.

FEMINIST 250’s Parts 2 and 3—Feminist Lessons and Feminist Futures—drop this month on MsMagazine.com.

To the Men Who Send Women Hate Mail

PUBLISHED 5/15/2026 by

I am not alone in receiving unsolicited emails—especially as a professor, public writer and thinker, and woman who dares to speak her mind. Often, the emails are thoughtful, engaging and sometimes deeply moving expressions of gratitude that warm the heart. However, from time to time, there are the crude, crass and obtuse intruders, thrusting insults and even threats into our inboxes. These expressions of masculine fragility and anger—whether intended to or not—chill the receiver’s speech and cause women to silence themselves.  

Here, then, is my response to Mr. Sawyer—but also, in many ways, a response to the countless men who insert themselves into women’s inboxes with condescension, hostility and misplaced certainty. Women in public life know these messages well: the unsolicited lectures, the attempts at intimidation, the casual cruelty masquerading as critique. Consider this every woman’s letter to the crass and crude male intruder in her inbox. I hope you enjoy.

Keeping Score: Supreme Court Blow to Voting Rights Will ‘Silence Our Voices’; Conservative Judges Try to Restrict Mifepristone; Moms Worry About Putting Food on the Table

PUBLISHED 5/14/2026 by | UPDATED 6/30/2026 at 11:13 A.M. PT

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, slashing protections against racially discriminatory voting laws.
—A record high amount of books were censored from libraries in 2025, often due to LGBTQ characters or plotlines addressing racism.
—A third of moms living on low incomes have gone into debt or skipped meals so their kids could eat.
—Just 22 percent of American voters have significant confidence in the Supreme Court.
—In 2025 the number of abortions in the U.S. remained stable, but more patients in states with bans turned to telehealth services instead of traveling out of state.
—The Department of Justice announced plans to expand the use of the federal death penalty.
—An Epstein-Maxwell survivor, who asked to remain anonymous, laments, “I kept my identity protected as Jane Doe. I woke up one day with my name mentioned over 500 times. While the rich and powerful remain protected by redaction, my name was exposed to the world.”
—The Trump administration launched a Moms.gov site on Mother’s Day that refers pregnant people to unregulated crisis pregnancy centers.
—A Ms. piece on solitary confinement by Kwaneta Harris and her daughter Summer Knight won Kwaneta second place in the Collaboration category of the Stillwater Awards for prison journalism.
—Liberation, a play about 1970s feminism by Bess Wohl, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Wohl was inspired by her own life: Her mother, Lisa Cronin Wohl, was an early Ms. contributor.

… and more.

Trump Administration Launches a Legally Bogus Investigation into Smith College

PUBLISHED 5/8/2026 by and

The Trump administration claims its investigation into Smith College is about defending women. In reality, it is an attack on the rights of women at Smith to define their own community, values and mission without political interference from Washington.

The Department of Education argues that by admitting transgender women and allowing them access to campus housing and facilities, Smith may have violated Title IX. But that argument collapses under even a basic reading of the law. Title IX simply does not apply to admissions at private undergraduate colleges like Smith.

The administration’s complaint is also striking because it is not based on evidence that Smith students have been harmed or excluded from campus life. There is no public record of students filing complaints about the college’s housing, bathrooms or locker rooms policies. Instead, this investigation grew out of pressure from a conservative advocacy group determined to use federal power to impose its ideological agenda on colleges and universities.

Smith’s campus policies were shaped over years by students, faculty and administrators themselves—including cisgender women students who pushed the college to open admissions to transgender women more than a decade ago.

At its core, this investigation is about far more than one women’s college. It reflects the Trump administration’s broader campaign against trans rights, higher education and liberal arts institutions that encourage critical thought, inclusion and intellectual independence.

Congress passed Title IX to expand educational opportunities for women. Now, the administration is attempting to weaponize that same civil rights law to undermine women’s education and bully colleges into abandoning their own principles.

From Smith College to Florida’s New College: MAGA’s Campaign Against Universities, Women’s Studies and Liberal Arts

PUBLISHED 5/6/2026 by

As a professor at Smith College and chair of the Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, I have closely followed the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education—and on my field in particular.

This week, those attacks landed squarely on my own campus: The Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into Smith’s policy of admitting transgender women, arguing the college may be violating Title IX by recognizing gender identity rather than “biological sex.” The probe—prompted by a complaint from a conservative advocacy group—questions whether a women’s college can remain legally “single sex” while including trans women, and raises the possibility of federal penalties or loss of status.

This move is not an isolated action. It is part of a broader campaign to redefine civil rights protections in ways that exclude transgender people, and to pressure colleges and universities into compliance with that vision.

It is also one of many recent attacks on higher education—especially liberal arts institutions—by Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration, aimed at universities they view as out of step with a conservative, anti-feminist agenda. In a 2021 speech titled “Universities Are the Enemy,” JD Vance declared, “We must aggressively attack the universities in this country. … Maybe it’s time to seize the endowments, penalize them for being on the wrong side of some of these culture war issues.”

Women’s, gender and sexuality studies teaches students to think critically, to question the status quo and to understand how power shapes our lives across gender, race, class, sexuality and more. These are precisely the kinds of questions that have made the field a target. Rather than engage with this work, critics have increasingly sought to discredit or dismantle it altogether. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 provides a roadmap for doing just that—but many of these strategies have already been tested at the state level.