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Not since Dick Cheney came to town have Brigham Young University students been this riled up.
The university's sudden announcement last month that it was closing its Women's Research Institute has been met with polite push back, much of it mobilized on Facebook, the Internet networking site.
Sara Vranes, a senior majoring in sociology, was incensed with what she saw as administrative imperiousness and double-speak. So she launched the Facebook group "Save BYU's Women's Research Institute!" this month. Her goal was to rally opposition to BYU administrators' plan to disperse resources for women's studies around campus.
"In four hours we had 400 members. It spread like wildfire," Vranes said. "As a woman and a BYU student, this is how I can help future students have a more enjoyable experience at BYU."
Her group has collected almost 900 signatures on an online petition and another 1,200 on paper, calling for the establishment of a multidisciplinary women's research council to coordinate studies on gender issues and administer the institute's endowment. Organizers planned to give the petition to BYU President Cecil Samuelson today.
It's not the first time Mormon students at BYU, reputed to be the nation's most conservative campus, have publicly challenged administrators of the school operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hundreds of students rallied against BYU's invitation to then-Vice President Dick Cheney
The announcement about the Women's Research Institute has triggered a lively discussion on Facebook and blogs.
"I am heartbroken and disturbed by this decision. The Women's Research Institute (WRI) has always been a beacon of hope to many of us who feel concern over issues relating to gender and women," wrote BYU alumna Emily Belanger in one Internet posting. "The existence of the WRI and the great work it produces demonstrated that BYU, the church, and Heavenly Father value women enough to provide scholars a space to collaborate and research women's issues together."
BYU established the institute in 1979 under the leadership of Dallin Oaks, with support from the church's Relief Society. It has since become a seedbed for interdisciplinary research under the direction of psychologist Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill. It boasts 80 affiliated faculty from departments across campus.
Administrators will move the women's studies minor at year's end, when the institute folds, to the sociology department under the direction of chairwoman Renata Forste, who supports the closure.
"Once I get a core of talented faculty from various disciplines organized to oversee the WS [women's studies] minor -- together we can find ways to strengthen the program and build upon the excellent base that WRI has put in place," Forste wrote in an e-mail exchange posted on the Facebook discussion board. "I also plan to get input from the current WS students."
BYU academic vice president John Tanner justified the move as a way to advance, not diminish, resources devoted to researching issues of concern to women. But many aren't buying it.
"To argue that nothing will be lost when, clearly, something significant is getting the axe, seems insane," Vranes responded in one posting. "I hate the idea of the WRI being closed, no matter how committed its former members may be to retaining enthusiasm for research about women. It is significant, if only in a nominal way, that the only space at BYU explicitly dedicated to disarming the hurtful effects of silencing women will now be, beyond argument, silenced."
As president of the campus equality group Parity, Vranes is no stranger to liberal activism.
"I'm involved with feminist efforts, as much as that's an F-word on campus," said Vranes, who is from San Francisco and works as a doula, or birthing coach. She used Facebook to get the word out because its use is virtually universal among college students today. She set up the group and simply sent invitations to her Facebook "friends" to check it out. Many passed the invitation on and more than 1,700 have joined in two weeks.
BYU has announced it is closing the 31-year-old interdisciplinary center to "streamline" and "strengthen" women's studies at the Provo college. Many faculty and students are not convinced and have organized to try to save it.
