Judy Rohrer: Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies threatened with extinction at EWU

The Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies program at Eastern Washington University is facing near -certain death. The program is a skeleton of its former self, suffering from attrition and administrative devaluation over the past several years. A devastating blow is likely to come soon, as the board of trustees is set to vote on eliminating the GWSS major at its meeting Thursday. If that happens, faculty in the program could be fired.

The GWSS program was built by many hands over the past 50-plus years. Its demise would have a huge effect, not just at EWU but through the whole region. Over the past decades, faculty, affiliated faculty and staff developed curriculum, crafted co-curricular programming, collaborated on policy, and established strong community relationships.

Internal and external comprehensive assessments of GWSS (and the other diversity programs) in the past three years have proven the institutional value of the program. After a yearlong strategic resource allocation process, an internal task force wrote: “We strongly recommend support for and investment in our autonomous diversity programs” (which include GWSS).

EWU’s administration chose to ignore this recommendation, instead contracting with an outside agency for $115,000 to retest the diversity programs. They found the “academic (diversity) programs play a pivotal role in providing comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the experiences, histories, cultures, and contributions of various identity groups.” Administration similarly ignored this report.

If, after more than half a century of service, GWSS were to cease to exist, it would leave the region without a strong, affordable, public program building knowledge and advocacy in the fields of gender, women, sexuality, feminism and queer ness in exactly the moment when these knowledges and communities are under lethal attack.

EWU’s GWSS program could be a beacon for the Inland Northwest – a light in the authoritarian darkness guiding young people to a safe, celebratory, transformative, inclusive space. In a time when marginalized communities are literally being disappeared and erased, we should be enhancing, not diminishing, our light.

We know there are hundreds of organizations supporting young women, gender-nonconforming and LGBTQIA+ youth in Washington, Montana and Idaho that are eager to have our program be a resource for young people in this region.

We know that our region is increasingly Latinx and that EWU’s students are increasingly nonwhite and nonmale.

We know that our sexuality and queer studies minor is the first such minor in the region, and still the only queer studies minor in the larger Spokane area. Graduates are serving LGBTQ+ communities in our region as counselors, educators, nonprofit advocates and in other roles.

We know that GWSS graduates have benefited from the comprehensive revision of the major completed in 2020. They have gone forward to win awards and found nonprofits, all in service of the greater community.

We know that in the last two years generous donors have enabled GWSS to successfully complete two $25,000 endowment campaigns – Activist in Residence (AiR) and the Sally Winkle Women’s and Gender Studies Scholarship. This means that with proper staffing, GWSS could run a full AiR program every winter quarter and grant Winkle scholarships annually into perpetuity without fear of funding cuts.

In short, we know the GWSS program is invaluable to the Eastern community and the region. We have the receipts – public petitions provide indisputable evidence:

• A petition launched mid-April of this year already has over 680 people Standing with EWU’s Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies program.

• In May 2022 over 240 people signed a petition calling for then incoming President Shari McMahan to support the four autonomous diversity programs at Eastern Washington University and the Inlander published a corresponding opinion column.

We are living through unprecedented times. Powerful forces are working to dismantle U.S. democracy. They are strategically coming after higher education because U.S. universities are a cornerstone of a strong, informed, engaged civil society.

The fields of Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies were born out of vibrant social movements agitating against all systems of oppression and for the liberation of all people. We have lots of experience speaking truth to power and building solidarity. Now is the time to stand with and build EWU’s GWSS program, not kill it.

Judy Rohrer, of Spokane, is an associate professor and the former director of Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies at Eastern Washington University. You can find a petition to Stand with GWSS at tinyurl.com/34pb24sk.