Image Credit: UTC Center for Career and Leadership Development / Facebook.
Article by Olivia Lupia, Tennessee Conservative News –
Several “woke” programs of study at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga (UTC) are seeing substantial drops in enrollment this year, with less than ten students opting to register in the gender studies program this spring.
University enrollment data reveals that while UTC saw record enrollment for the Spring 2026 semester, the Bachelor of Arts in Humanities with a concentration in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program saw only seven majors, a nearly 50% decrease from the 13 majors in fall of 2022.
9,482 undergraduate students enrolled at UTC for spring 2026, but only approximately 0.07% of the student body pursued the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies major. The minor program has also seen a steep drop, from 56 enrollees in fall of 2022 to just 26 this past spring, a mere 0.027% of the undergraduate population.
UTC literature says that students completing the gender studies program will be able to “explain what the patriarchy is and the ways in which it impacts individuals and society,” “articulate what gender is and how it is socially constructed,” and “analyze how oppression is intersectional.”
Students will also receive “opportunities for service learning and community engagement from a feminist perspective” as the program seeks to “reflect core concepts of fourth-wave feminism.”
Courses include “Feminist Literary Criticism”, “Theatre and Feminism,” “Gender and Society,” “Race, Gender, and the Media,” and “Gender, Crime, and Criminal Justice.”
Other woke minors offered by UTC including Africana Studies, Asian Studies, and Latin American Studies also seem to be subject to similar declines as the gender studies program, seeing only ten, twelve, and six students enroll respectively in spring 2026.
The waning enrollment in these programs could suggest a general culture shift as the drop doesn’t seem limited to just Tennessee.
Another report found that a branch of the University of Wisconsin had six total students enrolled in its Women’s and Gender Studies bachelor’s programs in fall of 2025 while the school’s Diversity Leadership certificate only drew seven students.
And only four students enrolled in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies bachelor’s program at Northeastern Illinois University in spring 2025, a continued pattern as program enrollment has remained below ten students for the past five years.
This downward trend could be reflective of the inability of graduates to find work related to these fields, especially as the Trump administration has worked to eliminate discriminatory woke and DEI practices from higher education institutions across the nation, though there is no data to confirm such speculation.
Sources:
UTC.edu.
Campus Reform.
About the Author: Olivia Lupia is a political refugee from Colorado who now calls Tennessee home. A proud follower of Christ, she views all political happenings through a Biblical lens and aims to utilize her knowledge and experience to educate and equip others. Olivia is an outspoken conservative who has run for local office, managed campaigns, and been highly involved with state & local GOPs, state legislatures, and other grassroots organizations and movements. Olivia can be reached at olivia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
