Our Attempt to Practice Feminism in the Women's Studies Program

Abstract

Possibly no other women's studies program at a university in North America has raised so many questions about practice of women's studies as has one at California State University, Long Beach, a large, metropolitan, state-supported school that borders on California's conservative Orange County. If anti-feminism is central to politics of 1980's, and if academic conservatism is one of many responses,1 what does that mean for programs such as ours at CSULB, where feminism was practiced in classroom and in our program's governance, and what might it mean for women's studies programs across country? As ex-director of program, I would like to explore these questions. The events of spring, 1982, have now made academic history and may, perhaps, make legal history. Feminist Studies wrote in 1983 that the experience of Women's Studies Program at California State University, Long Beach, is particularly important in that, to our knowledge, it is only case in which an entire Women's Studies Program has brought suit against a university administration. 2 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has referred to our case as most significant academic freedom suit in over two decades.3 It has now been over three years since we first became aware of a right-wing attempt to radically alter our program. In February, 1982, after collecting information