~Manda
By Anna Young and McKay Coppins
About 20 demonstrators gathered outside the JFSB Thursday to distribute information and gain momentum in what they call the fight for women’s studies at BYU.
Participants gathered signatures for a petition proposing the formation of a Women’s Research Council to replace the recently dissolved Women’s Research Institute. By late afternoon, organizers said they had gathered about 1,300 signatures.
Sara Vranes, who organized the “information blitz,” said she was willing to concede the removal of the WRI on the condition that the university maintain some entity that houses interdisciplinary women’s research. If no action is seen, Vranes said she would continue to fight for her cause.
“We’re doing this to grab the attention of the administration,” Vranes said. “If their attention isn’t grabbed, then something else might happen.”
Vranes declined to comment on the possibility of an on-campus protest.
BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said the university has made no final decisions about the implementation of a Women’s Research Council, but said, “It’s certainly something we’ll look into.”
Thursday’s demonstration was intended primarily to be a source of information for uninformed students, but the university took issue with some of the text in the demonstrators’ original flyers.
Under the headline, “How will closing the WRI affect women’s research here at BYU?” the flyer included a list of four arguments. One of them claimed there were questions about the final allocation of the WRI Endowment Fund.
Jenkins said the elimination of the WRI and reorganization of resources has actually resulted in a dramatic increase of funds available to women’s research on campus. She also said the WRI Endowment Fund will be used entirely for the women’s studies minor and related research grants.
“It’s going to be hard for me to believe that until I see it implemented over the next couple of years,” said Vranes, who worries that the funds will be given to the School of Family, Home and Social Sciences and not specifically the women’s studies minor it now houses.
Vranes said she agreed to hand out a simpler flyer without the questionable claims, but students throughout campus who were not directly related to the demonstration were seen handing out the original flyers.
Several people involved in the demonstration said they were worried that with the termination of the WRI, the country has lost the only research center that studies women’s issues through a gospel lens.
Some also said it would poorly reflect on the church.
“I completely disagree with the decision to dissolve the WRI,” said Heidi Doggett, a BYU graduate and contributor to the “Feminist Mormon Housewives” blog. “The church is already being hit hard by bad press, and this is just going to make it worse.”
