Iowa State, UNI closing DEI offices after regent directives, legislation

AMES — In response to 10 directives the Board of Regents handed down in the fall to curtail diversity, equity and inclusion spending and programming across its public universities, presidents of all three campuses Thursday detailed the changes underway — including the permanent closure of Iowa State University’s Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office.

“We will eliminate essentially five positions — two positions that are currently filled and three vacant positions,” ISU President Wendy Wintersteen said of the closure planned for July, in response to the first regent directive to restructure central DEI offices.

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“At this time, we don't feel that we can meet directive one without closing the central Vice President for Diversity Equity inclusive office,” Wintersteen said, reporting the cut will save $789,000 — to be redirected to “university priorities.”

“Our staff have been given a 90-day notice, and they will work with the university HR through this process,” Wintersteen said of the employees losing their jobs.

University of Northern Iowa President Mark Nook also announced his campus is eliminating its Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice office, “which has been and is an important part of the UNI experience for many of our students.”

“Because this office has served many students on our campus, we are creating new front line student-serving positions to expand our direct-to-student services for the entire UNI student population,” Nook said.

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The University of Iowa reported it too is cutting five DEI-associated positions — saving about $360,000 in salaries and benefits. But, instead of eliminating its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion division, UI President Barbara Wilson said her campus will rebrand it to reflect a revised focus on accreditation, compliance, and broad access.

“It will be called the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity,” which will oversee two new offices: the Office of Access and Support and the Office of Civil Rights Compliance, Wilson said. "We have 30 accreditation bodies that we have to respond to in order to comply with all of the requirements that we have.“

But regent David Barker said the campus cuts and restructuring might be too little, too late — as lawmakers have codified their own DEI directives in a bill that’s making its way to the governor’s desk.

“It was five months ago that we put out the directives, and we've been given no feedback and had no updates during that time,” Barker said to the university presidents. “That meant that we were unable to update legislators as well, who had asked about progress. And I believe that that is a reason why Senate File 2435 was passed.

“So my first question is, are you getting to prepared for Senate File 2435 — because that is broader in many ways than the directives?” Barker asked.

‘My read is different’

SF 2435 uses a sweeping definition of diversity, equity and inclusion to bar any public university from spending any money to establish a DEI office, hire DEI-associated employees, or provide DEI programming that’s not required by law or for accreditation.

It prohibits the universities from compelling anyone to provide a DEI statement or from giving preference to anyone based on any DEI statement. And it requires the universities annually to submit a report to lawmakers and the governor affirming their compliance.

The bill allows anyone to notify the attorney general about a potential violation — and it allows the attorney general to bring action against the campuses.

“Senate File 2435 makes a lot of our directives irrelevant,” Barker said. “There's a much broader definition of DEI in there, much stronger enforcement coming from the Attorney General's Office, prohibitions of money being spent from any source on these programs. And so my suggestion is that we begin working on compliance with that right away.

“I think it would be a good idea if we could be in compliance with that before the next legislative session opens. Again, it's very different than our original directives.”

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UI President Wilson — after reporting on reviews of her campus’ colleges, departments, courses, and hiring practices — told Barker she disagreed the efforts to date have fallen short of the legislation.

“I'm not a lawyer … but I think much of what we're doing is in the spirit of the law, frankly,” Wilson said. “The law does acknowledge we have accreditation issues that we need to comply with, that we have federal and state laws that we need to comply with. And I think there's some recognition that it's more complicated than it looks at first blush.

“So while I wish, too, that we didn't have laws in front of us, and that the board directives would have been given more opportunity to unfold, I think we shouldn't jump to conclude anything about whether we're in compliance with the law,” Wilson said. “My read is different than yours on that front.”

Barker responded by clarifying his own statements.

“I don't want any of my comments to be interpreted as critical of any legislation that's come out,” he said. “That's others’ job to legislate; ours to comply with. I agree with President Wilson's comment that it would be great to work together to understand this legislation and comply with it. I think we could do more to work together on this than we've done over the last five months.”

After the regents meeting, Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, who served as chair of the House Education Subcommittee, applauded the moves by Iowa State and UNI but said the UI efforts were inadequate.

“The closure of these ideological enforcement centers at Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa are a positive step forward in returning the focus of our institutions of higher education back to the pursuit of academic excellence, and most importantly — merit,” he said in a statement.

“The University of Iowa may think they can slap a different name on these bureaucracies, but after the passage of Senate File 2435, they are wrong. I have already been in contact with Attorney General (Brenna) Bird's office to ensure these offices are shuttered once and for all.”

UI program will teach respectful disagreement

Among the educational pieces each campus is rolling out in response to regent and lawmaker demands is a UI “civic dialogue initiative” in its residence halls aimed at encouraging students to do more listening and respectful disagreeing.

“This initiative will really get students to think about how do you come to the table? How do you listen to others who are different from you? How do you find common ground? How do you stay curious instead of judgmental? How do you disagree respectfully?” Wilson said. “I think these are skills we all could use these days.”

The initiative, in its pilot version next fall, will work as a sort of “field experiment” where some residence hall floors will get the opportunity to learn these skills and some floors won’t.

“And we're going to measure all kinds of outcomes, including roommate disagreements and all sorts of things that we could maybe do better on,” Wilson said. “I think if we can show with data that this works, then this is just the beginning.”

Acknowledging, perhaps, that the universities homed in too tightly on specific aspects of their campuses’ diversity, Wilson said the goal of this DEI reimagining is to acknowledge the many ways their students, staff and faculty are diverse and support a campus that welcomes everyone.

“Our goal is to find places and spaces for all students and recognize that people are really complicated,” she said. “And what we want to do is say you're all welcome.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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

Tom Barton of The Gazette Des Moines Bureau contributed.