In today’s issue of The New York Times, Professor Rhonda Garelick writes, “While my own college days in the 1980’s overflowed with heated debates about women’s rights and cultural politics in general, such fervor now seems absent from campus life. Although virtually all of my female students expect to pursue careers, this is where their enlightenment seems to end. For them, the reassuring power of a college degree to unlock professional doors seems to have rendered ‘feminism’ obsolete. In other words, the fires of feminism may have burned down to the ashes of careerism.” But is this really the case?

Writing as a recent college graduate, I find Garelick’s concern about the growing apathy regarding the other “f-word”—feminism—in higher education classrooms to be shortsighted. While Garelick correctly points out that there are many students—and though she doesn’t mention them, professors—who either have no interest in advancing progressive notions of gender and sexual politics, her application of this characteristic to an entire generation of students is unjustified for a couple of reasons.

First, though I was merely a child in the 1980s, I suspect that Garelick perceived a general fervor about these issues during that time because she surrounded herself with relatively like-minded individuals. My own circle of friends and acquaintances, of course, begins to explain why I disagree with Garelick. That being said, I find it difficult to imagine that there were not plenty of students—male and female—who were more concerned with passing their classes, getting  a date, or getting a job than with advocating progressive causes such as women’s rights.

Today’s college students are no different. While there are those who are more concerned with what they’ll wear to the next frat party or whether they’ll work for one corporation or another when they graduate, many students can be seen protesting the war in Iraq and the harms of globalization, marching in Washington, D.C. to demand continued protection of reproductive  rights, majoring in women’s studies or gender studies (a discipline that didn’t exist in the academy until quite recently), campaigning to get Bush out of office, dating members of the same sex, or engaging in heated philosophical, cultural, and political discussions both inside and outside the classroom. Some read progressive books and periodicals and listen to music with progressive lyrics, and many volunteer at rape hotlines, Planned Parenthood, and other progressive organizations. These students may not be in the majority at many universities, but their presence is quite noticeable. And their presence, believe it or not, transcends the question of careerism.

Second, Garelick’s characterization of feminism is outdated and oversimplified. Perhaps Garelick should have said that today’s college students don’t embrace her conception of feminism. However, even then, this doesn’t mean that students don’t embrace some sort progressive notion of gender and sexual politics that they may or may not dub “feminism.” Defining feminism in terms of equal access and equal opportunity seems like a good idea in theory, but inevitably the push for so-called “women’s rights” doesn’t  address the unique experiences and more pressing interests and needs of women of color, queer women, women who lack a Judeo-Christian background, queer men, lower-class women, women with physical disabilities or learning disabilities, mentally ill individuals, immigrant women , women in the developing world, and women and men who occupy more than one of these minority statuses. For such people, their chief concerns aren’t necessarily based on their gender, and even if they are, their experiences often necessitate addressing the complex causes of their oppression rather than trying to explain it in terms of the patriarchy.

Why aren’t these concerns being discussed in colleges across the country? While my own first-hand experience tells me that they are, it is also worth noting that many of the people who experience these more complex forms of discrimination and oppression aren’t in American universities. Some can’t afford such an education. Some don’t speak English and consequently can’t engage in these discussions with their peers. Some feel that they have no place in higher education settings—or in school in general—because they feel excluded by the majority or feel that this type of learning environment has nothing to offer them.

Perhaps the question that we need to be asking, then, is how we can make higher education more inclusive. Part of the solution must begin with school administrations and professors reaching out to a broader array of students and encouraging them to offer up their opinions, even if those opinions are drastically different from our own.

But much of this change must begin long before students attend college. While college transforms the ways that many of us think about the world and socialize, if parents, teachers, political figures, writers, and even pop stars aren’t raising questions concerning the discrimination and exclusion experienced by many people in this country, then most students won’t have the incentive, confidence, or knowledge to inspire them to partake in such discussions in college. Moreover, if we treat school as a chore rather than a place for active engagement in our own microcosms prior to college, there’s no reason why apathetic students will enjoy going to class or will want to speak up and engage in heated discussions once they get to college.

Laura Nathan-Garner