Professor who pushed for UI Center for Intellectual Freedom to lead it as interim

IOWA CITY — With the governor’s signature now on a bill requiring the University of Iowa to create a new Center for Intellectual Freedom, the Board of Regents has proposed the conservative UI professor who advocated for the center’s creation to serve as its interim executive director.

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“The imbalance is very, very strong … this is a fact you cannot dispute,” UI economics professor Luciano I. de Castro told lawmakers during a February hearing on political bias in academia and the need for an intellectual freedom center on his campus. “Most, but not all, professors are left-leaning. And this has implications.”

Regents next week will consider approving de Castro as interim executive director of the new UI Center for Intellectual Freedom “for a term to commence immediately and conclude upon the appointment of a permanent executive director.”

The bill requiring the center mandates UI establish no later than Dec. 31 an advisory council responsible for conducting a national search for a permanent executive director. The council, per the new law, must bring finalists to the Board of Regents — which will have the final say on an appointment.

“To facilitate the initial establishment of the center and provide interim assistance, the board office proposes the appointment of an interim executive director,” according to de Castro’s proposed appointment, noting he has “agreed to serve as interim director for the center while the national search is being conducted for the permanent director.”

‘Sole and exclusive authority’

The director — who’ll be eligible for tenure — will have the “sole and exclusive authority” to recruit, hire, and terminate center staff. They must conduct a study to “determine course demand and the number of faculty required to meet any unmet needs of the center.” And the director will be authorized to invite guest speakers to campus.

Given the center’s standing as an “independent academic” unit, its director will report straight to the Board of Regents — rather than to UI President Barbara Wilson or any college dean.

Its charge is to “conduct teaching and research in the historical ideas, traditions, and texts that have shaped the American constitutional order and society.” The center also should “expand the intellectual diversity of the university's academic community,” foster civic engagement among faculty and students, and coordinate with similar centers at Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa.

“The center affirms the value of intellectual diversity in higher education and aspires to enhance the intellectual diversity of the university,” according to bylaws legislators baked into code, which they said “shall take precedence over any other requirements in the bylaws.”

“The center affirms a commitment to create a community dedicated to an ethic of civil and free inquiry, which respects the intellectual freedom of each member, supports individual capacities for growth, and welcomes the differences of opinion that naturally exist in a public university community.”

‘Is it possible to do something’

In pushing lawmakers earlier this year to legislate a Center for Intellectual Freedom, de Castro cited a 2020 peer-reviewed study from Boston College associate professor Mitchell Langbert and Sean Stevens, chief research adviser for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

That study — published in academic journals and by the conservative National Association of Scholars education advocacy organization — reviewed registration and donor behavior of 12,372 professors in 116 colleges, taking data from the top two private and top two public universities in the 30 states that collect political registration data, including Iowa.

“Of the 12,372 professors sampled, 48.4 percent are registered Democrats and 5.7 percent are registered Republicans, a ratio of 8.5:1,” according to the study, which contrast that with Gallup polling of Americans’ party affiliation — showing an even 28 percent-to-28 percent divide between Democrats and Republicans in 2024, with 43 percent identifying as Independent.

That 2020 campus data was less lopsided than in 2018, when researchers looked at the highest-ranked institutions nationally, "in which partisan affiliation is the most skewed.“

“The institutions in this study are the most elite in each state, but they are not in all cases the most elite nationally,” according to the research.

Evaluating the 141 UI faculty included in the study, 91 were Democrat and eight were Republican, for an 11:1 ratio. Assessing their political donations, 31 made at least one Democratic donation and one made a Republican contribution, for a ratio of $42 to $1.

Of 142 Iowa State University faculty, 66 were Democrat and six were Republican, for an 11:1 ratio. Data showed 23 Democratic donations and two Republican contributions, for a $7 to $1 dollar ratio.

“It’s difficult to change from the outside because professors complain about interference in academic freedom,” de Castro said in promoting the new school in February. “Administrators say that you cannot meddle in the internal affairs of the university. So it's very hard to overcome all this resistance.

Asking, “Is it possible to do something?” de Castro said, “Yes, and the answer is exactly what you have in front of you.

“You have proposed creating this school. And I say that's exactly the answer to this.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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