Men’s Rights Move in on Yale

Article here. Excerpt:

'Kursat Christoff Pekgoz has never been to Yale — a school he accused of harboring a toxic environment for its male students. Pekgoz, a Turkish-born lecturer of English literature at the University of Southern California and a former member of a feminist group in Turkey, is now an active member of the National Coalition for Men, the largest international men’s rights organization.

With his Title IX complaint — officers in the Yale Title IX Office declined to comment for this article — Pekgoz launched what would result in a serious ongoing investigation of the university’s female-specific programming, conducted by the Department of Education. According to Pekgoz, women dominate in the realm of higher education and have been outpacing men in both attending and graduating from college for decades now, so there is little to no need for women’s programs. His logic is that instituting these programs — for example, the Women Empowering Women Leadership Conference, Yale Women Innovators and Women’s Campaign School at Yale — is sexist.
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Professor Margaret Homans, a lecturer in the English Department and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, said women at Yale are still striving to achieve equal opportunity, especially in STEM, where affirmative action is vital in balancing the ratio of male to female faculty members. In response to Pekgoz’s proposal to include a men’s program to balance each women’s program, Homans claimed that women are still disadvantaged in the working world and benefit from female-centric programming.

“There has been a men’s scholarship program for a few centuries,” said Homans. “There has been a men’s studies department for a few centuries. These legacies aren’t over.”

In an anonymous survey of student opinion conducted by the News, 159 Yale undergraduates volunteered their opinions on the Title IX complaint. A majority of females — 78 percent — believe that Pekgoz’s complaint is completely unjustified. Meanwhile, 62 percent of female respondents claimed to have been victims of sexual discrimination at Yale. The incidents cited range from “mansplaining” and being talked over by male peers during debates to more serious allegations such as discriminatory treatment from professors and sexual harassment.
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More surprising were the male responses. Sixty-one percent of male respondents believe that Pekgoz’s complaint has at least some grounds, while 12 percent of the 61 percent claim that the complaint is absolutely justified, and 26 percent responded that they have been sexually discriminated against on campus. Many men surveyed mentioned difficulty applying to scholarships and fellowships that catered specifically to women and minorities. Multiple students claimed that women have greater social power and have priority when it comes to admittance to parties and events. Additionally, feeling like a second priority within STEM was attributed to coming across women-only scholarships or fellowships when applying for summer research. Other male respondents mentioned the inability to voice their opinions during debates for fear of being ridiculed by their female peers.'