Universities discriminate against men, activist says
Feminist leaders dismiss claims as part of a bid to ‘hold on to power’
WASHINGTON — At home in Turkey, Kursat Pekgoz considered himself a feminist. In the world of American higher education, where he is now pursuing a doctorate in English literature, the 30-year-old activist says it is men who are being treated unfairly.
Arguing that campus resource groups for women and women’s studies programs amount to discrimination against men, Pekgoz has filed federal complaints against several universities with the backing of the National Coalition for Men, an American men’s rights organization.
The Education Department is taking the complaints seriously. Over the last year, its civil rights division has opened investigations into Yale, Princeton, the University of Southern California and Tulane University to determine whether their women’s programs violate Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding. The department has also received complaints against Georgetown, Northeastern and the University of Pennsylvania.
With more women attending and graduating from college than men in America, Pekgoz says women no longer need additional support.
“Women are the majority, so I really cannot see how this is not discrimination against men,” said Pekgoz, a student at the University of Southern California. He studied English literature in Turkey and moved to the U.S. four years ago to pursue an advanced degree. “We can’t keep living in the past on these issues.”
While the number of women attending college has grown significantly in recent decades, women are still underrepresented in science and technology and in leadership positions in higher education.
Scholars say women’s studies and gender studies, as fields of academic study, are open to men like any other. And advocates of initiatives targeting women in particular say they are crucial to help them succeed in a time when women continue to earn less than men and sexual harassment remains widespread on campuses and in the workplace.
“We still have a long way to go to reach equity,” said Shawali Patel, an attorney with the National Women’s Law Center.
The investigations come at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing ahead with a conservative agenda on other fronts in higher education. Administration officials are endorsing giving greater rights to those accused of sexual assault on campus and pushing back against race-based affirmative action in admissions.
Carly Thomsen, a professor of feminist studies at Vermont’s Middlebury College, dismissed the complaints as a backlash against women’s activism.
“They are trying to dress up their desire to hold on to power as an equity issue,” Thomsen said.
Peter Lake, a professor of education and law at Florida’s Stetson University, sees the recent complaints as a “counterbalancing trend.”
“Because there has been so much energy thrown toward women’s rights primarily, one might expect that men might step up and say ‘What about us?’ and argue that they are subject to certain inequities that need to be addressed,” Lake said.