When Texas A&M finished its women’s studies program and overhauled its race and gender classes last month, its actions joined a long line of recent institutional rollbacks of women’s rights and autonomy in Texas and across the country, from eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs to rolling back access to legal abortions.
With this closure and overhaul, Texas A&M – one of the nation’s largest public schools – reveals that it is notas its home page website announces “a force for good”, but rather that it is ready to capitulate to save little and do much harm.
Closing a women’s studies program, overhauling a gender studies program, and canceling courses focused on race and gender are attacks on all feminist movements and on women everywhere. They send the message that the study of women and gender is a waste of time and resources. The cancellations also highlight the troubling reality that, rather than supporting the mission of public higher education, state and federal policies increasingly function as instruments of censorship.
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Amidst this turmoil, we cannot forget that students are unwittingly caught in the middle of this political game. Canceling courses that students rely on to progress is detrimental; they must then scramble to adjust their schedules and find themselves grappling with the revelation that, despite oft-expressed platitudes, their university does not actually care about their particular intellectual pursuits, or at least not enough to resist censorship policies.
Such cancellations disrupt all students, even those who are not interested in women’s and gender studies. Students whose schedules are not those upset by this change are witnesses to the disturbance; they may see their friends struggling, they may have more crowded classes due to the overflow of students from the team, and they may rightly fear that their their own study programs come next.
This results in a deterrent effect and a clear message to Texans: pursue studies on a safe subject in a docile manner.
The decision in favor of the cuts was made by the acting president Tommy Williams, who argued that there was no way to sustain the programs as they were, given the need to conform to the “new system policies” which aim to eliminate courses and programs focused on women and historically underrepresented groups. This was an indirect reference to federal changes under President Donald Trump, who uses funding and the threat of federal investigations as a stick to force academic institutions to eliminate DEI policies and topics.
In what can now be clearly understood as a preview of the closure of women’s studies, Texas A&M canceled its LGBTQ minor and popular culture studies and earning social activism certificates in 2024, with the university citing low enrollment and state Rep. Brian Harrison calling these courses a “scandalous abuse of taxpayers’ money.”
Whatever the consequences of these cuts, there is a good chance that they will be borne not by Williams but by his successor. Williams’ compliance communicates the current power dynamic to any candidate interested in taking the helm: the state legislature has total control and any expectation of academic freedom will be strictly rhetorical.
Most frightening is that these cuts reveal the extent to which higher education, particularly executive-level academic staff, can be complicit in perpetuating the manipulative control of the patriarchy.
Closing a women’s studies program signals to women everywhere that they will be silenced.
Budget cuts send a clear message to public institutions around the world, in red And blue indicates the same way as “You Could Be Next”.
They also send the message to students that these fields are a waste of time. Ending formal, academic women’s studies means that fewer stories about women will be told, slowly but surely making women less visible and less valued.
What is really going on here? Why close a popular study program? I believe this is because women’s resilience, influence and power are so strong and are seen as a threat.
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Women have proven, over generations, most recently in Minnesota, that they will put their bodies on the line to protect not just other women, but entire communities.
Mothers in Minneapolis rallied to protect their children’s teachers from ICE raids. Women survivors of physical and sexual violence abuse have recognized the tactics used by ICE to kill and justify the murder of Renee Nicole Good and are quickly making these connections clear to others. Stella Carlsonformerly known as “the woman in the pink coat,” captured and released the first video of the murder of Alex Pretti by ICE agents. Kayla Schultzanother woman who recorded Pretti’s murder says it’s time to “make some noise” to protect our communities.
Despite everything Texas and the entire nation does to whitewash history—rolling back human rights and civil liberties, censoring thought, and attempting to control the bodies that threaten them—these Minnesota women are proof that it won’t work.
Women will not be relegated to obscurity and retreat. Women and Gender Studies programs can be silenced, but women never will be.
Allison T. Butler teaches in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of the upcoming “The judgment of gender: How women are centered and silenced in pop culture.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about cuts to women’s studies and gender studies programs was produced by The Hechinger reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Register with Hechinger weekly newsletter.
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