UC Hosts Wagatwe Wanjuki, Feminist Blogger and Activist, Thursday, Jan. 29

Wagatwe Wanjuki, an African American feminist, activist and blogger, has launched high-level national conversations on issues regarding sexual assault, Title IX and gender equality.

She will deliver a lecture, “A World Free of Sexual Violence: Women of Color, Campus Sexual Assault, and Title IX,” from

5-6:30 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 29

, in the African American Cultural Resource Center.

Her visit is sponsored by the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, the College of Law’s Center for Race, Gender and Social Justice, CECH School of Criminal Justice, AAUP PSIAFA Committee, Taft Human Rights Research Group, Department of Africana Studies, Department of Political Science, Amnesty International student group, UC Women’s Center, and the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. This Anita Hill Annual Lecture on Gender Justice was conceived after the 20th anniversary of Hill’s testimony related to Clarence Thomas before the U.S. Senate Judicial Committee, according to Feminist Soapbox, Inc., which is also sponsoring the lecture.

Anne Runyan, professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at UC, said the lecture aims to empower students to “speak truth to power,” as Hill did so powerfully in front of the Senate in 1991 — and as Wanjuki continues to do today.

“What is significant about our campus and the [Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies], is that we actually hosted Anita Hill in 2000,” Runyan said. “I think we are an attractive venue because we have one of the oldest women’s studies programs in the country, which began in 1974, and also one of the oldest graduate programs.”

In 2000, Anita Hill addressed a crowd of nearly 200 people at the UC Friends of Women’s Studies’ 20th anniversary celebration. 

Runyan, who worked to bring the Anita Hill lecture to UC, said Wanjuki’s visit interests many university departments, and correlates perfectly with the UC It’s On Us campaign, which kicked off during the past semester.

“One of the things I think is [impressive] about Wanjuki is the way she models pretty cool feminist practices for resisting sexual violence,” Runyan said.  “She’s on Tumblr; she’s been on The Daily Show; and she’s unabashedly feminist. She argues for serious feminist activism on sexual violence, and she also wants students to know their rights under

Title IX

, which goes beyond the issues of sexual violence.”

Wanjuki blogs at

F#ck Yeah Feminists

, and her writing has been published in several news outlets, including PolicyMic and ESSENCE magazine.

For more information about the Anita Hill Lecture Series and Wanjuki’s visit, contact Amy Howton at 513-556-4401.