In Fall 2019, under the leadership of Dr. M. Shadee Malaklou, Berea College opened the Women’s and Gender Non-Conforming Center, extending the College’s long history of gender equity — as the first coeducational college in the u.s. South — to students who identify outside sex/gender binaries; while also attentive to the college’s abolitionist history as the first interracial college in the U.S. south. In fall 2021, also under the leadership of dr. m. shadee malaklou, Berea College’s Women’s and Gender Non-Conforming Center transitioned to the bell hooks center, where the work of anti-racist feminism continues.
