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UI debuts new Civil Rights Compliance website after closing Access, Opportunity, and Diversity division
New site’s focus areas: Sexual misconduct, disabilities, discrimination
Mar. 27, 2025 1:38 pm, Updated: Mar. 27, 2025 11:32 pm
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IOWA CITY — On the day by which University of Iowa officials said they were told to close the campus’ renamed and reformed Division of Access, Opportunity and Diversity — previously its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Division — the university on Thursday closed the division and debuted a new website for its Office of Civil Rights Compliance.
That website — addressing a federal mandate to comply with the Civil Rights Act — replaces what had been the website for its Access, Opportunity and Diversity Division.
That short-lived AOD division was the initial UI response to Board of Regents directives requiring Iowa’s public universities to “restructure the central, universitywide DEI offices to eliminate any DEI functions that are not necessary for compliance or accreditation” and to new legislation imposing the threat of penalty on campuses that establish, maintain or fund a DEI office or DEI employee not required by law or for accreditation.
Both Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa shuttered their DEI offices in response to the regent and legislative mandates, while UI officials pared down their division’s operations and renamed it.
“We feel as though we have complied with the law, and we're working really closely to reduce the number of personnel that we have working,” UI President Barbara Wilson told lawmakers Feb. 24 in response to Republican Rep. Brooke Boden’s accusations of non-compliance.
“We’ve closed offices. We've gotten rid of every DEI committee in every department across every college,” Wilson said at the time. “We have retained a central office, but we've eliminated about 11 positions in that central office, and it's focused primarily on civil rights, access and opportunity programs. … We're working pretty vigorously, I think, to comply with both the state directives and board directives.”
‘Complete our work’
Following pushback at that legislative hearing and comments days later from regents President Sherry Bates urging the campuses to “look again to see if there are additional changes that should be made,” the UI on March 13 announced it would close its newly minted Access, Opportunity and Diversity Division.
In doing so, it would reassign three employees and furlough one — while realigning its Office of Civil Rights Compliance and its TRIO Student Support Services, and eliminating the training department in its Office of Access and Support.
At that time, UI officials said, “The Iowa Board of Regents has directed the University of Iowa to close the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity, effective March 27.”
The board office told The Gazette it did not give the university any additional guidance or have any additional communication, by email or phone call or otherwise, beyond its original directives and Bates’ recent comments — which did not explicitly call for closure of the division by March 27.
“All of us — regents, university administrators, faculty and staff — must examine what we are doing right now and what we will do going forward to ensure that we are following the spirit of the laws and executive orders, not just the words on the paper,” Bates said Feb. 27. “The time is now to make sure we complete our work.”
Board spokesman Josh Lehman told The Gazette to a question of whether an additional phone call was made or email was sent about a directive, “I’m not aware of any other specific communication.”
‘Our Community Cares’
The new UI Civil Rights Compliance website leads with a banner that reads, “Our Community Cares” and text describing the office mission to further the university’s compliance with federal laws like Title IX and the American with Disabilities Act.
“We provide guidance, resources, and support to foster a welcoming, accessible, and respectful campus for all,” according to the website that lists three focus areas.
- Its “sexual misconduct” area focuses on investigating complaints and providing resources and support “for issues related to sexual misconduct and harassment.” The page links to the University Counseling Service, Domestic Violence Intervention Program, UI Police, UI Health Care, Office of the Ombudsperson and Employee Assistance Program. It also takes complaints and fields requests for “supportive measures” like class reassignment, assignment extensions, work adjustment, immigration help, “mutual no-contact directives, among other topics.
- It’s “disabilities” area notes that public entities with 50 or more employees are required to designate at least one employee to coordinate ADA compliance. At the UI, Tiffini Stevenson Earl — who for a time also served as director of equity investigations — is the ADA coordinator. Her key responsibilities include ensuring UI compliance, serving as a referral for services and resources and making determinations about allegations of discrimination and non-compliance.
- It’s “discrimination” area “investigates complaints and provides resources and support for issues related to discrimination, harassment, and bias under Title VI.” That portion of the Civil Rights Act bars “discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.”
Although the UI has dismantled its organizational DEI committees and groups, DEI-related student organizations remain — per a carve out in last session’s legislation. And some of those groups are organizing opposition to the deep DEI cuts.
The UI Cross-Cultural Student Coalition — with a mission to “create space for cross-cultural identities to experience safe and affirming accessibility on and off campus” — this week disseminated a flyer summarizing the changes and issuing a call to action.
“Through their obedience to Republican lawmakers, university admin & regents have betrayed UIowa’s mission as an educational institution,” according to the flyer. “They are not interested in what is best for us.”
Among its specific calls to action, the group is urging students to declare African American Studies as their major or minor — which the university has proposed cutting, collapsing or combining — and enrolling in African American classes.
Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.
Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com
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