Iowa university DEI offices now closed

In a national racial reckoning that was revived more than a decade ago when a Black teenager named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed near Orlando, then-Iowa State University President Steven Leath in 2014 shared findings and recommendations from his campus’ “most comprehensive diversity study ever.”

One recommendation urged ISU to distribute “diversity resources” across its colleges and administrative units, allowing them to meet their “diversity goals.” Another recommended investing in a chief diversity officer — which Leath did in 2015, hiring ISU’s first-ever vice president for diversity and inclusion.

Reginald Stewart, earning $215,250 in that role his first year, developed initiatives to boost diversity through recruitment and retention of faculty, staff and students, among other things.

Recommended reversal

But nearly a decade after Leath’s actions, successor ISU President Wendy Wintersteen is facing new recommendations — or rather, directives — from the Board of Regents and state lawmakers likely to reverse, reduce or review the results from that earlier movement.

“Restructure the central, universitywide (diversity, equity, and inclusion) offices to eliminate any DEI functions that are not necessary for compliance or accreditation,” is the first of 10 mandates the regents issued last fall in response to lawmaker concerns that Iowa’s public campuses are overspending on diversity.

“The Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was established in 2015 to serve as a central resource, provide advice, and collaborate across campus, the community and higher education organizations,” Wintersteen said in April. “In response to the board’s directive, we will be closing the office in July.”

  Buy Photo

On July 22, ISU officially closed its DEI office, university spokeswoman Angie Hunt said. The closure cut five positions, although only two of those posts were filled at the time.

“University human resources provided assistance to the two employees affected by the office closing, in line with the university’s reorganization policy,” Hunt said. “One employee applied for and was hired for an opening in another unit on campus. One employee was laid off.”

In addition to the regents’ 10 directives, legislators this spring passed a measure baking into law many of the board mandates and others, adding in repercussions for violations. The law bars the universities from having DEI offices, having DEI-specific employees and spending money on DEI — except as required by law or for accreditation.

“Any person may notify the attorney general of a public institution of higher education’s potential violation,” according to the new law.

‘This woke agenda’

Before this year’s legislation, which regents had hoped to head off with their own directives, came lawmaker questions warning of DEI mandates — like in 2021, when lawmakers asked universities how they “empirically measure the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives?”

In 2023, the questions got more specific — asking how many DEI or social justice staffers each university employed and how much they were paid. Reporting that some earned a quarter-million dollars a year, the campuses combined in fiscal 2024 paid $13.3 million in DEI-related staffing and compensation.

That included $6.1 million to 61 DEI-related employees at the University of Iowa; $5.2 million across 56 positions at ISU; and $1.9 million for 25 jobs at the University of Northern Iowa, according to a November 2023 Legislative Services Agency report.

  Buy Photo

“For too long, the DEI bureaucracies at our institutions of higher education have been used to impose ideological conformity and promote far left political activism … all while spending literally millions in the process,” Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, said in 2023 in proposing legislation to halt the DEI practices. “They push this woke agenda on faculty. They push it on staff. But most importantly, they push on the students.”

The regents — reliant on state appropriations to run their three campuses — responded to the criticism by appointing a working group to study DEI efforts and compile a list of recommendations.

In addition to restructuring DEI offices to eliminate unnecessary functions; cutting DEI positions not required for compliance or accreditation; and reviewing DEI services to ensure they’re available to everyone, the board barred race or other class characteristics from being considered in student admissions.

It required the campuses to make sure none in their community had to submit any form of a DEI statement — like as part of an application process — or share their preferred pronouns.

And, among other things, it urged the universities to explore recruitment strategies to increase intellectual and philosophical diversity on campus.

“Iowa State has developed recruitment strategies for advancing the diversity of intellectual and philosophical perspectives in faculty and staff applicant pools by advertising some positions in publications that attract intellectually and philosophically diverse audiences,” Hunt told The Gazette of its work on that mandate. “One example of this effort — we advertised the job posting for our next senior vice president and provost in both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.”

Other summer steps

After ISU’s first Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Stewart left three years ago, the campus launched a national search that landed Sharon Perry Fantini as a successor in December 2021.

With the regent directives looming and her $249,602 salary among those cited in lawmaker critiques, Fantini left ISU in October. Associate Provost for Faculty Dawn Bratsch-Prince filled in on an interim basis until the office’s closure this month — during which time ISU reviewed 67 DEI-related jobs to ensure compliance.

“In four cases, business titles were changed to more appropriately reflect the work being done,” Hunt said. “There was one position where DEI duties were removed from the job profile.”

UNI, like ISU, this summer eliminated entirely its Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice — which UNI President Mark Nook earlier this year said “has been and is an important part of the UNI experience for many of our students.’

“The services provided by that department have now been incorporated into a restructuring of our Division of Student Life,” UNI spokesman Pete Moris said. “As of July 1, the Office of Compliance & Equity Management has been organized as the Office of Civil Rights Compliance.”

Leah Gutknecht, formerly head of the equity management office earning $140,301 a year, has the new title of assistant to the president for compliance and equity management & Title IX officer.

Chiquita Loveless, who had been director of diversity, inclusion and social justice, now serves as assistant dean of students-family and military programming, making $79,000 a year.

The University of Iowa did not shutter its central DEI office but instead expanded its focus to “represent a broader framework,” changed its structure, and gave it a new name: Division of Access, Opportunity and Diversity.

“I think this is an opportunity for us, as we think about what we’re supposed to be doing at a university,” UI President Barbara Wilson told regents in April. “We are supposed to be bringing students from all backgrounds, all walks of life together and help them coexist and work together, not avoid each other, when they encounter differences.”

Liz Tovar, who previously led the UI’s DEI division earning $265,300 a year, now holds the title of executive officer and associate vice president of the renamed division. The university aims by Oct. 1 to have all positions reviewed and the new structure finalized.

“The task force identified 77 DEI positions of any full-time equivalent percentage related to DEI work,” according to a UI update. “The preliminary review indicates that all positions readily map to accreditation criteria or apply to student or employee support functions. However, many job descriptions, roles, and responsibilities need to be adjusted.”

As part of the restructuring, five UI positions were eliminated — saving $368,656, which will be “redeployed to initiatives focused on student success.”

“Details are still being finalized,” UI officials told The Gazette.

Athletics and DEI

The three campuses athletics departments, which are not immune from the legislative and board mandates, also long have had diversity-related services and staffers — and have imposed changes.

UNI Athletics still hosts a website of “diversity and inclusion” resources. And UI Athletics also still has a DEI site, featuring Lorenda Holston as its assistant athletics director of DEI.

That department — which has been the target of race-related lawsuits and settlements costing millions — touts its mission to foster “the advancement and respect for diversity, equity, and inclusion for all student-athletes, coaches, and staff.”

That includes recruiting and retaining academically and athletically talented student-athletes from underrepresented groups; seeking a diverse candidate pool for all staff positions; and increasing opportunities for underrepresented student-athletes, coaches and staff to assume leadership roles and higher visibility functions.

When asked about UI Athletics, campus officials confirmed, “Lorenda Holston is still in that position. Campus (human resources) is reviewing DEI job descriptions with a completion date of this fall.”

ISU told The Gazette its Cyclones athletics department doesn’t have a DEI division or staffers.

In addition to nixing its campuswide DEI office, ISU swapped its diversity website with one touting the university’s 20-year-old “Principles of Community.” Those were developed by student leaders in 2005 after someone spray-painted “hateful homophobic, sexist and antisemitic messages on numerous campus buildings.”

Former ISU President Gregory Geoffroy formally approved those six principles in 2007 and Leath reintroduced them in 2016 “during the charged political environment of that fall’s presidential race.”

With another charged election underway, ISU again is promoting the principles — including in its company profile for job applicants the following sentence: “The university has an expectation that all employees will demonstrate a contribution to diversity and inclusion as embodied in Iowa State University's Principles of Community.”

They include:

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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