Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom is a political sham

For a very long time, conservatives have been accusing academia of making universities liberal bubbles.

They assailed rigid speech rules, bristled at the notion you can’t be a true intellectual unless you adhere to liberal ideals, decried programs run entirely by liberal academics and argued campuses are hostile toward their ideas.

Some of it’s fair, some overwrought.

You might think the solution would be to create an atmosphere where conservative and liberal ideas would both be taken seriously. It could foster a true contest of ideas, fought with sound arguments and facts. Substantive friction between competing views could spark spirited debates benefiting students.

And you’d be wrong.

In Iowa, the solution is building a conservative bubble. One where the only intellectuals are conservative, the only ideas with merit are conservative, programs are run by conservatives and hostility against liberals is turned up to 11.

We don’t need a contest of ideas because they’ve already won. Just ask them.

The bubble is Iowa’s new Center for Intellectual Freedom. It was dropped into the middle of the University of Iowa through an edict from Republican lawmakers, Gov. Kim Reynolds and conservative members of the Board of Regents.

“The Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa opens a bold new chapter in our community as a dedicated hub for exploring the foundational ideas, texts, and traditions that have shaped the American constitutional order and free societies,” according to the center’s website.

Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.

But if you’ve been studying current events, you know legislative Republicans have been targeting any Iowa institution that doesn’t conform to their rigid worldview. Public schools, civil rights, local government and state universities, to name a few.

Nationally, Republicans have declared war on universities, especially if they refuse to bend the knee to the Trump administration and its crusade against diversity. Discrimination against white people is the real problem.

Don’t think it’s a war? Just ask conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who was invited to the center’s very first “Own the Libs Festival” at the Old Capitol in Iowa City last weekend.

OK, I made the name up, but it feels right.

Rufo is very, very against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

“I think the president to this day still retains all remedies up to and including parachuting in the 101st Airborne if these universities continue to discriminate on the basis of race, scapegoat students on the bases of race and segregate students on basis of the race,” Rufo said in a September interview published by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Inside the Old Capitol, Rufo blamed liberals for the nation’s problems. He, for example, blames “cultural nihilism” spawned by academia for the murder of conservative activist Charlie Cook.

“This is something that we can’t blame on mental illness,” said Rufo, according to The Gazette’s Vanessa Miller, who was on the scene.

“This is someone who was ill-served by the institutions around him. This is someone who was wrapped up in ideologies, particular transgender ideology. This is someone who, from the discourse in the digital world in particular, had absorbed the idea that it was OK to kill because of a difference of opinion.”

“These ideas don't come from nowhere.”

Umm, liberal universities?

The fact Rufo was handed a microphone at the center’s first event speaks volumes about the true intent of this endeavor.

The center’s advisory board looks like a convention of conservative academics from around the country, as well as former Republican politicians. The overwhelmingly conservative Board of Regents is in charge. The University of Iowa can remain silent.

“We look forward to seeing the University of Iowa's Center for Intellectual Freedom become a model for the country, an example of what happens when an American university takes seriously its highest call — to pursue the truth without intimidation, without exclusion, and without apology,” said former regents member David Barker who now serves as an assistant secretary for postsecondary education in the Trump administration.

Apparently, the road to truth is all right turns. Who knew?

There were some war stories from the higher education trenches.

State Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis and chair of the House Higher Education Committee, recounted a fateful winter walk.

“So, I think it was December or early January of this year that I went across the sidewalk here at the president's office, and I said, ‘This is going to happen.’ I gave her a fair warning, and we started moving through the process,” Collins said describing his efforts to eliminate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Rufo is a key player in the takeover of New College in Florida by conservatives who converted it into what he calls “a classical American university.”

Rufo said he asked a gender studies faculty member at the school what’s the difference between a man and a woman?

“And she's hemming and hawing. And I said, ‘Hey, look. We require a basic level of academic rigor, and if you can’t tell the difference between a man and a woman, I'm not sure we're making the cut here,’” Rufo recalled.

Dude, sick burn. Fist bump?

The New College offensive was directed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. So, Reynolds is on board here in Florida North.

“This launch isn't just an opportunity to protect freedom of speech, it's a chance to lead America in the exchange of ideas, to further the mission of our state's oldest university, and to celebrate the history of our country,” Reynolds said at the event. “Because self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated. It's why this center is so important.”

It's easy to see the only acceptable free speech will be conservative diatribes. The ideas exchanged likely will be the sort of grievances heard in the Old Capitol. The only history being celebrated will be steeped in lily white truthiness.

You think liberal academia is bad? Conservative academia has given us the Trump agenda with its wide array of frightening, autocratic features. Is this our “bold new chapter?” Is it a problem that our most important foundational text is being shredded? Can we let masked agents grab people off the street and still be a free society?

Will next year’s festival be in the White House ballroom?

These are questions I hope the center can explore in its quest for truth. But I fear the answers might burst their bubble.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com