Higher Ed

In a politically-charged higher education climate — including in Iowa, where students are just weeks from returning to campuses under fire for undercover videos attempting to expose gaps in compliance with DEI laws — the Board of Regents on Tuesday approved new policies aimed at avoiding “indoctrination.”

With two University of Iowa employees on leave and under state and UI investigation after discussing in an undercover video campus efforts to skirt new DEI regulations, a third video has emerged — this time of an Iowa State University employee admitting to “finding loopholes in the laws.”

Instead of passing a new policy banning Iowa’s public universities from requiring students to take courses with “substantial” DEI or CRT content to satisfy any major, minor, or certificate, the Board of Regents — facing fierce backlash — has found an “alternative approach” aiming to avoid “indoctrination of one perspective.”

Although the University of Northern Iowa had wanted to offer in-state tuition to both new and returning students from Iowa’s six border states, only freshmen and new transfer students from those neighboring states will get the lower rates – given the limited available funding to support the initiative this year.

UIHC officials in April 2025 announced that the 3 Center inpatient unit — after being closed for many years — would “soon be refurbished and reopened.” The 26-bed unit, officials said, would be dedicated to family medicine — offering acute care for patients and learning opportunities for residents in the “community-based hospital setting.”

After extending her cumulative days in orbit to 695 — more than any other American in space exploration history — Iowa native Peggy Whitson on Friday joined her diverse trio of mission colleagues to discuss their recent privately-funded 20-day expedition covering 8.4 million miles over 320 orbits.

In a campuswide message Thursday in the throes of an unfolding investigation into the University of Iowa’s compliance with new DEI laws, UI President Barbara Wilson stressed her campus “has been working diligently to comply” -- despite comments a UI employee made in an undercover video aired on Fox News.

The University of Iowa has placed on administrative leave an assistant director who in an undercover video aired on Fox News this week described ways her campus is defying and skirting a new state law banning DEI spending and staffing.

Following a contentious discussion about growing university budgets and the process for reviewing and approving them, the Board of Regents on Wednesday OK’d FY2026 budgets while also agreeing to review the numbers and processes going forward in hopes of digging deeper into the expenses and revenues driving the state's public institutions.

A state audit the University of Iowa requested based on suspicions against one of its business-owning doctors in the Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology has turned up more than $300,000 in improper or unsupported spending.

Gov. Kim Reynolds late Tuesday condemned a video she saw on Fox News depicting a University of Iowa employee “who blatantly admits to defying DEI restrictions I signed into law on May 9, 2024.”

Iowa State University on Tuesday officially launched its search for a new president with a refined position overview and list of expectations, attributes, and qualities infused with the stark reality that higher education is at a crossroads.