FAU to Women: Hey Broads, Deal with Budget Cuts!

FAU administrators, looking to cut costs during a tight budget year, have apparently decided to shut down the university's Women's Studies Center and related master's degree program. The affected women did not take the news lightly.

In a petition currently making the rounds, supporters assert that shutting down these programs "would be a slap in the face to every Women's right advocate in American history. We refuse to allow the 'budget decisions' of the mostly male administration at FAU to take any of this space away from women." The petition basically dares the administration: take this idea off the table by February 14th or deal with an organized protest and a public relations mess.

The petition points out that the cuts represent a mere $60,000 of the university's $239,949,841 budget -- in other words, 00025 percent.  Slashing women's resources is not cool in a year that both the athletics budget and the presidents salary were boosted, the petition says -- especially when the average salary of a male professor is $16,000 higher than the average salary of a female counterpart.

Several representatives from the program had not returned calls for comment at press time, but a Fall 2008 newsletter highlights some accomplishments: interim director Dr. Josephine Beoku-betts published a book about women scientists from Sierra Leone; one recent graduate presented a paper about "green contentious contraceptives"; and Dr. Jane Caputi was awarded $50,000 to make a documentary about Green Consciousness -- on the heels of her film The Pornography of Everyday Life.  

The petition can be signed here.