Christopher Rufo, New College board move to abolish longstanding gender studies program

New College of Florida's trustees voted to begin the process of abolishing the college's nearly 30-year-old gender studies program.

The action came at the board's meeting Thursday on a 7-3 in favor of trustee Christopher Rufo's motion to direct the president to move toward eliminating the program.

The gender studies program at New College, while offering its own courses, also encompasses several other majors with eligible courses such as anthropology, biology and sociology. General counsel Bill Galvano clarified that the vote only began the process of contacting the Board of Governors and looking into the collective bargaining agreement with faculty involved in the program.

The gender studies program at New College was established in 1995 and sees about eight student majors in a given year, with dozens more taking courses that are gender studies eligible.

The incoming 2024 class of students would be the first to be affected by the change, Rufo said.

The action is the latest by Rufo and other board members appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to execute a lightning transformation of the state's only public liberal arts honors college into a model of conservative education, likened to the Christian Michigan-based Hillsdale College. One of the appointees' first moves was to abolish the school's diversity, equity and inclusion program.

It also moved to fire the previous president and install Richard Corcoran as interim president, who has moved to quickly boost enrollment by establishing a first-ever sports program at the college.

Rufo asserted in his motion that the gender studies program was antithetical to the mission of the college and a classical liberal arts education.

"The best universities, when they have programs that do not fit in with a mission, that are not closely hewn to the scholarly intentions of the university, make the hard calls to discontinue those programs," Rufo said of his action.

New College board members question transparency

Trustee Amy Reid, the director of the gender studies program and faculty representative on the board, raised questions to the board regarding the logic behind abolishing the program. She said the faculty unanimously backed a statement supporting the program.

"Gender studies has been part of the mainstream of the American liberal arts, and I do believe Trustee Rufo, if you looked at the curriculum of most colleges and universities across the country you will find that there are robust programs in gender studies," Reid said.

Reid and Student Trustee Grace Keenan questioned the transparency of the motion made, accusing Rufo of operating outside of open government laws to coordinate the abolishment of the program. Reid said she was contacted days before the meeting by reporters and colleagues about the rumor they heard that Rufo would move to abolish the program.

Keenan said Rufo's motion was inappropriate and didn't offer the public enough time to digest the change since it was not listed on the meeting's agenda.

Trustee Matthew Spalding said the program was more of a "political ideology" rather than an academic discipline.

In an interview after the meeting, Reid said that questions remain about what will happen with gender studies at News College. What is clear, though, is that Florida isn't a safe place for higher education, she said.

"This is not just an attack on gender studies, this is an attack on our curriculum. The people in that room, especially the ones on Zoom... they don't teach here. They don't study here," she said.

New College's gender studies program has one professor who offers two courses in the program. However, other courses at the college are eligible for a gender studies degree and delve into gender issues. It wasn't immediately clear what would happen to the current gender studies faculty member or those who teach eligible courses.

Reid said the move toward abolishment tracks with the board's negative attitude toward the program, specifically Rufo, Spalding and former trustee Eddie Speir. She also said Corcoran had circulated a letter to the editor published in the Herald-Tribune that was critical of the program.

Gender studies was one of the programs most affected by faculty departures this summer, with eight instructors leaving the college. New College as a whole saw more than one-third of its faculty leave for part of or the entire upcoming academic year.

Several trustees who voted in favor of abolishing the department claimed it didn't fit with the college's mission, something Reid said she disagreed with.

"It is not something that fits their understanding of the liberal arts, but I believe it fits the model of the liberal arts as taught in this country for many years," she said.

The first women's and gender studies program was established in 1970 at San Diego State College, and they are offered in some capacity at most public universities in Florida.

Follow Herald-Tribune Education Reporter Steven Walker on Twitter at @swalker_7. He can be reached at sbwalker@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New College of Florida begins process to abolish gender studies