Boise State professor’s comments on women spur students to speak out, share stories
Mindy Gage stood in her U.S. Army hat holding up a large white sign with red marker reading, “End misogyny,” surrounded by images of dinosaurs.
“Because misogyny is very archaic,” she told the Idaho Statesman.
In a red circle with an X through it, she wrote: “Scott Yenor BSU.”
Gage was one of hundreds of people — students, professors, parents, community members and elected officials — standing against the backdrop of the large “B” in front of the university’s administration building last Saturday. People of all ages held signs up high, with many women proudly displaying their accomplishments as doctors, engineers and mothers, as they crowded together at the “Women Belong Everywhere” demonstration.
There was little shouting or chanting, but people drew energy from one another as they vowed to fight for equality and a woman’s place in every industry and career.
The event was an effort for the community to take a stand against comments from Scott Yenor, a tenured political science professor at the university who argued in a speech at a right-wing conference that women shouldn’t be recruited into engineering, medical school or the law — and called independent women “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome.”
But for Gage, the moment was a decade in the making.
About 10 years ago, Gage said, she had Yenor as a professor. She called him “the worst teacher” she’s ever had.
She told the Statesman that she and other women in Yenor’s class felt as if he was harder on them than he was on male students. Once during class, she said, Yenor said that in his opinion, women belonged “barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.”
“At that point, I knew that there was nothing I could say or do in this man’s class that he would agree with,” Gage said.
Women make up 58% of Boise State’s student body, according to enrollment numbers from fall 2021. In the School of Public Service, which includes the political science department, more than 60% of undergraduate, degree-seeking students are women.
Gage also said Yenor talked explicitly about things that would trigger veterans in the classroom, such as going into intense detail about how people died during war. Gage is a veteran who served from 1992 to 1996. At one point, she said she walked out of his classroom and then reported him to the dean and the veterans group on campus. She said the response Yenor received from the university was a “slap on the wrist.”
“He has always treated people like if you did not agree with him, you were wrong,” she said. “By allowing him to continue to teach, he is teaching the young men of this generation that it’s OK to treat women like they are less than citizens.”
Gage has become one of thousands of people calling for Yenor to be investigated by the university, and is one of several former students who have spoken publicly about their experiences in his classroom.
Yenor did not respond to the Statesman’s request for comment, which included specific allegations about his statements in class and grading practices. He has denied on Twitter that he treated women with disrespect in his classroom.
“To be clear: these allegations against my professional conduct in class are completely false,” Yenor wrote in a Dec. 3 tweet. “They are scurrilous lies and defamatory, told with malice aforethought.”
Thousands sign petition to investigate Yenor
After Yenor’s comments, made on Oct. 31 at the National Conservatism Conference, Boise State said in an emailed statement that the university supports free speech and academic freedom.
A few days later, as the backlash continued, the university’s administration sent an email to students and staff asserting its support for women. Top Boise State officials, including President Marlene Tromp, signed a note affirming that women belong on campus and defending their right to get an education and pursue various career paths.
But many in the Treasure Valley community have been asking for more.
More than 7,000 people have signed a petition urging the university to investigate and possibly discipline Yenor. The petition states that Yenor’s statement was “clearly one of discrimination against women,” and it calls for the university to look into any gender-based differences in his grading and evaluations of students and colleagues.
More than 350 people have donated over $33,000 to a fundraising page, created shortly after Yenor’s comments went viral, to open a scholarship at the university for women pursuing STEM careers, medicine and the law.
Ally Orr, a BSU student who started the fundraiser, said Yenor’s comments were “incredibly hurtful.” She said she wanted to find a way to channel her frustrations in a positive way.
“We need to help women more at this university feel supported and safe studying whatever they want,” she told the Statesman.
Professors condemn Yenor’s comments
Yenor’s colleagues in the political science department also sent an email to political science majors and minors directly opposing his comments. In the email, 12 active political science faculty members said they value and appreciate the different identities and perspectives students bring to their classrooms.
“The ideas expressed in this speech directly contradict the experience of many of us, as well as what empirical research shows about women,” the Dec. 5 email read. “We — like many of you — found the video painful to watch. We recognize his statements are not only inaccurate but also offensive and hurtful — these are not the viewpoints and values the rest of the political science faculty hold.”
Several professors also spoke out on social media.
Stephen Utych, an associate professor of political science, said Yenor has made controversial comments, including in 2017 when he wrote a Daily Signal article that claimed transgender activists were “seeking to undermine parental rights.” The Daily Signal is a website published by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Utych said he’s concerned women are being treated unfairly in Yenor’s classroom. He said he’s heard “whispers” and has had students who have said they didn’t want to take Yenor’s class.
“Free speech doesn’t give you the right to behave in a bad way at your job, toward your students,” Utych said.
Other professors said they’ve heard from students who have purposely avoided Yenor’s classroom.
“I started to hear students say things like, ‘Oh, I’m avoiding taking his classes because I heard he doesn’t grade women or LGBTQ people fairly,’ ” Leslie Madsen, history professor and associate director for the Center for Teaching and Learning at Boise State, told the Statesman.
Madsen said she doesn’t support removing professors based on their ideas. But if a professor is treating students differently based on gender or identity, in violation of federal law, then they “should be disciplined … because they are causing real harm.”
Tenured professors can be terminated only for “adequate cause” or in other extreme circumstances, according to Boise State’s policy.
Madsen also wants people to know that hundreds of faculty members are working hard to make Boise State welcoming and equitable to all students through training, workshops and other programs.
“The fact that this one guy gets to have this platform and overshadow the rest of us is very, very frustrating,” she said.
Crystal Ivie, an adjunct professor in genetics and developmental biology, said that growing up, her grandmother told her she needed to get an education if she wanted a different life for herself. She was a first-generation college student, went to graduate school and has been teaching since 1999. She didn’t let anything hold her back, she said.
Ivie said the thought that someone like Yenor could make young women feel like they shouldn’t pursue their dreams “just infuriates me.”
“That is not the message that we need to be sending to our young women and our girls,” she said.
Former students say Yenor treated women differently
Gage was not the only student who said she felt she was treated unfairly by Yenor.
Some former students said male classmates routinely had positive things to say about Yenor, while women had more difficult experiences.
Noelle Johansen, who graduated from Boise State in 2019, said she had Yenor as a professor for political philosophy in 2017. In response to Yenor’s comments, Johansen started selling merchandise with the phrase “medicated, meddlesome, quarrelsome.”
In her 2017 class, Johansen said Yenor would make jokes and statements that made her feel “strange and uneasy.”
Having him in a position of power, she said, is a sign to women and LGBTQ people that they’re not welcome.
“I don’t think that people who hold such oppressive values and truly look down on certain marginalized groups in our country should be allowed to hold a teaching position where they are allowed to explicitly grade someone and affect their long-term success based on their grades,” she said.
“There’s no shame in being medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome,” she added. “In reality, it’s a badge of honor.”
Melissa Sue Robinson, a transgender woman who is running for governor, said she also had Yenor as a professor. She said she dropped his class midsemester because Yenor would bypass her when she raised her hand or make snide remarks. He would always answer questions from her male classmates, she said.
Robinson said she had never before dropped a class for reasons like this.
“I’m 71 years old, and I’ve been around a long time, and I never dreamed that there’d be a professor that was like that,” she told the Statesman.
Others said it was well known that Yenor has held these views and behaved differently toward women, even before his speech caused such a ruckus.
Robin Trayler, a former geosciences graduate student whose cubicle was across from Yenor’s office, said Yenor’s behavior toward women was widely known among the department. Trayler and his colleagues would regularly message about comments they overheard from Yenor.
“It was just kind of a consistent undertone of sexism in his interactions with students during the time I was there,” he said.
‘Women belong in the boardroom’
Elected officials, too, have publicly condemned Yenor’s comments.
State Rep. Brooke Green, D-Boise, who helped plan Saturday’s demonstration, said she wanted women to be heard. She said she didn’t want to give a speech — rather, the message was sent by the people who showed up.
“Women belong in the boardroom, they belong in the doctor’s office, they belong in the courtrooms,” Green said.
Many people who showed up to the demonstration wanted to show Yenor and the community that women can pursue any career they want to and shouldn’t feel held back, attendees said in interviews. Some at the protest said Yenor’s speech would only propel women forward.
“Hundreds of thousands of women came before us. They paved the way. We won’t be quiet,” said Lauren Madsen, a Boise State student. “We’re here, and we’re making even more history. We’re not going to be stopped.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
