Hearing concerns, Iowa regents further delay vote on DEI/CRT policy

IOWA CITY — Having heard from dozens of faculty, staff, students and members of the public — not only in Iowa but across the country — Iowa’s Board of Regents is further postponing its vote on a proposed policy to ban “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “critical race theory” requirements for majors, minors, and certificates.

“This is an important issue, and we have heard people’s concerns,” board President Sherry Bates said in a statement Tuesday, acknowledging the board last month declared intent to review the proposed policy and bring back a revised version in July.

“After numerous thoughtful discussions, we have determined we will not consider the proposed policy at the July meeting,” she said. “We will continue reviewing the feedback, and the board will identify a future meeting to consider this issue.”

But Rep. Taylor Collins — a Republican out of Mediapolis who led the House’s new higher education committee last session and sponsored numerous bills to curb DEI spending — took to social media Tuesday upon hearing the policy would be tabled longer.

“If this policy is not adopted, the House committee on higher education stands ready to act,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

‘Social justice, gender theory’

The proposed policy — which would be numbered 3.23 in the board manual under “academic policies and procedures” — would prohibit Iowa’s public universities from requiring students take classes with substantial DEI or CRT content to satisfy the requirements of any major, minor, or certificate.

The proposed policy defined DEI as instruction on concepts like implicit bias, transgender ideology, microaggressions, group marginalization, anti-racism, systemic oppression, social justice, gender theory, or racial privilege.

It defined CRT as “an academic and legal framework that denotes that systemic racism is part of American society and is embedded in laws, policies and institutions.”

The policy could affect majors and minors like “gender, women’s, and sexuality studies,” or “African American studies,” for example.

‘Those vindictive anti-intellectuals’

And while it carved out a path for an exception — via formal request to the board — dozens pummeled the board with concerns it is violating its own existing academic freedom policies and likely will end up in court.

“Limiting student access to information, whether the members of the board find them unwelcome, disagreeable, offensive, DEI, or CRT is antithetical to the stated goals of Iowa's public universities, suppresses university teachers' rights, and grossly underestimates the intellectual rigor of Iowa universities,” Greta LaFleur, associate professor in the Department of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University wrote to the board on June 11.

Citing the board’s mission statement and existing academic freedom and free speech policies — which read, in part, “It is not the responsibility of the universities to shield individual members of the campus community from viewpoints they may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive” — LaFleur wrote, “Decisions about the content related to course topics have and should remain in the hands of experts: university teachers who are ‘entitled to academic freedom in the classroom in discussing the teachers' course subject’.”

“Unless the board is also willing to amend (its) policy 4.2, policy, 3.10, (its) own mission statement, and all other claims to free inquiry, they must reject policy 3.23.”

Other emailers highlighted the proposed bill from the last Iowa legislative session that the new regent policy echoed — House File 269, which would have required the board establish a policy barring the universities from making students take DEI or CRT courses to satisfy any major, minor, certificate, or general education curricula.

“This policy, a repackaging of failed anti-DEI bills, undermines academic freedom and shared governance,” one student wrote to the board June 5 — according to emails requested by and provided to The Gazette. “The fact that it is being considered before public comment and upon first reading despite substantial faculty, student, and staff opposition to anti-DEI policies is underhanded and incredibly troubling.”

Before changing course and tabling the proposal for what was to be one month, the board initially planned to cast a final vote on the new policy after just one reading — and before hearing public comment, which was scheduled for later in the meeting.

“As regents, you have a responsibility to the interests of the university communities that you represent,” according to that student, whose name was redacted in the email. “That responsibility supersedes those vindictive anti-intellectuals in our Legislature.”

‘Rather foolish’

Other comments shared with the board related to its proposed DEI/CRT policy ranged from calm and meticulous to outraged and blunt.

“This policy risks turning Iowa’s flagship universities into complete and total laughingstocks,” one Iowan wrote to the board June 6. “As if the state wasn’t having a hard enough time attracting and retaining residents.”

A group of 10 UI emeritus professors called on the board to table the “hastily drafted” proposal it said was “unlikely to withstand legal challenge” and is “unnecessary” — given the “seriousness with which our colleagues approach their teaching responsibilities.”

“A fair-minded and evenhanded approach to issues is not just a requirement of the rules,” according to the letter. “In our view, it is a strong cultural norm among Iowa faculty.”

A UI sophomore said “banning necessary cultural competence topics and denying the reality of systemic racism will repel future students” and “exacerbate the intellectual vacuum in Iowa.”

UI statistics professor emeritus Russell Lenth cited — among his arguments of procedure and policy violations — the bad look the new policy will give the board.

“History is filled with many efforts, forwarded by many factions, to restrict curricula from schools, books from libraries, and so forth,” Lenth wrote. “But I do not know of an instance where book banners come out as heroes.“

Referencing proposed legislation in Indiana in 1897 to legislate the value of pi to be 3.2 instead of the “irrational 3.14 …” Lenth said “the people involved looked rather foolish.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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