Iowa universities exit national diversity partnership after lawmaker questions

IOWA CITY — All three of Iowa’s public universities “have ceased participating” in a nationwide initiative to diversify corporate America by increasing the diversity of business school faculty after a Republican lawmaker and head of the House higher education committee brought the issue to the Board of Regents.

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“Is that true?” Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, last week asked the regents’ chief government relations officer Keith Saunders about the public universities’ participation in The PhD Project — which since 1994 has helped more than 1,500 students who identify as racial or ethnic minorities earn a doctoral degree, among other things.

“Thank you for bringing this to our attention,” Saunders responded to Collins on Monday — a week later. “All three universities have ceased participating in this initiative and conference.”

Collins’ question came after The PhD Project’s annual conference — upcoming in March — recently fell under the critical microscope of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, thanks to chatter on social media.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo — behind an “abolish DEI” campaign — reported last week on X that Texas A & M University was sponsoring a trip to a “DEI conference that prohibits whites and Asians from attending,” despite a Texas ban on DEI spending at its public universities.

Author and retired Army colonel Kurt Schlichter then shared that post with Gov. Abbott and asked, “Is my newly adopted state gonna put up with this crap?”

“Hell no,” Abbott responded on X. “It’s against Texas law and violates the U.S. Constitution. It will be fixed immediately or the president will soon be gone.”

Since sharing that exchange with Iowa’s Board of Regents and asking about its campus participation, The PhD Project has removed Iowa State and the Universities of Iowa and Northern Iowa from its list of partners — where on Jan. 14 they appeared, according to the internet archive.

Five University of Texas campuses, Texas A & M University, and Texas Tech University also appeared on the list of campus partners last week — where this week they’re gone.

The PhD Project — characterizing itself as a “systemic diversity initiative that encourages Black/African Americans, Latinx/Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans to pursue PhD's in business” — annually holds an “invitation-only conference for historically underrepresented minority students and professionals considering business doctoral studies.”

To apply for the all-expenses-paid conference, prospective students “must identify as Black/African American, LatinX/Hispanic American, or Native American/Canadian Indigenous,” according to The PhD Project’s archived website, which since December has been changed to exclude that eligibility description.

The website today indicates the application period is closed.

Thousands spent

Iowa — following Texas’ lead — in the last Legislative session passed a law barring its public universities from spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion-related efforts, offices, staffers, training, or other resources not required for accreditation or by law.

Although the law officially takes effect this coming summer, the Board of Regents made the campuses comply by the end of last year — with each reporting sweeping changes, including office closures, eliminated jobs, and reallocated millions.

Each university is in the process of updating their strategic plans to comply with the new DEI legislation — following the board’s plan update earlier this month.

Neither the board office nor the universities on Tuesday responded to The Gazette’s questions about their membership and participation in The PhD Project — including how long they’ve been involved and how much they’ve paid the organization. Officials with the project also didn’t respond to emailed questions from The Gazette.

But Board of Regents vendor payments reported to the state indicate Iowa State has been paying The PhD Project annually since 2012 — totaling as much as $61,000. UNI lists payments totaling $18,000 going back to 2018. And UI lists at least $10,000 in payments going back to 2020, according to state data.

The project, on its website, lists partnership prices for doctoral-granting institutions at $5,000 for the 2024-25 term or $15,000 for 2024-2027. For non-doctoral granting institutions like UNI, the cost is $3,000 a year or $9,000 for the multiyear package.

Benefits of a partnership include unlimited posting of tenure-track faculty jobs and lecturer positions on The PhD Project’s job board to 1,700-plus underrepresented minority doctoral students and faculty and its more than 7,500 past conference attendees. It also offers universities access to its directory of minority faculty and doctoral students “to be used for faculty recruiting.”

And, among other things, it includes invitations to attend its conferences and hold exhibit space in a university fair during its annual conference.

In the New Jersey-based organization’s 2023 tax filings, it reported 402 minority professionals applied for its two annual conferences in the 2023 budget year, 335 were invited to attend, and 287 actually attended.

Although UI no longer is listed among the group’s university partners, nearly every other Big Ten Conference campus is — including the Universities of Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Southern California, and California Los Angeles.

The only Big Ten campuses not among the list of partners are the Universities of Iowa, Maryland, and Nebraska. The group also boasts several Ivy League partner schools — including Cornell, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com