Women’s Liberation at the University of Michigan, 1968-72

Open to Everyone

On Wednesday evening, November 12, 2025, the University of Michigan’s Inclusive History Project (IHP) and Jewish Communal Leadership Program (JCLP) will sponsor a panel on “Women’s Liberation at the University of Michigan, 1968-1972: Jewish and Other Identities in the Emergence of a Movement.” This program will feature a conversation with pioneering activists Gayle Rubin, Rayna Rapp, Ellen Meeropol, Beth Schneider, and Joanne Parrent as part of the IHP Project, “Outsiders, Insiders, Radicals, and Reformers: A History of Jews at the University of Michigan”.

Register here

In coordination with “Outsiders, Insiders, Radicals and Reformers” and two Fall IHP classes on Jews in U-M history (taught by Deborah Dash Moore) and women in U-M history (taught by Gayle Rubin), this panel discussion will recount and explore the development of feminist consciousness and activism in Ann Arbor and at U-M, while also considering why so many Jews were a part of these efforts.

This will be the 2nd IHP U-M “Insiders and Outsiders” event focused on trying to capture the ethos of the activist era of the 1960s and early 1970s. You can see a conversation held in March between food writers Joan Nathan and Ruth Reichl and Zingerman’s co-founder Ari Weinzweig reflecting on their time as UM students in the 60s and 70s here.