Watch what you say. CSI DEI is on the case in Iowa

Iowa Republican lawmakers have official stationery and email, and they’re not afraid to use them. Especially when some libs need owning.

State Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, is demanding that Iowa’s three state universities do more to erase the scourge of diversity, equity and inclusion from their campuses. After all, he filed the bill to do just that. The bill became an amendment to a budget bill and was passed in the final hours of the legislative session, when lawmakers are most thoughtful.

The universities have closed DEI offices and sent staff packing, among other efforts mandated by the Republican Legislature and Board of Regents.

For Collins, it’s not enough. And he has informants.

“It is my understanding that (Iowa State University) President Wintersteen criticized the Legislature's actions with regard to DEI at an ISU Alumni Association meeting recently,” Collins wrote in the email to the Board of Regents, according to The Gazette’s Vanessa Miller.

“I do not appreciate it — nor did certain members of the board of directors. If President Wintersteen is interested in setting public policy for the state, then she should run for the Legislature,” Collins wrote.

After all, only the best and the brightest are elected to sit in the Golden Dome of Wisdom, now redder than the glowing embers of a once great state.

“Until then, it is expected that she implements the policy the elected policymakers of this state decide on,” Collins wrote. “Let's make sure this doesn't happen again.”

What if she implements the policy but also points out its problems? Verboten.

The ears and eyes are everywhere. Phones and social media. Maybe even drones. Who knows?

Wendy Wintersteen knows. Loose lips have Republicans running to their keyboards.

Collins has a strong ally on the board, namely Regent David Barker. He donated $11,000 to Collins’ campaign this year.

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

So, if you thought this was all about closing DEI offices, changing plans and other administrative moves, it’s really about banishing “ideas.” The sheer idea of embracing diversity in all its forms and creating a campus culture where everybody gets a fair shot to express their perspectives must be destroyed by any means necessary.

Topics may come up that make Republicans squirm. Systemic racism, privilege, transgender rights, unvarnished history and social justice are now being stashed away in the Republican anxieties closet.

The mere mention of these concepts will land you in hot water, with the regents and their legislative pals sitting in judgment. What a hoot.

Sure, enforcement of DEI concepts has been excessive at times. Republicans complain about campus speech police. Turns out they just want their own speech police.

Then came the election, and the intemperate tweeting of university staff.

Topping the list was the angry doctor, Dr. Mayank Sharma, a member, or former member, of the UI Pediatric Cardiology Fellowship Team who went too far during a Twitter exchange after Donald Trump won the presidency.

Dr. Sharma wrote, ““Well I hope you lose your kid in a school shooting, already you have nothing to lose, it won’t matter to you anyway! Prepare for your kids funeral.”

Yikes. I won’t defend the tweet. It was a stupid thing to do.

Right on cue, state Rep. Carter Nordman sent a letter on legislative stationery demanding that Sharma be fired. Nordman says the tweet runs afoul of administrative rules that prohibit “disruptive, threatening, and contentious behavior” that could affect patient care. Nordman also told university officials they must report the incident to the Iowa Board of Medicine.

I can’t understand how someone making a career out of caring for children would feel so strongly about school shootings. It will remain a mystery.

“I, of course, am no doctor, but Dr. Sharma clearly suffers from ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’,” Nordman wrote, questioning the doctor’s mental health.

We need a second opinion.

Before this, Nordman’s biggest claim to legislative fame was guiding a bill to passage requiring schools to recite the Pledge of Allegiance daily.

Trump has posted so many belligerent threats, insults and harmful pandemic remedies on Twitter it’s tough to keep track. Instead of leveling claims of derangement, the GOP made him president.

More informants sent Republicans the goods. Johnson County Republicans reported a rhetoric instructor who prepared a slide that said, “We elected a rapist, convicted criminal, racist, + anti-environmentalist to presidential office. Now what?”

“University teachers shall be entitled to academic freedom in the classroom in discussing the teachers’ course subject but shall not introduce into the teaching controversial matters that have no relation to the subject,” the Board of Regents academic freedom policy states.

Also, “University faculty are also citizens. When they speak or write as citizens, they shall be free from institutional censorship or discipline. They shall remember that the public may judge their institution by their public utterance. Thus, they shall make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution,” the rule says.

But it’s clear there’s also an unwritten rule prohibiting teachers from uttering the forbidden DEI ideas or any criticism of lawmakers or the Board of Regents.

Why would university faculty be so concerned about Trump’s win? Well, if he follows the Project 2025 blueprint, federal funding will be snatched from colleges, curriculum will be edited to take out all the liberal parts and the current accreditation process will be scrapped. It’s also too liberal. Oh, yeah, and the U.S. Department of Education will be eliminated.

That’s just a few of the anticipated changes.

So, if all of this concerns you, grab a piece of stationery and write a letter to lawmakers explaining your objections. Then toss it into the fire. They’re not listening.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com