Students are calling for the firing of a Boise State University political scientist who criticized feminism and the transgender rights movement.
Posters reading “Fire Scott Yenor” have emerged all over campus in the wake of his Aug. 2 op-ed in the Daily Signal, titled “Transgender Activists Are Seeking to Undermine Parental Rights.”
The posters, first reported by The College Fix, claim transgender people have shorter life expectancies “due to violence and murder fueled by hateful rhetoric such as the words written by Scott Yener.”
“You have blood on your hands Scott Yenor,” they read.
A petition to fire Mr. Yenor has garnered more than 2,000 signatures.
“Boise State University Professor, Dr. Scott Yenor, has recently published an article that threatens the existence of queer and non-binary folks by promoting rhetorical violence against their livelihood,” the petition reads. “For multiple reasons, Dr. Scott Yenor is unfit to teach, but largely that he promotes an ideology of violence is grounds for his dismissal.”
Mr. Yenor’s article in the Daily Signal accompanied a longer report published by the Heritage Foundation.
In it, he argues feminism and transgenderism work in tandem to undermine the very concept of men and women, and thus the traditional family unit.
“There exists no better way of extending the sexual revolution that second-wave feminists imagined than by shaking confidence in the very idea of man and woman,” Mr. Yenor wrote in the report. “Transgender theories are part of the feminist goal of a sexual revolution that eliminates the proprietary family and celebrates non-monogamous sexual experiences.”
In an interview with The College Fix, Mr. Yenor stood by his work. He said he was “surprised at the reaction, disappointed and sad.”
“I’m very proud of the longer report I wrote for Heritage, it asked the question that hadn’t been asked before: If you could give feminists everything they wanted, what would the world look like?” he said.
Boise State University officials have distanced themselves from Mr. Yenor’s remarks, but have stopped short of calling for his firing.
In a long Facebook post Aug. 13, Corey Cooke, dean of the Boise State School of Public Service, apologized for circulating the Daily Signal article on the school’s Facebook account. He said Mr. Yenor’s views are “inconsistent” with those of the School of Public Service.
“But at the same time, I am not willing to condemn Professor Yenor’s scholarship and writings or worse, agree with those posters who question why university faculty should be engaging in public debates at all,” Mr. Cooke wrote.
Writing the next day in The Arbiter, Boise State’s student newspaper, Jamie Maas argued Mr. Yenor should be fired and encouraged students not to enroll in his classes.
“Women, survivors, and queer folk shouldn’t have to learn constitutional law from a slut-shaming trans-phobe who isn’t even in favor of gay marriage,” the student wrote.
Boise State reiterated its commitment to free speech in a statement Sept. 22.
“Even if speech, signs or images are hateful or offensive, they are likely still protected by the First Amendment,” the university said.
• Bradford Richardson can be reached at brichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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