Iowa Regents ignore pleas for more changes to new policy preventing ‘indoctrination’

On the eve of a Board of Regents vote to change its academic freedom and class content policies to satisfy legislative concerns about “indoctrination,” the national Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression — or FIRE — reached out with a plea.

“The proposal’s problematic language will make faculty think twice before teaching established concepts to their students, imperiling academic freedom in the process,” FIRE program counsel Ross Marchand wrote to the board in an Aug. 11 letter obtained by The Gazette. “FIRE calls on the Iowa Board of Regents to revise this proposed language to affirm that professors have wide latitude to teach their subject without fear of administrative sanction.”

Leading up to the board’s 8-1 approval of the policy changes on Aug. 12, the University of Northern Iowa’s United Faculty union and Iowa State University’s American Association of University Professors chapter also wrote the regents, imploring them to further delay their vote on the policy update.

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Despite the groups’ appeals, suggested edits, and offers to help find “a better way to address indoctrination,” the board moved forward as planned with near-unanimous approval of the policy changes — save the board’s sole Democrat regent Nancy Dunkel.

“We want topics taught with balance,” Regent Robert Cramer told Republican lawmakers in a July email about the board’s decision to reconsider its original policy proposal in June to ban the universities from requiring courses that have substantial DEI- and CRT-related content — unless a faculty member applied for and received an exception.

“I’m not afraid of whacko wokeness if my conservative views are presented as well,” Cramer said. “I’m confident our values can prevail if presented fairly. So we’re trying to craft a policy on how things are presented instead of banning certain topics.”

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But even after the board swapped its earlier proposal with one focused on “how” instructors teach instead of what they teach, faculty and advocacy groups in August voiced concern.

“The proposed policy, as written, will be an impediment to designing courses that best serve our students’ needs,” ISU-AAUP President and teaching professor Cullen Padgett Walsh wrote to the board on behalf of his group Aug. 8. “Furthermore, it risks interfering with academic freedom.”

‘Such a quagmire’

Given the widespread criticism of its earlier proposal, the board spent June and July mulling changes behind the scenes, according to emails obtained by The Gazette. That backroom debate included pressure from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

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Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, for example, laid out the corner regents were painting themselves into with the proposed policy — potentially resulting in dozens if not hundreds of policy-exception applications in fields outside their areas of expertise, with each decision to approve or deny inviting legislative inspection and critique

“If you put the June 11 version of the proposed policy in place, then every course topic that touches on racism, sexism, social justice, oppression, etc., etc. in every required course at all three of the universities could be kicked up to the board for a decision,” Quirmbach wrote. “Do you really want to dive into such a quagmire?”

The board seemed to take Quirmbach’s suggestion to “focus on delivery, not content.”

“The central problem I see with the June 11 version of your proposed solution is that it focuses on content, when the problem is really delivery,” Quirmbach wrote in his June 26 letter. “Your proposal seeks to exclude certain topics rather than improving how those topics are presented.”

That would be problematic for a number of reasons, he said, including that regents had purported to be concerned with “indoctrination” from both the left and the political right.

“Your proposed policy addresses only two specific content areas, (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and (critical race theory), both normally associated with the left,” Quirmbach wrote. “Your proposal fails to include any from the right. This asymmetry casts doubt on the evenhandedness of your approach and raises suspicions as to whether you may in fact be ‘trying to push an agenda ourselves’.”

Months before the board brought forward the proposed policy change in June attacking DEI and CRT content, Republican lawmakers sponsored a bill “prohibiting certain requirements for students and faculty on regent institutions relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion and critical race theory.”

That measure — which did not survive the legislative funnel — included language the board’s proposed policy echoed.

“The board shall establish a policy that ensures that public institutions of higher education do not require or constrain students to enroll in a diversity, equity, inclusion, and critical race theory-related course in order to satisfy the requirements of any academic degree program, including general education, major, minor, or certificate requirements,” the text of the bill read.

‘Not always fun’

In scrapping entirely the DEI/CRT-specific policy — and swapping it with proposed additions to existing academic-freedom and class-content policies requiring faculty present information “in a manner that fosters critical thinking and avoids indoctrination of one perspective” — the board seemed to acknowledge Quirmbach’s concerns.

But the time board staff took to make the changes — delaying an original plan to come back with revisions in July until mid-August — irked some Republican lawmakers, who reached out to apply pressure.

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“I am deeply disappointed to see that the regents have once again delayed a policy on (DEI) and (CRT),” Rep. Jason Gearhart, R-Strawberry Point, wrote in an email to the board July 24. “As an elected official in Iowa, I can tell you that we have heard from a significant number of Iowans on this topic. These citizens want DEI and CRT removed from the education system, including the regent universities.

“While these voices may not be the ones showing up with protest signs, they are the ones paying taxes to support these institutions and sending their children with the hope of receiving a quality education — not an ideology that is unrelated to their chosen field of study.”

Addressing the criticism regents received to their initial policy proposal, Gearhart said, “During the last session, we encountered thousands of people at the Capitol, who were shouting obscenities in our faces.”

“Although it wasn’t pleasant, it did not deter us from doing our job,” he wrote. “I expect the regents to likewise perform their duties in this manner.”

He and other Republican lawmakers who wrote the board in July — like Rep. Craig Williams, R-Manning, and Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison — threatened to bring the issue back up next session if the board doesn’t “get it done.”

“Thank you for your service to the state,” Williams wrote. “It’s not always fun.”

Regent Cramer in his reply — copying dozens of lawmakers — concurred with that sentiment.

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“The majority of the board agrees that the indoctrination of these ideas does not belong at our universities,” Cramer wrote. “We appreciate the Legislature’s patience as we’re trying to do more than just mandate from the top what is taught in the classroom.”

The board, he said, is “trying to change a culture.”

Didn’t respond

Under the revised — and now approved — policy change, Iowa’s public university faculty can teach controversial subjects, when relevant, but must present them “in a manner that fosters critical thinking and avoids indoctrination of one perspective.” They also must encourage open and respectful inquiry, reflect a range of scholarly views, and ensure student grades reflect mastery of course content — not agreement with it.

But even the revised version, focused less on specific topics and more on delivery, raised red flags for academic freedom among the faculty and free speech groups in August.

FIRE, for example, worried faculty will feel pressure to spend valuable class time teaching beyond the scope of the class — to include all schools of thought in, say, a Keynesian economics courses or one on Eastern religions.

“To demonstrate just how great the political scope of this requirement is, an astronomy professor could feel pressured to acknowledge debate — however minimal — over whether the U.S. landed on the moon,” according to the FIRE letter.

UNI’s United Faculty letter raised questions about definitions and how faculty are supposed to comply without more clarity.

“Who determines what is controversial?” United Faculty President Christopher Martin wrote in the letter, quoting concerns aired by fellow faculty members.

“Who gets to determine what is ‘indoctrination’,” Martin wrote, quoting another faculty.

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Martin on Wednesday told The Gazette the board didn’t respond to United Faculty’s letter.

“It doesn’t look like there were any changes due to our letter,” he said, but added, “The policy changes are an improvement to what the (board) had proposed earlier, which — in effect — called for bans on more than a dozen academic topics and would have been disastrous to thousands of students academic programs across the three regents universities.”

FIRE Director of Policy Reform Laura Beltz also said the board didn’t reply to her organization’s appeal.

“While we were glad to see that the language that was originally proposed for this policy was rescinded, the revised language that was adopted by the board could still be applied to restrict faculty members’ academic freedom rights,” she said. “The Iowa Board of Regents should abandon this policy and safeguard faculty members’ academic freedom right to determine how to present their course materials.

“FIRE will be watching how this policy is applied in practice.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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