Fifty-four years ago, Irene Thompson stood before a sea of 370 students, preparing to teach UF’s first women-oriented course. She felt overwhelmed. The English department thought she was out of her mind. So did the administration.
The course — "Images of Women in Literature from Ovid through Norman Mailer” — met one evening a week and attracted an even split of men and women. According to Thomspon, many of the male students enrolled in the course because their girlfriends were taking it. Other students expected a “rap session,” and some simply wanted to play “devil’s advocate.”
By the second week, nearly 300 students dropped the course. But the 72 men and women who stayed helped mark a milestone in Thompson’s quest to establish UF’s women’s studies program, which the university formally authorized in 1977.
Now, less than 50 years later, state lawmakers are putting the program’s progress in jeopardy.
A ‘breadth of education’
In January, the state university system’s Board of Governors voted to strip women’s studies courses — among hundreds of others — from UF’s general education catalog. The decision stemmed from a 2023 state law directing universities to purge “identity politics” and “unproven, speculative, or exploratory content” from general education offerings.
An earlier version of the law banned women’s studies outright, though the measure was dropped from the final bill. Florida is one of a growing number of states where women’s and gender studies have been targeted by Republican lawmakers, who see the programs as ill-equipped to prepare graduates for the workforce and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
“You’re going to have a truck driver pay for someone’s degree in gender studies. No, that doesn’t make sense,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a 2023 rally in Iowa.
Most recently, the Board of Governors commissioned a system-wide pilot study to assess the “return on investment” of women’s and gender studies programs, along with four STEM fields — a move some faculty and Democratic lawmakers see as an attempt to devalue the program.
But students, alumni and faculty argue the program’s value extends beyond the classroom — preparing graduates for a myriad of career paths.
Andreina Fernandez, a 29-year-old acquisitions editor at The University of North Carolina Press, graduated from UF in 2020 with a master’s in women’s studies. She credited the master’s program with shaping her career and said everything she learned at UF directly applies to her daily work.
“The center was a phenomenal place to study and develop as a thinker,” she said. “It really enriched my intellectual curiosity … It was so valuable to me and has really developed me as a person and a professional.”
UF’s Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies offers academic programs, grants and graduate and undergraduate degrees as well as advanced research opportunities, according to its website. It offers an interdisciplinary style of learning, allowing students to focus on areas that interest them by offering graduate certificates in various fields.
Fernandez opted for a certificate in Latin American Studies and said the “breadth of education” she received gave her “mental agility” that has served her well post-graduation.
Impact of DEI rollbacks
In February, UF ceased several diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility activities after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning DEI initiatives funded by federal grants. The move came a year after UF eliminated $5 million in spending on diversity programs to comply with a new state-level ban.
While neither the state nor the federal government has directly banned or defunded women’s studies at UF or other universities, the campaign against DEI has sparked fear that programs perceived as traditionally left-leaning — like women’s studies — could be targeted next.
Fernandez called the recent attacks on DEI a “detriment” to students.
“It's taking away the ability to learn these new kinds of skills…like how to talk to other people and how to engage with people who are different from you,” Fernandez said. “That’s an essential part of an education.”
Since 1977, UF’s Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies has had ten directors and grown to encompass 13 core faculty members. Its master’s program is fully funded, meaning students can receive a tuition remission or stipend as part of an assistantship — a huge draw for those seeking to advance their careers.
“The Women's Studies Department has made so many strides in the past,” Fernandez said. “I would hate to see all of that growth thwarted.”
Divya Huilgol, a 19-year-old women’s studies sophomore, was initially a biochemistry major and said she only took a women’s studies course as a “fun little elective.” But she said she soon realized its value — even as a pre-med student — and decided to switch majors.
“It was an avenue in which I felt like I could learn more about myself and at the same time also learn about how I could relate to anybody that's sitting in front of me,” she said. “It's definitely been really important in the way that I connect with others.”
Huilgol, who is pursuing an outside concentration in health equities and social justice, said women’s studies has helped her stand out from her pre-med peers, and it’s frustrating that future students might not receive the same opportunity.
The women’s studies department recently lost all eight of its general education courses, a change Huilgol fears could lead to enrollment decline in the major since students will have less incentive to take the classes. A drop in enrollment, she said, could risk the program’s future.
“It's really disheartening because this department has made a lot of career opportunities for us,” she said.
Taylor Burtch, a 30-year-old researcher at the nonprofit organization Education Northwest, graduated from UF’s women’s studies master’s program in 2018. Like Huilgol, Burtch stumbled upon women’s studies through an elective as an undergraduate at the University of Toledo and quickly realized she wanted to integrate its principles into her career.
She said her improved ability to understand different perspectives has been “invaluable” to her work, which includes researching, providing technical assistance and engaging with the community.
“It helps you take an equity lens to all of your work,” she said. “There are just a multitude of experiences that are often excluded from scholarship and from research and from history, and gender studies is just a really good place to be able to examine those things.”
Burtch declined to comment on recent DEI legislation.
Angel Kwolek-Folland, a former director of the program, said the women’s studies major gives students a “solid background for virtually anything a person wants to do.”
“It teaches you critical thinking. It teaches you about how the world works…. It helps you understand the power dynamics of the workplace,” she said. “It’s really a multi-purpose degree.”
Despite its benefits, Kwolek-Folland said she doesn’t think the program will be able to significantly grow given the political climate. Talk of a doctoral women’s studies program has been put on the backburner due to the challenges the department is facing, she said.
Still, she’s optimistic about the future of women’s studies.
“The knowledge is still there. There will still be people who will want to be teaching courses,” she said. “They’ll still be students wanting to know. You can legislate something away, but you can’t stop people from wanting to know.”
Contact Grace McClung at gmcclung@alligator.org. Follow her on X @gracenmclung
Grace McClung is a third-year journalism major and the university administration reporter for The Alligator. In her free time, Grace can be found running, going to the beach and writing poetry.
