A Professor Made a Sexist Remark. Here’s How This Student Responded.

Ally Orr believes that you don’t need big, innovative ideas to change the world. It’s the small actions that truly make an impact. “I was angry, and I started a GoFundMe page. Now, we have an endowed scholarship of $200,000,” she told me over a video call last month. In late April, Orr, a 22-year-old senior marketing student from Boise State University in Idaho, awarded an endowed scholarship in her name to a fellow student. The first-ever Ally Orr Women in STEM, Medicine and Law Scholarship was received by Jessica Lambert, a third-year mechanical engineering student. Lambert was awarded $2,340 – 4% of the total $200,000 that Orr was able to fundraise in just five months. Speaking about the scholarship at the ceremony, Orr broke down, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” It has been quite a journey for Orr. On December 1, 2021, she was in her dorm room, scrolling through her phone, when she stumbled across a video of her university’s political science professor Scott Yenor. In the video, Yenor delivered a speech at the National Conservatism Conference. He said that women who prioritize their careers over family are “more medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome than women need to be.” He also added, “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.” For Orr, the most disturbing part of the video wasn’t the speech; it was the applause that followed. “At first, it broke my heart. But after the initial sadness, I was just angry and embarrassed.” When Yenor’s clip went viral, he did not back down. He posted a follow-up response to his speech where he doubled down on his views. When that video came out, Orr, who had expected him to apologize and retract his statement, was left feeling confused: “I thought, does he think my degree is useless because I’m a woman?” Like her peers, Orr shared her thoughts on social media, responding to the comments on Yenor’s videos. While scrolling through one such conversation, she stumbled upon a comment about starting a scholarship for women in Yenor’s name. That stayed with her. She spent the next day researching. She learned that to create an impact that would last for years to come, she’d need to set up an endowment scholarship — a donation or a fund that’s invested by the university. The interest earned on the fund would be given to students every year. To set it up, the minimum donation would need to be at least $25,000. Orr had a clear plan: She was going to fundraise first, and then approach the university’s administration. Orr created a GoFundMe page later that week. To publicize the fundraiser, she decided to email every single professor on the campus. At 10 p.m on a Friday, she sent the first email to 100 professors and staff. Then, she repeated the step six more times through the night. At 2 a.m., when she finally shut her laptop, Orr could hardly sleep. “I was so scared of being kicked out of school or that no one would contribute to the fundraiser,” she said. Further, her fears about taking on a professor at the university made her jittery. “The power difference between us felt scary – he’s a professor, and I don’t even have my bachelor’s degree yet.” Orr wasn’t expecting much. “When I woke up and checked my university email, I had no responses. It was dead silent. I really thought people didn’t understand or appreciate this effort,” she said. “Then, I checked my GoFundMe page and it already had $2,000 dollars. In fact, the first 20 comments on the fundraisers were from professors in the university, which was so heartening.” In less than 24 hours, the fundraiser hit the $10,000 mark. By the end of Sunday, the fundraiser was at $25,000 – the minimum amount required to set up an endowment fund. After that, the fundraiser only got bigger. To ensure that the fund was available to students in the same academic year, Orr only had until the end of December to officially set it up. She spent the next few days approaching the University Advancement Office and filing the documentation for the scholarship fund. On December 13, Orr signed an endowment agreement, formally establishing the Women in STEM, Medicine, and Law Scholarship at Boise State. As an endowment fund, the university will award the rest of the money and future contributions as 4% scholarships for a student or multiple students every year in perpetuity. Orr added that the university’s advancement office has set up a Boise State PonyUp campaign – the university’s version of a GoFundMe page – in case donors want to contribute to the fund. When I first heard Orr’s story, one of the things that stood out to me was how triggering Yenor’s language towards women was. I could sense the frustration in Orr’s voice as we spoke, and I echoed her sentiments. As a woman myself, I found Yenor’s speech very isolating. While listening to it, I had to pause the video in several instances to breathe and regain my composure. I was curious to understand what Orr made of it. In response, she shared a riddle with me: A boy and his father get into a car accident. The father passes away, and the son is rushed to the hospital. The surgeon comes out of the emergency room, breaks down into tears, and says, “I can’t operate on my son.” What happened here? If you’re stumped, you’re not alone. Orr explained, “It’s confusing only because nobody assumes that the surgeon is a woman. She’s the boy’s mother!” Orr continued, “Language is so important because how we see the world depends on how we talk about it. When people don’t see women in roles like doctors, engineers, or lawyers, it becomes that much harder for young girls to really see themselves in such positions. No one is going to wake up one day and want to work in male-dominated industries if they’ve grown up with messages that they just don’t belong in certain spaces.” Orr added that this shift in language needs to start sooner. “We need to think about language and how it impacts us right from elementary and middle school. What are we telling young girls about who they can become?” I asked Orr if she had any advice for students just like her — ones looking to take up space, speak their minds, and change the world. How do you really stand up for what you believe in, especially as a young person? “I think having conversations are really, really important,” Orr said. Ever since she started the scholarship, Orr has had the opportunity to speak with diverse groups of people on campus, including her peers, friends, and professors — and not all of them always agreed with her point of view. She said that initially, she had a hard time trying to make people understand her perspective. But the more she connected with those different from her, the more common ground she found. Initially, even when people don’t understand or agree that a scholarship is the best way to take action after a faculty member makes sexist remarks, Orr said that slowly, those around her have been able to see the merits of setting up a fund. It’s a visible way for us to support the women on campus and those joining the university and say, “We see you, we support you.” Orr also advised young folks to connect with their friends and peers when they have an idea. “I was lucky to have supportive people in my life who stood by me through the process. I think that having this network of people who you trust and who believe in you really helps. If you have a bunch of friends, reach out to them, share your ideas, and that’ll make it easier to get things done,” she said. Orr believes that in the end, it’s about staying true to yourself and knowing what it is that you want to do. “There were moments when people questioned me or asked me to do things that didn’t align with my vision of the scholarship, or that I didn’t feel comfortable with. Trusting yourself can sound cheesy but it works.” Orr also acknowledged that being able to speak up about gender issues and lobby for change is itself a privilege that women like her didn’t have a few decades ago. Thanks to women who came before her, she has that privilege today. She hopes that people recognize the power in that and use it to move the needle. “We often forget that we’ve come so far,” Orr said. “But we also have so far to go.”

A Professor Made a Sexist Remark. Here’s How This Student Responded.

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