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One of the most popular targets of criticism on college and university campuses is the Women’s and Gender Studies program.

I happened to come across a brochure for the Women’s and Gender Studies program at Iowa State University.

On the cover is a picture of people involved with the Women’s and Gender Studies program holding signs in support of Planned Parenthood and supporting a woman’s right to kill her unborn baby.

Among other messages on the signs:

“A woman’s place is in the revolution.”

“I’m with her.” (Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan)

“We refuse to keep our mouths shut and our wombs open.”

“Stronger together. Black Lives Matter. Not my President.”

There are other pro-abortion, pro-Planned Parenthood, liberal signs in the photo.

Some of the core courses for the major include:

*Introduction to Lesbian Studies
*Introduction to Queer Studies
*Ecofeminism
*Women of Color in the U.S.
*Feminist Theories
*Intersections of Race, Class and Gender
*Gender, Globalization and Development

Ana Haigh, class of 2017, said this about the program:

“Women’s and Gender Studies forces us to question everything we think we know about sex, gender, sexuality, race, class and other intersections of oppression. It gives us the tools to deconstruct and then reimagine an understanding of the way the world really works.”

Hunter Martin, also of the Class of 2017, said:

“Learning the underlying stereotypes about gender, race, religion and sexual orientation in WGS classes has helped me identify misrepresentation and marginalization when I’m confronted by it in both the media and politics.”

Abigail Barefoot of the Class of 2012 said:

“Not only did my classes help to develop my critical thinking and writing skills, but I learned how to take what I learned in the classroom and use it to get involved as an activist.”

Back in 2000, Iowa State University said the mission of Women’s Studies is to “promote among the students an understanding of gender as a pervasive social construction which reflects and determines differentials of power and opportunity in the human community.”

Women’s Studies 301 is “intended to destabilize the idea of gender as a natural rather than cultural phenomenon by comparing gender roles and customs in different cultures.”

Women’s Studies is defined as “the critical and scholarly pursuit of knowledge about women from a multicultural and interdisciplinary feminist perspective.”

According to the Board of Regents plans and policies document, though:

“Regent universities shall not be or become an instrument of partisan political action. The expression of partisan political opinions and viewpoints shall be those of individuals, not of institutions, because the official adoption of any political position, whether favored by majority or minority, tends to substitute biased information that hinders the continuing search for truth.” (3.9.E)

Does including such open advocacy of abortion and Planned Parenthood on the cover of a brochure for an academic program at a regent university reflect partisan political action?

If it doesn’t, I am not sure what does.

Author: Jacob Hall

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