Earlier this month, Howard Louthan announced his resignation as director of the Center for Austrian Studies (CAS) in response to the University of Minnesota’s removal of a 2022 CAS statement condemning the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

This removal was a part of a broader attempt to enforce a controversial Board of Regents resolution approved in March to restrict institutional statements made by departments. 

On April 1, the College of Liberal Arts Dean GerShun Avilez told Louthan and his colleagues that departmental statements related to the Russo-Ukrainian war would be taken down.

In his resignation letter, Louthan stated that the announcement came as a sudden shock. The CAS statement was aligned with the national and international scholarly response and the University’s response to the invasion at the time.

“The removal of the CAS statement is not the simple removal of a statement but also the removal of an important historical document of our Center and the university,” Louthan said in the statement. “It is an attempt to suppress or even erase a laudable moment in the university’s past in response to an international crisis.”

In February 2022, then University President Joan Gabel released a statement condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying, “We stand with the people of Ukraine and anyone who is affected or outraged by this invasion. It is simply heartbreaking.”

In response to the Student Senate’s recommendations, the University administration also divested from Russia.

Two days after Avilez informed Louthan of the decision, Louthan and others met with Provost Rachel Croson. During this meeting, Louthan said in response to his question on clarifying the guidance she had given her advisory committee on institutional speech-related decisions, Croson shrugged her shoulders. 

In an email to faculty, Croson said the University encourages people to “teach, conduct and disseminate scholarship reflecting differing views.”

“What are these other views on Ukraine?” Louthan asked. “I’m unaware of anything except the talking points of spokespeople from the Kremlin. And so that was just so, so sad.”

David Perry, the associate director of Undergraduate Studies for the Department of History,  shared a similar perspective on the situation. 

“I think that when you have a body of experts, you have to trust them to articulate their expertise, and that having a general administrative policy of censorship and control over speech is antithetical to what a university is,” Perry said.

Louthan, in reference to the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher education, said the situation was handled poorly. 

“I understand that this is really driven by fear and fear of losing significant funding, but that’s no excuse for the way that the situation was handled,” Louthan said.

Croson and Avilez did not respond to requests for comment.  

Michael Burri, a program officer at the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Austrian-American History, described the CAS as a “gravitational point for Austrian Studies in the United States.”

Burri said the greater community of scholars in Austrian Studies is sad that Louthan stepped down from his directorship. 

“I think it expresses how people feel about the professional leadership of Professor Louthan, but also his human qualities,”  Burri said.

However, Louthan’s peers are supportive of his decision. In a statement to the Minnesota Daily, Gary Cohen, the center’s director before Louthan, said, “I much regret his stepping down before his term was due to end, but I respect and support his decision to do so as a matter of principle.”

Louthan said the reaction has been encouraging and that he will continue teaching at the University in the history department.

“I’ve received notes from a variety of people,” Louthan said. “I have no idea who they are and no idea how they saw the statement, and I think that’s really really wonderful.”

Six decades after the first oral contraceptive for women was approved in the United States, University of Minnesota researchers are one step closer to developing a non-hormonal birth control pill for men. 

A recent study published in Communications Medicine found that the drug, YCT-529, was safe, effective and, importantly, reversible in mice and non-human primates. 

YCT-529 targets the process by which Vitamin A, an essential nutrient, enables sperm production, while leaving Vitamin A levels intact.

Once YCT-529 is removed, “the factory starts working again,” lead author and co-founder of YourChoice Therapeutics, Nadja Mannowetz said.

YCT-529 is not the only non-hormonal male contraceptive in development, Gunda Georg, the corresponding author and head of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University, said. However, this drug is the furthest ahead in successfully completing a Phase 1 clinical human trial. 

Georg said that the high pharmaceutical standards for contraceptives can make it difficult to attract investors. 

“The whole field of contraception is an orphan area,” Georg said. “So there’s not much research ongoing, if any, in the pharmaceutical industry.” 

Contraceptive drugs must have exceptionally high efficacy rates and low side-effect profiles to be approved, Georg said. 

“One has to make sure that there’s no negative effect on the future offspring of the people who have been taking the birth control pill,” Georg said. 

The small start-up supporting the development of the drug, YourChoice Therapeutics, has seen immense potential in the contraceptive arena since its inception. Originally, Mannowetz said the company entered the field with an interest in developing non-hormonal birth control options for women. 

“I went out running around on campus to ask women, ‘Hey, are you using contraception? If so, are you happy with it?’ And it was crazy. Nearly every woman was complaining,” Mannowetz said.

Co-founder and CEO of YourChoice Therapeutics, Akash Bakshi, said the company’s mission was to improve the health and well-being of women by offering non-hormonal birth control options, “because that’s what we heard women were displeased with.” 

The company shifted its focus after seeing greater interest from investors in non-hormonal birth control for men.

“The idea of moving to a male method actually fits within the scope of that original mission, because we still believe that we may be able to decrease the hormonal burden on women,” Bakshi said. 

Looking forward, the team is cautiously optimistic. As the first drug of its kind to complete a controlled clinical trial, YCT-529 may face regulatory challenges while it continues blazing the path for other non-hormonal male contraceptives, Georg said. 

There is also evidence that drug development in the U. S. has slowed down after the recent mass layoffs at the Food and Drug Administration. 

“We will continue to do research … and continue moving it forward,” Bakshi said.