In the fall of 2021, a college professor delivered a speech at the National Conservatism Conference, rejecting feminism and suggesting that women shouldn’t take spots from men in competitive fields, as I previously reported.

  • “Every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school, and the law, and every trade,” said Scott Yenor, a political science professor at Boise State University.

These comments horrified Boise State student Ally Orr.

Yenor received applause, gathered his notes and walked away from the podium. But the reaction to the speech created a domino effect: First, the video went viral, then protests sparked and a statement from the Faculty Senate condemned Yenor’s remarks as misogynistic, according to The Lilly.

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Orr, 22, also decided to take action so she started a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money for a scholarship.

  • “It needed to get to a bigger scale, and I thought a scholarship is a perfect way to send a message that women do belong here and women want to be in these fields of study too,” Orr said, per KATU 2, ABC News.
  • “When I first started this, I was so nervous that we’d only hit $2,000 and people would think this is such a silly idea or I don’t wanna donate,” Orr said.
  • So far, she has managed to raise $130,000 for her women in STEM scholarship.
  • “Maybe I need to go create a different scholarship that students all over the U.S can apply to, or maybe this needs to be made into a nonprofit. So it’ll definitely get bigger, but I’m not totally sure where the direction is going, but we’re not stopping,” Orr said.
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