{"id":29435,"date":"2022-03-06T17:25:45","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T17:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=29435"},"modified":"2022-03-06T17:25:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-06T17:25:45","slug":"what-should-the-university-of-wyoming-teach-a-senate-vote-prompted-a-debate-307-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/06\/what-should-the-university-of-wyoming-teach-a-senate-vote-prompted-a-debate-307-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"What should the University of Wyoming teach? A Senate vote prompted a debate. | 307 Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By every measure, Carlos Gonzales is the perfect example of academic success at the University of Wyoming.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Gonzales is the university\u2019s top graduating male in 2021. Hailing from Buffalo, he is now in the process of obtaining his Ph.D. in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Penn State. He was prepared to succeed in his doctoral program thanks to the \u201crigor and expectations\u201d of his major: gender and women\u2019s studies at Wyoming\u2019s lone four-year university.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But for a time, it appeared the gender studies department might lose its funding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Wyoming Senate passed a Feb. 25 budget amendment that would have defunded the department. The amendment threatened three degree programs, dozens of courses, research ventures and multiple faculty jobs at one of the oldest gender studies departments in the nation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On Friday, a compromise hatched in a legislative committee spared the program for the time being. But the Senate\u2019s vote reverberated beyond the department itself, sparking a broader conversation about the future of education in Wyoming and the Legislature\u2019s role in deciding what should be taught in the state\u2019s classrooms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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People are also reading\u2026<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n \"University<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>
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University of Wyoming students walk through the pasture to classes on Feb. 4 in Laramie. The Wyoming Senate voted last month to strip funding from the university’s gender studies program. But a decision on Friday will protect the program’s funding for the time being.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Lauren Miller, Star-Tribune
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Senate action<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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The budget amendment to strip UW\u2019s gender studies program of its funding appeared on the Senate floor at the end of a grueling week of legislation, with lawmakers working to develop the state\u2019s fiscal plan while contending with dozens of other bills. It was about 4 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 25, when Sen. Cheri Steinmetz, R-Lingle, rose to explain her amendment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Framed as an effort to stop teaching UW students to be \u201cactivists,\u201d Steinmetz\u2019s amendment succeeded in a 16 to 14 vote. The amendment barred any \u201cgeneral funds, federal funds or other funds\u201d under the control of the university for the purpose of \u201cgender studies courses, academic 8 programs, co-curricular programs or extracurricular programs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Steinmetz portrayed the department as out of step with the values of the state that supports and funds the university. Learning what was being taught in the department caused her \u201cto lose sleep,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The lawmaker highlighted some phrases on the department\u2019s website and in its learning outcomes that she took particular issue with. \u201cYou will learn how to articulate the history, strategies, and goals of interconnected movements for social justice,\u201d one states. Steinmetz noted another one that lists, \u201cTranslate feminist and social justice theories into service or activism\u201d in its learning objectives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n \"Senate\"<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>
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Sen. Cheri Steinmetz watches the proceedings during a Feb. 11, 2020, legislative session in Cheyenne. Steinmetz sponsored a budget amendment to remove funding for the University of Wyoming’s gender studies program, prompting questions about the role lawmakers should play in the school’s governance.<\/p>\n

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\n Cayla Nimmo, Star-Tribune
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\u201cI don\u2019t believe it\u2019s an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The department\u2019s top official says senators focused on certain words but missed the larger picture of what the program actually entails.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe obviously teach social movements because many social movements have organized around gender and sexuality,\u201d said Dr. Michelle Jarman, director of gender and women\u2019s studies at UW. \u201cThe bringers of this amendment are focusing on one word in the syllabus.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Critics of the move, meanwhile, say the Senate was unnecessarily meddling in the university\u2019s curriculum without taking the time to understand the department.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis is a Senate that has decided that it wants to run full bore down the culture war road without acknowledging the consequences,\u201d said Sabrina King, lobbyist for the ACLU. \u201cThey don\u2019t have any clue what they\u2019ve even done because all they care about is the culture war.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The department<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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The gender and women\u2019s studies department resides within the University of Wyoming\u2019s School of Culture, Gender and Social Justice. The program consist of one major and two minors across the undergraduate and graduate schools.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the last five years, the gender and women\u2019s studies department graduated 81 students. In the 2021 fall semester, there were roughly 450 students enrolled in gender and women\u2019s studies classes, including those that are cross-listed with other departments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The advent of the women\u2019s studies program started in the late 1970s with a few classes, and it was formalized into a major in the 1990s. The gender studies department also includes a \u201cqueer studies\u201d minor, which began in 2007.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n \"Jacquelyn<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>
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Jacquelyn Bridgeman, director of the University of Wyoming’s School of Culture, Gender & Social Justice, speaks during a Zoom panel about the school’s handling of a 2021 racist incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n University of Wyoming, YouTube
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The department has raised eyebrows before, Jarman said, but nothing as direct as the budget amendment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Leaders of the program say the budget revision would have completely wiped out all funding for the department if it had been enacted. Jarman said that would have been \u201cdevastating.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jacquelyn Bridgeman, a law professor and the director of the Culture, Gender and Social Justice program, said that no one from the Legislature reached out to the department ahead of the Senate vote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt would appear that they have no idea what the content of the courses is,\u201d Bridgeman said after the Senate\u2019s vote, but before the legislative compromise. \u201cThey made assumptions, they didn\u2019t talk with us to understand how courses are actually taught.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

University reaction<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Santi Murrilo, a former UW student who minored in gender and women\u2019s studies, said she didn\u2019t understand why Steinmetz took issue with the department.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think they\u2019re so afraid that people will stand against what they believe in and shut them down,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve taken classes where I didn\u2019t 100% agree with what was being taught, but that\u2019s the point of university, you have to be open to other ideas. We\u2019re in the Equality State, where women were first given the right to vote, are we not allowed to talk about that anymore?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Gonzales, the 2021 winner of the Tobin Memorial Award as the University of Wyoming\u2019s outstanding graduating male, pushed back on the idea that students were being forced to think a certain way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe professors were not actively pursuing any political ends,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cWe were never indoctrinated into some way or thinking or way of doing. What I did with those tools is beyond the control of those professors.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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UW student Riley Skorcz, who is majoring in speech, language and hearing sciences and has taken courses in the gender studies program, thinks legislators who supported the Senate amendment were \u201cdisconnected from their constituency and disconnected from the university.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI just wish that legislators would interact with the population that they\u2019re affecting,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n \"University<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>
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University of Wyoming students walk through the pasture to classes on Feb. 4 in Laramie.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Lauren Miller, Star-Tribune
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Actions like those in the Senate exacerbate the problem of young people leaving the state for opportunities elsewhere, advocates for the program say. Skorcz said she plans to leave as soon as she graduates, while Gonzales already has.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI consider myself almost proudly part of this exodus, where I took the courses I wanted in order to meet my own needs, and as soon as I was presented the opportunity, I left to an environment where I don\u2019t really feel threatened or that the topics are going to be controlled by some political motivations,\u201d Gonzales said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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University of Wyoming President Ed Seidel and Executive Vice President Kevin Carman sent out a statement to the UW community following the Senate vote. In it, they said they disagreed with the Senate position and had \u201cserious concerns of both practice and principle\u201d with the amendment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

History<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Steinmetz has spoken out before concerning the department. She expressed her opposition to the coursework at a Joint Appropriations Committee meeting in the fall, but had not formally taken action before the Senate amendment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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During the Feb. 25 discussion, she shared a handout with lawmakers that highlighted a number of department learning objectives that she took issue with, such as understanding \u201chistorical and contemporary context in which women, queer, and gender non-conforming individuals have exercised their agency\u201d and connecting \u201ccrip, queer, critical race and ethnic studies approaches to place, environments, and the land.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Steinmetz is known as one of the Legislature\u2019s more prominent social conservatives, often weighing in on issues pertaining to the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2014, a municipal court judge in Sublette County made a statement to a local news outlet about her unwillingness to perform a same-sex marriage due to her religious beliefs. The Wyoming Supreme Court ultimately censured the judge for violating the state\u2019s judicial code. Steinmetz was a vocal advocate of the judge and wrote a blog post for the Wyoming Pastors Network voicing her support<\/a> in the context of religious freedom and free speech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the 2017 general session, she was the prime sponsor on a bill that would have allowed people to sue employers if their workplaces\u2019 policies about LGBTQ workers conflicted with their religious or moral convictions<\/a>. At the time, the American Civil Liberties Union said \u201cthe bill would legalize discrimination against same-sex couples and transgender people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The bill was eventually withdrawn by its sponsors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2018, she also wrote that some proposed transgender protection policies conflict with \u201cthe overwhelming main stream majority of Goshen County and Wyoming Citizens\u201d around the time that the Eastern Wyoming College Board of Trustees was voting on the measures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Critics of the amendment saw it as representative of animosity toward the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe [amendment] stands for something larger,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cThe bill signifies … Wyoming\u2019s continual hatred against LGBTQ people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Steinmetz, however, denied that the amendment was about anything beyond addressing how taxpayer dollars are spent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis is an issue of the proper use of public funds,\u201d she said in a brief comment to the Star-Tribune via text. \u201cNothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A relative rarity<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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Lawmakers have criticized university programs before. In 2017, Sen. Anthony Bouchard, R-Cheyenne, got into an argument with students over an academic project related to guns<\/a>. The students said the senator threatened to end funding for their program, which he denied.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But university representatives say the Legislature hasn\u2019t gone so far as to actually attempt to remove funding from programs it disagreed with until last month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI don\u2019t remember seeing anything quite like this,\u201d said Bridgeman, who\u2019s in her 20th year at the school. \u201cTo do that kind of targeted legislation…that is pretty unprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin also said that he couldn\u2019t think of a specific example that matches the Senate\u2019s actions, although he said that, over the years, there have been some concerns in the Legislature about certain activities at UW.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That said, the amendment used similar language to another gender-related amendment to the university\u2019s budget dating back to the 2020 session.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Like Steinmetz\u2019s amendment says, the 2020 amendment barred the school from using \u201cgeneral funds, federal funds or other funds,\u201d but in that case the money was blocked from going towards elective abortions or group health insurance that provides coverage for students\u2019 elective abortions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Academic freedom<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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This session, lawmakers have pursued multiple measures that attempt to influence what\u2019s being taught in Wyoming. The others have sought to bar the teaching of critical race theory in the state\u2019s K-12 schools or require the disclosure of teaching materials on a website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But some legislators see a difference between getting involved in the teaching of younger children and university students.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen we send them to the university, you\u2019re turning them loose. They\u2019re adults,\u201d said Sen. Drew Perkins, R-Casper, during the debate on the Senate floor. \u201cYou turn them out to be ready for an adult world, and you don\u2019t have to agree with the point of view to learn about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The amendment prompted a larger discussion about the Legislature\u2019s role in the state\u2019s academics system. Some legislators say their purview extends into the university\u2019s instruction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cAcademic freedom\u2019s been hijacked folks,\u201d said Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs. \u201cIt was never the intention that nobody else gets to weigh in on what we teach at the university, but it seems to be present that academic freedom means that if you\u2019re not smart enough or intellectual enough and work for a university then you don\u2019t get a say so in the process. Is that what intellectual freedom actually means?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n \"Charlie<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>
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Sen. Charlie Scott, R-Natrona County, sits for a portrait at his home. Scott is the longest-tenured state lawmaker.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\n Lauren Miller, Star-Tribune
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Steinmetz referred to the handout she shared with lawmakers before the Senate vote and pointed to Sen. Charlie Scott\u2019s testimony on the floor. The Natrona County Republican characterized the department as \u201cextremely biased\u201d and \u201cideologically driven.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think we\u2019ll hear complaints about how we\u2019re interfering in the internals of the university, but I think what we\u2019re really doing is sending them a message that they need to clean up their act in terms of the quality of the instruction that\u2019s being given,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Perkins, who chairs the committee that drafts the budget bill, pushed back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThat was the hue and cry just a couple years ago about what was happening on college campuses around the nation about providing safe spaces so people didn\u2019t have to be exposed to certain points of view,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were incensed at that. I was incensed at that. Well, this is just the other side of that coin.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Perkins noted that lawmakers could wade into these waters. But he questioned whether they should.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI still believe in limited government,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is too much government for me. This is too much overreach.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A compromise<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n
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The Senate doesn\u2019t make budget decisions by itself. It must pass a state budget with the involvement of two other parties: the House of Representatives and the governor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Because the House did not pass the same budget amendment, the matter \u2014 along with other differences \u2014 was sent to a committee of both senators and representatives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That committee, of which both Perkins and Steinmetz are members, met Friday afternoon at the Capitol. Rather than pursing the Senate amendment, the panel decided on a compromise. The funding would stay.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead of removing the money, the committee voted to require the university to provide a report to two legislative panels on the school\u2019s general education requirements, as well as any policies or regulations that incentivize or disincentivize students to take certain coursework outside of their majors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe reviewed it, discussed it, arm wrestled over it. We don\u2019t want to blow up a $2.5 billion budget over a few words,\u201d said Rep. Tom Walters, R-Casper, in a reference to the entire state budget.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While the program will keep its funding, the committee\u2019s desire for the report suggests that at least some lawmakers are still curious, if not skeptical, about what\u2019s being taught at the university.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The students in the program, meanwhile, remain on the sidelines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Skorcz said she has been working on her class registration for next semester and is interested in signing up for several upper division classes that involve studying gender and social justice. As she registered, she wondered if she was signing up for classes that ultimately wouldn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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