Current and former students and staff of the University of Iowa’s Department of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies are bracing for the confirmed closure of the historic program, which sits among several other majors recommended to be shut down by the Iowa Board of Regents.

Students enrolled in the department will be able to complete their degrees, and a minor and certificate will continue to be offered, but new students will not be able to major in the program. Primary faculty in the department will move to other departments. 

The possibility of the department closing has been in discussion for over a year now, when the UI originally proposed it be absorbed into a new School of Social and Cultural Analysis in December 2025. Other programs like African American Studies, Jewish Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Latino Studies, and American Studies would also have been incorporated.

However, the Iowa Board of Regents elected not to approve the school. This left the future of these programs, selected primarily because of their lower-enrollment numbers, either ambiguous or facing inevitable closure.

The main reason cited for the closure is low student enrollment. With 12 undergraduate students enrolled in the Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies major, it falls below the enrollment threshold of 25 undergraduate students set by the board’s Workforce Alignment initiative.

The Workplace Alignment initiative involves a review of programs at public universities in Iowa and how these programs are expected to adapt to workforce needs in the state. It aims to provide clearer pathways from education to postgraduate employment opportunities.

The 2025 Workface Alignment Review of Programs Report was charged by Board President Sherry Bates on Feb. 27, 2025, with the findings and recommendations being presented in November 2025.

“Institutions must balance offering a breadth of programmatic offerings while maintaining the necessary enrollment thresholds to protect quality, sustainability, and cost effectiveness,” the report said.

In the case of programs like GWSS, however, they are labeled as incompatible with this initiative entirely. The most recent report from the board recommended closing the department, among several other low-enrollment programs.

During the Iowa Board of Regents meeting on Feb. 25, UI Executive Vice President and Provost Kevin Kregel publicly reiterated the intention to close the Department of Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies. He shared the details of the report from the board, clarifying that while a minor and certificate will still be offered, the department itself will be closed.

Kregel said his Office of the Provost decided on the closure of this program by comparing the board’s report to recent data and trends in UI undergraduate enrollment. He said they also look at licensure and accreditation requirements, available faculty resources, and the recency of a program’s establishment.

“I do want to note that as we’ve gone through this process, we have made sure that we are looking strategically at how we are going about this,” Kregel said in the meeting. “Looking at the resources that are being utilized, where the workforce alignment efforts will be falling, and how they are going to align with student interest going forward.”

The board and the UI have faced backlash for the decision to end the GWSS major, with many of the school’s alumni, students, staff, and other community members signing an open letter opposing this closure. 

It includes 31 testimonials, offering people’s personal experiences with the GWSS program as well as their concerns about the impact it will have on students and staff. It has received 133 signatures.

Rajorshi Das, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto and a graduate of the UI with a Ph.D. in Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies, helped organize the letter and contributed their own testimonial. 

Das said confusion surrounding the department’s future, especially following the rejection of the proposal for the School of Social and Cultural Analysis, turned away many current and prospective students and contributed to lower enrollment.

Das also said the political implications of the department’s closure may turn people away from staying with the university or in the state. 

“When you shut down an entire department, it sends a wrong signal, especially to Iowans,” Das said. “Politically, there have been so many setbacks. Transgender rights are no longer protected in Iowa, and on top of that, you’re taking out this department on gender studies. So there would be some Iowans who do not want to be in the state. Iowa has been facing the so-called brain drain for a while now, and this would only make things worse.”

“Brain drain,”  according to a 2026 Common Sense Institute report, is the trend of college-educated young adults leaving the state after their education, disrupting the state’s economy. Iowa has one of the highest trends in the nation, with the UI especially having a low post-graduation retention rate. 

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Only 37.7 percent of UI graduates remain in the state 10 years after graduation, despite 61.9 percent of the undergraduate student body being in-state, according to the report. 

Das said the UI and the Board of Regents’ continued support of the Center for Intellectual Freedom further reveals the political motivation behind this decision.

Established in 2025 as a result of state legislation, the Center for Intellectual Freedom is focused on teaching the political and economic systems in the U.S as well as the history and values of America. 

However, the school has struggled to secure student interest, having postponed its January classes due to a lack of student interest. Despite having a similarly low enrollment rate as the closing studies, the center will continue with classes in March, seeking additional funding.

Eva Packer, a 2025 UI graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies, now works as the violence prevention program coordinator at the Women’s Resource and Action Center at the UI. She said the decision to close this department is harmful to the school’s legacy and contradictory to its stated values.

The university’s most recent strategic plan for the 2022-2027 school years describes the UI’s mission statement and commitment to inclusivity and opportunity.

“We are committed to ensuring access, respecting differences, and fostering a supportive environment where all individuals are valued, empowered, and encouraged to contribute to our shared success,” the UI said in the most recent iteration of its strategic plan.

Packer said the university’s values statements, which are carefully crafted by the university, are not reflected when it dismisses interdisciplinary programs like Gender Women’s and Sexuality Studies.

“By eliminating these majors, you’re eliminating paths for students,” Packer said. “That only hurts the university as a place where you’re supposed to build community and engage with critical thinking skills.”

Sara Koppy, a 2025 UI graduate with a bachelor’s degree in social justice also signed the letter, including her testimonial in it. She said the program influenced her work as a legal assistant, thanks to the critical thinking skills developed through her studies.

“After four years of rigorous, expansive work, hearing the closure of my degree felt nothing less than crushing,” Koppy said in her testimony. “To see the foundation of who I had become placed on the chopping block as a political spectacle was deeply personal. An education within the GWSS program taught me to think critically about the roles of power and each person’s influence on their environment, especially in the era of AI and mass censorship.”

Other alumni who provided testimonials also echoed frustrations that the education they had received at UI is now being targeted by the state legislature.

Packer said the closure of this department will hurt the legacy of UI. She said closing this program is a departure from the school’s history of providing education for women and  LGBTQ+ students. 

Since 1860, the UI has admitted women on an equal basis with men, being the first public school to do so. Since 1970, the UI has also been the first state university to recognize and continuously fund an LGBTQ+ student organization. The department itself was one of the first of its kind in the nation when it was founded in 1974, originally called the Iowa’s Women’s Studies Program.

Packer said she would not have wanted to pursue anything other than her GWSS major, and she is disheartened that other students will no longer have the same opportunity. She said the department’s closure removes the opportunity for nontraditional, unexpected avenues of education and career prospects.