Anne Stevenson: Activist Mom at Tufts University

by Amanda Spector

      Anne Stevenson, 30, is a fighter for equal rights to education for mothers. She gave birth to her son, Reece, when she was 26 years old. She then moved from Maryland to Somerville, which is in the suburbs of Boston, to go back to school when he was six months old.

      Stevenson graduated in May with a degree in Political Science.

      "I just started a job as a teacher/social worker at a place that helps troubled youth get their GED and a life plan," Stevenson said, "It is in a really tough neighborhood in Boston and they have a program for teen moms. The last time I checked, the waiting list
to get into this program has the names of 56 pregnant girls on it."

      Tufts University is not a mom-friendly school, and before Stevenson started her group there last year, there was nothing to help mothers.

      "There's no family housing or daycare assistance, and the administration does not track mothers. All the mothers that are on campus are from the Boston area because the cost of living is so high here," Stevenson said.

      The average rent for a two bedroom is $1500 in Somerville, and daycare costs around $1200 per month.

      "When you add in the cost of utilities, transportation, and groceries, it is impossible even with a master's degree to do it on your own," Stevenson said. "A study came out recently from
Harvard that estimated that a single mother in the Boston area had to make $60,000 per year just to get by! That's outrageous!"

      Because Tufts does not track moms, there is no way to know how many moms have had to drop out. Stevenson suspects they represent a small fraction of the undergraduate population that has children.

      Stevenson decided to organize the mothers at Tufts and take action once they were united.

      "Before my friend Yissy Perez and I started this group last year, we didn't even know other mothers existed," Stevenson said. "We ran into each other by chance because there was a community service class that wanted to do a project on us. From there we did
outreach and discovered there were 20 other mothers, so we got them all together and discussed what our needs were as a group."

      Stevenson discovered almost all of them were on public assistance, and the administration was not doing anything to help. They held a meeting with the key administrators and different faculty members who supported what they were trying to do.

      "We asked for their help in establishing housing and daycare assistance, community outreach efforts, legal assistance, and other services mothers need. While they did help us establish pro-bono legal services for moms, they weren't very helpful with anything else," Stevenson said. "The prevailing attitude of the administrators was 'Tufts is not a community college,' as if SAT scores had anything to do with fertility."

      This was last spring, and by the fall it was very clear to Stevenson that the administration were going to try and keep this population out of the public eye.

      "Yissy and I worked all summer to develop a plan of action for the fall, and in September the Tufts Alliance for the Advancement of Mothers was officially recognized and funded by the University," Stevenson said.

      Other student groups and offices partnered with them: the Women's Center, Voices for Choice, Tufts Feminist Alliance, and the Latino Center.

      "Traditional students began writing stories about us in the school paper to get the word out about our group, and the media has been instrumental at putting pressure on the University," Stevenson said.

      For the spring semester this year, the goal is to establish equal access for moms to campus housing.

      "We are a protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1991, and also by Tufts University's own Affirmative Action policies. If we are not afforded access to housing, we are not being given equal access to education," Stevenson said. "So our group got together and started circulating
petitions for students to sign saying the administration needs to give moms housing. We are presenting a resolution for the student senate to vote on Sunday, which when passed, will be presented to the President and the Trustees for action. We are trying to get media outlets to cover it, and are going to publish all 500 of the signatures we collected in the school paper as a message to the powers that be."

      Stevenson explains that TAAM hopes this will be enough, but just like women getting the right to vote and Jim Crowe's "Separate but Equal" policies, it may take a lawsuit to bring about change.

      Stevenson offers advice for an ideal college situation, not just for moms, but for women as well.

      "An ideal college situation for WOMEN, not just moms, is one in which a woman is not forced to decide between her education and her family. By this I mean recognizing the needs of mothers and families by establishing housing and daycare assistance and other resources on campus," Stevenson said. "Equal access means equal access, and every child is a gift. If 90% of the people on welfare are single mothers, it's about time we changed our policies and attitudes to reflect the value we place on mothers who are raising the leaders of tomorrow."

-Amanda Spector