An Interview with Gender and Women’s Studies Director Michelle Jarman

An attack on the University of Wyoming program launched from the State Senate is part of a larger attack on academic freedom. The Laramie Reporter spoke with Jarman about an exhausting week.

Following an intense week of debate both in and outside the State Capitol, it appears that the University of Wyoming will not be forced to cut its Gender and Women's Studies program.

But the program’s defenders are exhausted and disheartened by the unprovoked assault.

A last-minute amendment from Lingle Senator Cheri Steinmetz would have included a line in the state budget forbidding the university from expending “any general funds, federal funds or other funds under its control for any gender studies courses, academic programs, co-curricular programs or extracurricular programs.”

Steinmetz is known for her right-wing activism. She was involved in pushing Eastern Wyoming College to drop protections for transgender students in 2018, and has sponsored a number of anti-abortion bills, including the “born alive” bill signed into law last year.

Steinmetz’s budget amendment passed in the Senate on a 16-14 vote. Laramie Senator Chris Rothfuss voted against the amendment, but Laramie Senator Dan Furphy voted with Steinmetz to ax the Gender and Women’s Studies program. With such a close vote, just one more ‘no’ vote would have stopped the amendment dead in its tracks.

The move kicked off a wide-ranging debate across Wyoming. The University opposed the amendment, as did the School of Culture, Gender and Social Justice, which houses the Gender and Women’s Studies program.

“The Wyoming Senate brought the full weight of the state government to the University to eliminate, based on content, a program that some senators did not like and with which they did not agree,” the school’s statement reads. “In the face of that vote, we have been asked to stay silent, to stand down, to remain in our place. We have been cautioned about making others uncomfortable or stepping on their toes. We have been threatened with the loss of our jobs and livelihoods, if not the loss of our lives, for being who we are and for speaking the truth. We have been told repeatedly that there will be dire consequences for working to make visible the actual inclusive history of this country. We have been subject to intimidation for bringing to the fore all voices to be heard in equal measure.”

In the House, representatives rejected a similar amendment on grounds it was not “germane” to the budget.

The Legislature’s Joint Conference Committee, which works on differences between House and Senate versions of the same bill, decided against the amendment Friday, so as to not “blow up” the entire state budget.

But the committee replaced the amendment with another that would require UW to report back with information about its curriculum and the way it allegedly incentivizes or disincentivizes students to take certain classes over others.

The remaining requirement, and the whole ordeal, highlight what Gender and Women’s Studies Director Michelle Jarman knows well – academic freedom is under attack, and that attack is much larger than one budget amendment.

The Laramie Reporter spoke with Jarman about that program’s role in the community, its primary areas of investigation, and the ongoing threats to academic freedom.

An interview with GWST Director Michelle Jarman

Laramie Reporter: It seems that there's a lot of confusion over what Gender and Women’s Studies is. Could you tell me what people in that field teach and study, and what the program’s aims are?

Michelle Jarman: Gender and Women's Studies is by nature interdisciplinary. So it brings together faculty from many different disciplines such as history, anthropology, ethnic studies, psychology – social sciences, humanities. A lot of the work has been to uncover voices that weren't represented in the university. We look at gender disparity, we look at gender representation, we look at histories with a specific focus on gender groups. We look at definitions of gender over time. We look at cultural dimensions. So thinking about Latino/Latina history, for example, you would be looking at different questions of women's social movements, art, literature, memoir. So there’s a wide variety of questions that we look at. And if you want to think of it more broadly, across the university, people are looking at gendered questions; we know that we have different kinds of gender disparities in access to healthcare, or in psychology. So, different disciplines are going to look at different kinds of questions. We're a broad interdisciplinary program integrated into the university.

LR: On that note, are the students who take courses in your department mainly majors in that area, or do you have classes that are required across campus, or that are taken by students in other fields?

MJ: We have students in our courses from across campus. Absolutely. And many students will take some of our courses because they satisfy diversity requirements or writing requirements. Many of our students are majors and minors. A lot of our majors even double-major in other disciplines. So it's a variety.

LR: You talked about the program being interdisciplinary and having these connections across campus, but I know that there's also connections to the wider community. There’s Pathways From Prison, for example, and I was hoping you could tell me a bit about that, or about other community connections that people might not know are connected to Gender and Women’s Studies.

MJ: We've had the Pathways from Prison project. Lots of our faculty do outreach with Saturday University, educating students across the state. Many of our students have worked in places like SAFE Project, or many of the nonprofits around Laramie. For the hundredth year celebration of women's suffrage, one of our faculty members developed a very detailed work with artists across the state on their presentations on women's suffrage and Wyoming history. We're always involved in the community. It's very much a part of our discipline to be service-oriented and connect students who want to be involved in community organizations to do those kinds of things. So yes, that's very much part of what we do.

LR: So when you hear that the Senate passes an amendment trying to cut the program, and that that possibility is suddenly just on the table, what are you thinking when you hear that news?

MJ: Well, I'm astonished. I'm angry. I'm disheartened, I've spent all week defending our program. It would shut down our program. I don't know what to say. We've been a part of the university community since the seventies. Gender and Women's Studies is part of every university in this country. So, I'm a bit speechless that I even have to be put in the position of defending this program. Part of me doesn't want to have to defend the program, right? We are devoted to our students. We are teaching them history. We're introducing them to voices they've never been introduced to. And we are supporting them to be prepared for the world they're going to walk into. I'm devastated that our Senate thinks that this is a good move, not only for the university, but for the state of Wyoming – that they basically want to destroy a whole academic program. I'm just exhausted at having to defend a very wonderful program that has been contributing to students and to the university for decades now.

LR: It's got to be exhausting.

MJ: It really is. It just sends a message that we're not supposed to be talking about these issues, that we should suddenly be ashamed that we're talking about gender disparity, or talking about LGBTQIA and queer studies. This is 2022. I'm not ashamed of these issues. And we prepare students to understand the kinds of conversations that are going on, and to understand an amendment like the one introduced in our Senate right now. I utterly defend our programs and they may go away, but it would be devastating. It would be devastating for the School of Culture, Gender and Social Justice. We're in a moment right now where we're really trying, as a country, to take stock of how we really handled issues of racism and sexism, and diversity and inclusion. And programs like Gender and Women's Studies – all the programs in our school, African American and Diaspora Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies, American Studies – all these programs really are focused on voices that haven't always been at the center. And they provide students with a much richer understanding, and the tools to think about diversity and inclusion, and the critical thinking skills, historical perspective and context necessary to do so. I feel that our school is equipping our students – whether they take one class or they major in our programs. They're given that opportunity to really think critically about these issues that are going to be issues in our society. They have been throughout our history, and they’re going to continue to be. And if we don't even have the capacity, or programs or courses to offer students the opportunity to engage with those questions specifically, I think we do a grave disservice. The reputation of the university will suffer. The work that we can do in the whole university will suffer. People are already contacting us nationally. It makes the whole state look like they are rejecting the idea of inclusion and diversity. I think that will harm our institution and harm our state.

LR: It reminds me of everything we've been hearing over the past many months about critical race theory and I mean we’ve heard it even in Wyoming. Do you view those issues, those kind of attacks, as connected or related?

MJ: Oh, they're absolutely related there. It's absolutely related. Critical race theory has been turned into a sort of boogeyman. We obviously still have racial inequity, we still have racism, we need to deal with these issues, and we need more ways to have these conversations in critical ways. And the university system provides us those spaces where students can grapple with these really difficult issues – by learning about the history, by studying the law, studying social movements, and studying how communities that have been marginalized have made their voices heard. These are essential histories. And they're essential to actually combating some of these issues that we've been dealing with as a country socially since our founding. So to shut down conversation, and to censor, basically, faculty who have been trained in these histories and in these disciplines to teach students and to promote conversation – it is not only misguided, but it borders on unconstitutional. It’s certainly an attack on academic freedom.

LR: Is there anything else that you'd like to add, or think that people should know about .. or just anything you want to scream into the void?

MJ: It's been a long, hard week but I want to be able to support my students. And I feel like the legislature has put us in a position where I can't guarantee my students that their majors are protected. It's rough. We have a lot of students speaking out. Our students are amazing and they're doing wonderful work. We work hard at the university to try to encourage our students to stay in the state and work in the state – and I’m confident that our legislators want that too. What they don't understand is that this absolutely sends a message to many of our students that they're not welcome in this state, or that the state doesn't value their work and what they have studied and invested in. So, I hope that our legislature doesn't send that message, that they decide that isn't what they want to communicate. But we have wonderful students. I want to be able to tell them to stay in the state and that the state supports them. All of them.

LR: Well, thank you for taking the time to talk to me about all of this.

MJ: Thank you. And I want people in the state to not think this is just a fight for Gender and Women's Studies. This is a fight for a strong university, and a strong liberal arts education.