Wyoming’s sole four-year university has come under increasing scrutiny from the Legislature in recent years.
That pressure hasn’t let up this session. Lawmakers brought several budget amendments this week aimed at molding UW’s curricula and resources amid uproar in the statehouse over the university’s direction.
The House rejected and the Senate adopted a budget amendment to defund the university’s “gender studies courses, gender studies academic programs, gender studies co-curricular programs or gender studies extra-curricular programs.”
Another proposal that aimed to bar state funding for the school’s office of diversity, equity and inclusion, or for “any diversity, equity and inclusion program, activity or function” also failed in the House while being approved in the upper chamber.
A third amendment that proposed withholding $100,000 from UW’s family medical residency practice, which provides care in three Wyoming cities, if it offers or performs “any gender transition, gender affirmation or gender reassignment treatments” ultimately failed in both chambers.
The role of a university
The amendments spurred impassioned speeches from both sides about the purpose of a university education, the meaning of equality and belonging, the free exchange of ideas and the Legislature’s role in dictating what UW can and can’t do.
Sen. Cheri Steinmetz (R-Lingle) introduced her amendment to defund UW’s gender studies courses and curriculum Wednesday as “an old friend of the Senate.” (Steinmetz has brought similar amendments to the Legislature in past years, but the proposal has yet to make it into the final version of the state’s budget.) Rep. Jeanette Ward (R-Casper) sponsored an almost identical amendment that failed in the House on Monday.
Proponents of the change questioned the practicality of gender studies courses in preparing students for a job after graduation. Some referenced national culture clashes and raised the specter of out-of-state liberal ideas coming to Wyoming.
“The world needs more cowboys,” Sen. Bo Biteman (R-Ranchester) said. “The world does not need more social justice warriors.”
Opponents described the amendment as “micromanaging” and barring access to information that some people want. Sen. Tara Nethercott (R-Cheyenne) warned the proposal would set “a dangerous precedent.”
“When you don’t like an idea or a concept and you the government — the all-powerful centralized government — chooses to stop that speech, to stop the sharing of those ideas, even those you disagree with so profoundly, that are contrary to your morals and your values, that is against freedom.”
Sen. Affie Ellis (R-Cheyenne), an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation, recited a modified poem to illustrate why she opposed the amendment.
“First they came for gender and women’s studies, and I didn’t speak out because I didn’t take gender and women’s studies courses. Then they came for African American and diaspora studies, and I didn’t speak out, because I didn’t take African American and diaspora studies. Then they came for Latino studies. I didn’t speak out because I didn’t take Latino studies. Then they came for Native American and Indigenous studies. And Mr. President, there was no one left to speak for me.”
“This is dangerous senators,” Ellis concluded.
Office targeted
Debate on the proposal to bar state funding for UW’s office of diversity, equity and inclusion — the Senate’s version sponsored by Steinmetz and the House’s version sponsored by Ward — brought equally impassioned speeches.
Some lawmakers argued for the amendment in highly racialized terms. Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R-Cheyenne), for example, claimed some people are favored in the aviation industry because of the racial diversity they bring rather than their competence. Other legislators raised similar arguments.
“Our voters sent us here because they’re sick of seeing this on the news, and they want us to vote this stuff out,” Bouchard said.
Opponents of the amendment explained that the office supports a variety of students who are adjusting to life at the university. Sen. Chris Rothfuss (D-Laramie) noted as an example the challenges that first-generation students face when going to UW and the resources the office of diversity, equity and inclusion provides for such students.
“If their parents don’t know how to navigate a university, who’s going to provide that service?” Rothfuss, who teaches at UW, asked lawmakers.
“I think, Mr. President, that folks in this discussion are thinking that diversity simply means people that look dramatically different from how we look. And that’s one aspect, but that’s not the mission of the office of diversity, equity and inclusion.”
The House amendment sponsored by Rep. Sarah Penn (R-Lander) that proposed to withhold $100,000 from UW’s family medical residency practice if it offers or performs gender-affirming care initially passed in the House. But lawmakers voted Wednesday to delete it. Sen. Lynn Hutchings (R-Cheyenne), who sponsored the Senate version of the amendment, withdrew her proposal Wednesday.
These aren’t the only amendments lawmakers brought this year that aim to create barriers to gender-affirming treatments — other successful amendments brought in the House and Senate bar the Wyoming Department of Health from spending any of its funds on gender-affirming care.
Lawmakers will have to negotiate the differences in each chamber’s version of the budget bill to create one bill that’s sent to Gov. Mark Gordon for approval. Those negotiations will likely take place next week.
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UW has drifted to the left and is badly in need of a course correction. As a UW grad myself, I wholeheartedly concur with Bo Biteman.
The Legislature and the UW Board of Trustees want to set curriculum for the University. That is not their job and both bodies are wholly unqualified to interfere. Academics are the purview of Administrators, Deans and Faculty. We have a citizen legislature, some of whom have never darkened the door of any university, who are wildly uninformed yet feel they can decide for everyone what students are permitted to study and what should be prohibited. I cannot understand why our citizens sit idly by and watch these far-right, openly racist and homophobic legislators destroy our one university and eventually, our state. There was a time when lawmakers who talked about “liberal ideals imported from other states” would have been met with derisive laughter from many of their colleagues. There was a time when extremism had no place in that once august body. It was and is still a sign of ignorance and our legislative body, with some exceptions, is packed with ignorant, racist and self-serving members who ignore their constituents in favor of their own unhinged agendas. Most of them couldn’t tell you what Critical Race Theory is or how gender studies are part of a well-rounded education. No funds for suicide hotline, no summer food program for food insecure children, no living minimum wage, no effort to address the high cost of childcare, no Medicaid expansion. I suppose those who oppose these measures to lift folks out of poverty consider these “radical leftist ideas imported from other states”. But they won’t hesitate to spend MILLIONS suing BLM or send money to Greg Abbott for border security. If only we could expel legislators who don’t honor their obligation to their constituents and for the audacity to say “the people of Wyoming” feel this way or that way. They don’t speak for me. History will not look favorably upon the legacies of Ward, Bouchard, Rodriguez-Williams, Steinmetz, Hutchins, Biteman, etc. Until the populace wakes up out of their complacency and votes these Old White Men out of office, Wyoming will continue to be a punchline and a failed state.
Substitute “people” for “Old White Men” in your last sentence, and your post would’ve been good. A bit hyperbolic and prone to exaggeration, perhaps, but good.
As an old white man, I find myself simultaneously bristling and laughing when these three words are used, not only because they often are accompanied by false implications and assumptions, but because they commit an offense that, were it applied to a racial minority or transgender individual, would likely be “triggering” for those using the phrase.
And as a democrat, a progressive, and a proponent of racial, ethnic, cultural, economic, and other forms of diversity, I find myself perplexed as to why many (most?) seem only to tout the benefits of diversity when those “diverse” individuals are just like them.
There are lots of reasons to criticize Bo Biteman (who is not old), Jeanette Ward (who is not a man), Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (who is neither a man, nor white), and Anthony Bouchard. But their ages, races, and genders are the least of them. Ending your argument with a broad-brush generalization makes it easy for others to dismiss you.
The Wyoming legislature is opening Pandora’s box by messing with academic programs for purely political reasons. Why in the world would you be against offering support for a first-generation college student who needs help navigating college for the first time? It’s no wonder young people are leaving Wyoming for better opportunities elsewhere. Wyoming doesn’t want you if you don’t look, think, and act like a “cowboy.”
Cheri Steinmez, Jeanette Ward, Bo Biteman, and Anthony Bouchard speak forcefully for the Wyomingites who know what everyone should think and believe. If you think and believe as they tell you to, you’re one of their cowboys, and they’ll allow you a place in Wyoming. If you have different ideas, then you’re no cowboy, you’re not needed or wanted, and you ought to go away. Senator Biteman is dead wrong: our world does not need more of their kind of cowboy.
If these legislators would like to put on a frilly apron, heals and wear a bouffant hair do while vacuuming like June Cleaver—go for it! If they wish to devolve into romanticized meat clubbing Cro-Magnons—also okay. Heck, I’ll even help them find a cave!
Wait! Here’s an even better idea—if they don’t want to learn about or support diversity—they don’t need to take the classes or visit the office of diversity. Muzzling the university so they can exist in their illusion of superiority is nothing more than blatant censorship reflecting that their ‘ideals’ are more important than Democracy.
We don’t need to keep up with the stupidity from places like New York and California. What do you do with a degree in gender studies? NOTHING USEFUL. Maybe teaching 8 year old kids to be confused.
WE’LL TAKE MORE COWBOYS BO BITEMAN BUT WE’LL ALSO TAKE ALL THE SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIORS WE CAN GET. ARE EDUCATED FREE THINKERS A THREAT TO YOU?
Laws like the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act have been around for decades. If Wyoming forces the DEI office to close, it is handing all enforcement over to federal agencies. That doesn’t make those laws go away.
That term “woke” has only been around for a couple of years as near as I can tell. So I’m a bit confused. Are the people who want the gender studies curricula continued the “woke” people or are “woke” people the ones who want it taken away. It’s all so confusing. In regards to Bo Biteman, I thought social justice was the whole point of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It can’t hurt offering to school students on those subjects.
I would suggest an alternative poem to illustrate the power struggle between those who know more about people generally and those who have more to learn than what is merely personal. Who is attempting to define, expand, limit, and otherwise influence educational opportunities?
Yet again we have Republicans coming to the table with nothing but fear, hatred, and bigotry to offer. I’m not a Wyoming native, but I have lived here for nearly 20 years. Move here when I was 24. Few things in life right now would please me more than to see this state that I have come to call home turn blue. Why can’t they just leave people alone?! I thought this was the equality state. I thought Wyoming believed in freedom. What happened to the state that had the courage to be the first to give women the right to vote? In the last few years I have come to the realization that I am transgender and have begun medical transition. I’m about a year into the process and as things change and I become more comfortable with myself and my own skin I also become more fearful of what may happen to me and my family because of the rhetoric that people like these spew out every day. Come one Wyoming! We need to vote these people out of office!
Do you want another Matthew Shepard? Because this is how you get another Matthew Shepard.
How many of the freedumb caucus folks even have a college degree? How many college degrees are represented by our elected failures?
What’s next? Replacing UW with chrump University courses?
These so called “freedom party” legislators are only for freedom if you are a white male. Facism is alive and active in the Wyoming legislature.
It amazes me to listen to legislators who profess to believe in a religion that teaches tolerance, love for others and non-judgment of your fellow man, turn around and be intolerant, judgemental and intolerant. Humans are a varied lot and have been since we evolved. We need to care for one another, not judge.
The Senators that supported this amendment are extremely hateful and narrow minded people. I appreciate the decorum from those that support freedom and do not live in fear, but how long will we let the intolerant vote for the power of the state to enforce their hateful views?
Senator Cooper opining that his redneck cowboy kids need a safe space was the icing on the cake of my day. While he was making that speech I was at the UW Union discussing Genesis Chapter 3 with a reasonably informed Catholic student, while observing the next generation of fearful, male republican legislators hawking ignorance from behind their well financed Turning Point USA table. I was multi-tasking as Liverpool overcame Luton Town to remain in first place in the English Premier League.
There are a lot of great, well educated students at the University of Wyoming and if a redneck cowboy is fearful it might be because they were not intellectually or emotionally prepared to be an adult?
I guess many in the legislature don’t care if the University of Wyoming becomes a national joke within the higher education community because of their anti-human and wacko legislative proposals.
It never ceases to astound me how little legislators trust college students to think on their own feet. Even more troubling is how little Legislators trust that Wyoming parents have instilled traditional values in their children well enough to be foundational. It’s as if a required course in feminist literature or institutional racism is going to radicalize our kids to go against everything they’ve been taught.
The legislature doesn’t really believe that the family is the values foundation for every student attending college. Why else would they come up with these silly proposals?
No, I think these proposals come from fear; fear that the idealized family values Legislators extol as core to the Wyoming way are not very strong or deep. They see the substance abuse, domestic violence and paternalism, the suicide rates in Wyoming, the poverty and despair and hopelessness. In their fear based narrow mindedness they think they are promoting family values by wanting to exclude diversity efforts in higher education. In actuality, these sorts of legislative efforts highlight the poverty of legislative vision and drive young people deeper into their personal problems, or away from Wyoming because it’s perceived as a State that crushes normal, youthful curiosity about the world.
Many decades ago I worked in a juvenile prison in Washington State as a “juvenile rehabilitation counselor.” A number of my colleagues had graduated from Seattle Pacific University, a Christian University. At that time freshman were required to attend chapel every day. The core of the University’s mission was to graduate persons whose worldly perspective was grounded in their faith. To this end, these young persons were required to question what they were told is true over and over and over, AS THE MEANS TO DEEPEN FAITH and establish a personal foundation in order to live a life of Christian service.
The University of Wyoming provides the questions. Family values and religious institutions provide the structure within which faith is deepened.
Wyoming legislators – leave the University alone and let it do its job. Trust Wyoming’s families have done their job. Your meddling just makes Wyoming life worse…
Excellent post. But to clarify, no courses in “feminism literature or institutional racism” (which I suspect you mean covers slavery) are required at the university. Students chose to take courses that cover these topics, and there are a lot of students who do chose them.
Get rid of all of them.
Wyoming continues to lose teachers and medical professionals at an alarming rate, due in large part because of the laws that the freedom caucus has passed curtailing their ability to competently do their jobs.
Wyoming, did we elect these people to decide what our students can learn? Or limit our medical choices? Did we choose people who dismiss the idea that our constitution in favor of their preferred holy book? Do we really want them to impose their religious beliefs on all of us? How much more do they have to erode our freedoms before we boot them out?