Five years ago in Perspective, OCPA’s monthly magazine, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse made the case that it was time to shut down the Women’s Studies program at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Morse, who has taught economics at Yale University and elsewhere, said it makes no sense for taxpayers to support an academic program devoted to the promotion of a socially destructive ideology.
She’s right, of course, and Silas Allen’s recent story in The Oklahoman (‘Feminist playwright Eve Ensler urges OU to fund Women’s and Gender Studies program’) contains some good news on that front. Taxpayers will be pleased to learn that the Women’s and Gender Studies budget has been reduced 52 percent over the past two years. (One hopes this money has been redirected to the chemistry department or the engineering school.) I do think Mr. Allen’s reporting about the university’s budget was one-sided, however, and I hope next time he will interview OCPA fiscal policy director Jonathan Small.
In any case, what struck me about this story was the peculiar lobbying strategy employed by the organized Left (liberals, progressives, socialists, whatever) in trying to get additional money from lawmakers. In their attempt to obtain higher appropriations from legislators in one of the most conservative, pro-life, pro-traditional-family states in the nation, they thought it would be a good idea to enlist the help of a left-wing (she donates to Chuck Schumer and MoveOn.org), anti-war (she said overthrowing the Taliban was American terrorism) feminist playwright whose play originally depicted a woman seducing and raping a 13-year-old. Brilliant!
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