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Universities in Kansas, Iowa and California plan to close departments, and Florida may follow

Some of the oldest women’s studies programs in American higher education are on the chopping block in red and blue states, giving rise to questions about the future of such programs.

While some scholars point to conservative politicians’ crackdown on ideological programs and fear more is to come under Republican leadership at the state and federal levels, others say many programs have strayed from their original focus: women.

“As fiscal constraints demand universities tighten their belts or close their doors, they are wise to offload what were once called ‘women’s studies’ programs,” Erika Bachiochi, a fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center, told The College Fix in a recent email.

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 academia, “‘women’s studies’ became ‘gender studies’ and finally these programs (and the elite academy writ large) no longer knew how to define or defend women and their true interests,” she said.

But other feminist scholars disagree. While lamenting the closures, they believe efforts to expand the scope of study help students think more broadly about creating “socially just worlds.”

Among them is Professor Felicity Amaya Schaeffer, who teaches at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The public university recently announced plans to close its 50-year-old Feminist Studies Department on July 1.

“After many years of struggle to hold onto the Feminist Studies department, we have collectively decided it is no longer tenable,” Schaeffer told The Fix in a recent email.

She cited a number of reasons for the closure, including internal conflicts, administrative issues, and faculty departures.

The department went from 12 faculty in 2017 to 2.5 currently, and those remaining professors are “shouldering an exceptionally heavy service-load as women of color,” Schaeffer said.

Enrollment has declined slightly – “but so have enrollments in the Humanities Division more broadly,” she told The Fix.

Feminist studies will not be disappearing completely at UCSC. Although no longer a department, the major still will be offered under the Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Department, formed in 2021.

Schaeffer, who chairs the department, said the field of study is “vibrant” and “growing.”

“I have spent my entire 20-year career in the Feminist Studies department so I can say that the move of Feminist Studies under the umbrella of CRES will offer an opportunity for students to access more wide-ranging courses that push them to think intersectionally about feminist and critical race perspectives from a relational context in the United States and transnationally, with the goal of envisioning more socially just worlds,” she told The Fix.

San Diego State University recently made a similar move, expanding the scope of its women’s studies department beyond women.

SDSU’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.

The new name reflects “more expansive understanding of the field, and more accurately reflects the scholarship that faculty and students currently produce within the department,” according to the university.

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.

University spokesperson Jeneane Beck responded to The Fix’s email to Hyaeweol Choi, who chairs the Department of Gender & Women Sexuality Studies, asking about the reasons for the proposal.

“The proposed change, which requires Board of Regents approval, is part of the administrative restructuring the college has been undergoing over the past few years to improve efficiency and position programs for success long term,” Beck said in a recent email.

“Faculty have been involved throughout the process and have worked hard to ensure the changes reflect student interests and future career opportunities,” Beck said.

Others believe Florida is moving to make similar cuts in the future.

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. One lawmaker warned the effort is ‘trying to stage’ an argument to get rid of the programs.”

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 critical distinctions between gender and sex. … We coined intersectionality, the matrix of domination, and ‘white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,’” Lewis stated.

Last week, association leaders issued a statement addressing the recent closures, saying the news “shocked the field and the academy as a whole.”

“… [M]any of us have been anxious about the possibility of our colleagues’ decision being weaponized 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

But there are conservatives who don’t want to see the women’s studies gone from academia either.

Carrie Lukas, president of Independent Women’s Forum, told The Fix she would like to see reform, not elimination.

“… [N]o one hearing this news should mistake the idea that somehow these closures mean that women’s contributions to history or unique roles in society aren’t worthy of study,” Lukas said Tuesday in a statement via email.

Reform, not elimination, is the answer, she said.

“Importantly, women’s history and experiences should be studied without the imposition of a political agenda or as a part of an effort to erase biological realities,” Lukas told The Fix. “Let’s hope that’s the direction that colleges and universities ultimately take.”

A few alternative women’s studies programs have popped up recently to focus on teaching classical views about women and sexuality.

One is at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic institution in Texas. The university launched its master’s program in Catholic women’s and gender studies last spring to teach “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.

The initiative raises awareness and support for female scholars “who value and work within the expansive canon of Western social and political thought.”

Bachiochi agreed women’s studies remains an important topic of study, telling The Fix: “‘The woman question’ is a perennial one and how various thinkers in the Western tradition have engaged it is worthy of deep study and reflection.”

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