University of Iowa to shutter its renamed Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity this month

IOWA CITY — After strident pushback from Republican lawmakers accusing the University of Iowa of falling short of a mandate to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, UI officials announced Thursday plans to shutter its renamed “Division of Access, Opportunity and Diversity.”

“The Iowa Board of Regents has directed the University of Iowa to close the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity (AOD), effective March 27,” according to an update from the UI. “This action will ensure the university is in compliance with state and federal laws as well as recent changes to accreditation requirements across numerous disciplines.”

As a result of the closure, the university will reassign three employees and cut one position, “resulting in a furlough.”

“Since last spring, the university has eliminated 12 full-time positions to comply with Iowa Board of Regents directives and state law,” according to the UI Office of Strategic Communication.

The UI debuted its new Access, Opportunity and Diversity division last year after regents directed all three of the state’s public universities to “restructure the central, university-wide DEI offices to eliminate any DEI functions that are not necessary for compliance or accreditation.”

Such mandates were baked into Iowa law after legislators last session passed a bill barring all DEI-related spending, staffing, training or programming on the campuses. This session, lawmakers have proposed a range of bills going further — including one that would prohibit the campuses from requiring students to take any DEI-related training or classes and from requiring faculty to include it in their curricula.

Additionally, following President Donald Trump’s election, he and federal agencies levied instruction to stop all DEI-related work — threatening to withhold funding to those out of compliance.

Those orders compelled Iowa lawmakers to circle back to the universities and regents about concerns with non-compliance.

“As you know, we have hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money coming down the pike, that if we're not willing to comply, that we're going to miss out on in the state of Iowa,” Republican Rep. Brooke Boden of Indianola told UI President Barbara Wilson and Board of Regents President Sherry Bates during an appropriations committee meeting in February. “So this is a is a major concern for me to still be seeing so much of that out there.”

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Wilson, at that meeting, said her campus feels “as though we have complied with the law” — reporting, “We’ve closed offices, we've gotten rid of every DEI committee in every department across every college.”

“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,” she said, adding, “For us, diversity still matters.”

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“And when I say the word ‘diversity,’ I don't mean just race or gender or sexuality. I'm talking about first-gen students, students from rural communities, students who have different religious backgrounds, students who are in the ROTC, our military veteran students,” she said. “All of those types of students reflect diversity of experience at the University of Iowa. So I can't imagine getting rid of the word diversity, you all.”

But, Wilson conceded, "If you tell me I need to, I will.”

Regent campuses eliminate positions

Last year, following regents directives and legislative mandates, both Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa shuttered their DEI offices entirely — while the UI renamed and reframed its division to “expand the focus of diversity work to represent a broader framework.”

As part of the UI changes, the campus eliminated 11 positions — including six that had been vacant — allowing it to reallocate $868,219 in savings. ISU — which closed its central DEI office and cut five positions — reported reallocating about $789,000. UNI also closed its office and cut five positions, saving $486,144.

Based on campus reports in November, initial savings from DEI cuts reached a total of $2.1 million — even as regents and lawmakers at that time suggested the universities still had a “considerable amount of work to do.”

In reporting the Access, Opportunity and Diversity closure, the UI said it will reassign units within the shuttered division that continue to be required by state and federal law, including:

The training department in the Office of Access and Support — which had remained in the renamed division following the 2024 DEI review — will close March 27.

“The university will review and adjust student support programs to ensure compliance with state law as they transition to University College,” according to the university, which promised continued access to “a range of important services” despite the closures.

Those services include for student organizations and for the University Counseling Service — which, until recently, included among its list of services “trans-inclusive” support and included among its mission values a “commitment to diverse populations.”

“We at UCS see the ways the current political climate has increased acts of racism and oppression across communities, including the UI campus,” the counseling service wrote on its website in 2024, in a message since removed. “We also recognize ways in which the current political climate has increased divisiveness among people. We want you to know that we are available as a resource for you, and we are dedicated to helping foster a climate that is safe for all students on campus and within the community.”

‘The time is now’

The UI division closure comes after regents President Bates in February directed each campus to systematically pull down archived and current DEI-related content from their websites.

That has manifested in dozens of removed news items from the soon-to-shutter UI Division of Access, Opportunity and Diversity website; dead links to transgender services on the University Counseling webpage; and a looming erasure of three UI residence hall living learning communities centered on racial or LGBTQ identity.

“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. “The time is now to make sure we complete our work”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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