University of Iowa places on leave employee seen in Fox News video defying DEI law

IOWA CITY — 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.

Drea Tinoco — who began working for UI in 2019 as a residence hall coordinator and advanced to assistant director of Leadership and Student Organization Development in 2022, earning $61,148 today — was put on leave Tuesday evening, officials said.

That’s when Fox News aired the segment showing Tinoco talking to someone apparently filming without her knowledge about how UI is circumventing the law barring diversity, equity, and inclusion-related spending, training, staffing, and other activities.

“We are essentially finding ways to operate around it,” Tinoco told the person taking the video who throughout the three-and-a-half minute clip makes comments and expressions in support of her position and against the DEI regulations.

“Oh no,” he whispered when Tinoco told him her team had been told to wipe DEI from their website.

“Beautiful,” the man said when Tinoco said, “I’m still going to say DEI, I say it in my classes. I don’t care.”

Recommended Reading

Gov. Reynolds condemns UI employee seen on Fox News claiming to defy DEI law

Fox News did not respond to The Gazette’s questions about how and when it got what it characterized on its website as a “new undercover video obtained by Fox News Digital.”

Gov. Kim Reynolds late Tuesday did respond by issuing a statement and filing an official complaint with Attorney General Brenna Bird, who on Wednesday confirmed she’s opened an investigation into allegations UI is violating the Iowa Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Act.

Regents also responded, as did UI President Barbara Wilson.

“The expectations we have for our faculty and our staff are clear and uncompromising,” Wilson said. “If, at any point, we find the policies or laws have been violated, we will take the necessary corrective actions without hesitation.”

During a Board of Regents meeting Wednesday, regent Chris Hensley hinted at threats facing higher education locally and nationally when she told Wilson, “I know it's going to be a difficult time because of all of this.”

“But I also feel very strongly that the way this is handled will really dictate a lot in the future for the University of Iowa,” she said. “So I hope we are as aggressive as we can possibly be in dealing with this.”

Regent David Barker said the Fox News clip “and other reports that we receive were predictable and show that we as a board still have work to do.”

‘Not find ways around it’

In fact, he said, on the eve of Senate File 2435’s July 1, 2025 effective date — having given Iowa’s public universities more than a year to comply with the new law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion-related spending, staffing, or hiring — the board penned a letter to Bird outlining steps taken to bring “all the universities into compliance with Iowa Code Chapter 261J prior to the July 1, 2025 effective date.”

“I objected to President (Sherry) Bates about this statement before the letter went out, saying that we should acknowledge that there will continue to be violations and pledge to address them when we discover them,” Barker said about the terminal line touting compliance.

“No change was made to the letter.”

Provided to The Gazette in response to an open records request, the letter to Bird offered a timeline of steps taken and changes made to bring each campus into compliance.

“The changes included updates to the diversity portion of the general education core at Iowa State University and the University of Iowa,” according to the letter. “These updates took effect at the end of the spring 2025 semester and apply to students enrolling at the universities as of fall 2025.”

The board’s full DEI report issued in November — and linked to in the letter — calculated cut jobs, closed offices, and other changes had allowed more than $2.1 million to be reallocated from DEI to other priorities.

While Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa had closed their DEI offices entirely by that time, UI in the November summary reported instead renaming its revised Division of DEI to the “Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity.”

The university also was maintaining support of three living-learning communities affiliated with race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity — reporting a review found “LLCs do not meet the definition of a DEI office under Iowa law.”

Repeating an update administrators had given months earlier in April 2024, much of the UI work to comply with the board’s DEI directives and new state law was complete.

But Barker expressed skepticism, noting “this report is only the start” and forecasting further changes and challenges to come — with UI in the coming weeks and months compelled to drop its DEI-related LLCs and close entirely its Division of Access, Opportunity and Diversity.

“Promotion of these ideas has been so widespread in university administration that achieving compliance will take a great deal of effort,” he said in November. “Strategic plans still need to be changed, and our presidents need to strongly communicate that they expect our universities to follow the spirit of the law, not find ways around it.”

‘I did not have confidence’

The letter sent to Bird in June highlighted the UI closures, the revamped strategic plans, and the wiping of university websites that Tinoco referenced in her comments on the video.

“President Bates directed the universities to take down all webpages, either current or archived, relating to DEI,” the letter reported — highlighting an ongoing academic program review scheduled for a “full and complete report to the board at the November 2025 meeting.”

The letter highlighted UI’s terminated social justice degree and ongoing efforts to reorganize majors and departments like the Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies Department, the American Studies Department, and the African American Studies Department.

But Barker — on the heels of the letter and the video leaked this week — suggested the board needs to play a bigger role in compliance.

“In some cases, the board needs to take more direct action,” he said, recounting his time chairing the DEI committee that in 2023 recommended DEI programs be eliminated. “Having worked with university administrations on DEI for several months, I did not have confidence that all of them would faithfully execute our directives.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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