Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

124 WHO STOLE FEMINISM?share his enthusiasm, he became defensive and claimed never to haveseen the questionnaire. "It came from some outside organization. I hadnothing to do with it," he said. He said he knew very little about thedetails of the transformation project and advised me to speak to thewomen's studies staff.When I asked him about the workshops, conferences, and other transformationistactivities, he got angry. "Who are you? You have no right tointerview me or quote me." He slammed the phone down. I have sincesent in a freedom-of-information form asking about the funding for thetransformation activities at Middle Tennessee State University, with copiesto the attorney general's office and the Tennessee Board of Regents.The citizens of Tennessee have the right to know just how much of theirmoney is being spent to have their college curriculum transformed to theliking of Ms. Stimpson, Ms. Schmitz, Ms. Mcintosh, Ms. Schuster, Ms.Van Dyne, and Ms. Minnich.Vice President Hindman was right about one thing. The questionnairecame from elsewhere: it was in fact designed by the Association of AmericanColleges (AAC), an organization funded by dues from most of America'scolleges. The AAC used to be a nonpolitical professional organizationdevoted to monitoring the scholarly standards of American colleges.These days, though, it produces an impressive number of surveys, packets,tracts, and brochures that promote gender feminist causes in theAmerican academy. Among their many feminist publications are "Successand Survival Strategies for Women Faculty Members," "Students at theCenter: Feminist Assessment," "Evaluating Courses for Inclusion of NewScholarship on Women," and "The Campus Climate Revisited: Chilly forWomen Faculty, Administrators, and Graduate Students."The Association of American Colleges was founded in 1915 to "improveundergraduate liberal education," a task to which it was conventionallyfaithful until fairly recently. As late as 1985, an AAC reportdefended the college major and spoke of "the joy of mastery, the thrill ofmoving forward in a formal body of knowledge and gaining some effectivecontrol over it, integrating it, perhaps even making some small contributionto it."Several women's studies luminaries—Johnnella Butler, Sandra Coyner,Marlene Longenecker, and Caryn McTighe Musil—found this remarkoffensive. In a scathing report to the AAC, made possible by "generousfunding" from the cooperative Ford Foundation and the Fund for the