What's really appalling? Iowa leaders' suppression of free speech on campuses

Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash

Gov. Kim Reynolds says she’s “appalled” by a University of Iowa staffer’s videotaped statements about negotiating around the DEI ban the state imposed on universities last month. In a press statement, Reynolds accused the employee of “defying DEI restrictions I signed into law." The staffer’s remarks were leaked and broadcast on Fox News July 2. The governor has turned the matter over to Iowa’s attorney general for investigation.

What’s appalling here isn’t that a university staffer would puzzle over how to do her job in the face of a specious effort by government to impose its political beliefs on academic institutions. It’s that Iowa lawmakers passed a law undoing decades of progress on racial and gender equality by censoring education on it.

Senate File 2435 forbids public universities from teaching about inequities against minority and underserved populations. It also bans efforts at increasing diversity in the sex, race, color or ethnicity, of faculty and students. It outlaws Diversity Equity and Inclusion offices, employees and programs. Related activities or training linked to those issues, or to sexual orientation, are also censored.

And the law forbids promoting “an opinion about unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, allyship, transgender ideology, microaggressions” -- and a slew of other words the bill derisively strings together. OK, intersectionality and heteronormativity are big words some lawmakers may not have encountered before. But denigrating them leads you to wonder - sorry to say – about deficiencies in the politicians’ own higher education.

Or you could put a more cynical interpretation on it. Perhaps these leaders understand knowledge is power. Maybe they fear that by learning more about the roots of inequality, underrepresented groups might lobby for societal changes.

Reynolds noted she had sent the Iowa Board of Regents a letter in January “reminding university representatives to comply, not only with state law, but an executive order signed by President Trump ending implementation of DEI policies at public institutions.”

But Trump’s approach has been nothing if not contradictory. He forbids implementing DEI policies at public institutions but has repeatedly singled out Jewish students as deserving of special protection against bias. He has gone so far as to strip funding from Harvard and Columbia universities because of alleged anti-Semitism in campus protests against Israeli practices toward Palestinians. But he’s said little about the treatment of Palestinians. Trump has booted out migrants and refugees of color, including those legally here, while allowing white South African ones in. The message? Be inclusive toward his chosen groups but exclusionary against others.

Also, how does Iowa’s new law co-exist with, say, Iowa State University’s Free Speech policy which says the university “is committed to the constitutional protections of free expression?” Those are “core values of Iowa State,” it says, “and fundamental to the university’s mission to create, share and apply knowledge to make Iowa and the world a better place.” Or what about the University of Northern Iowa’s Chinese Studies class? Might it be construed as giving China preferential treatment?

Iowa Board of Regents President Sherry Bates on Wednesday called the UI employee’s statements unacceptable, and said any attempt to skirt the law needed to be dealt with swiftly. But how far can the attorney general or Board of Regents go to seek out and punish potential violations of a sweepingly broad law that is itself discriminatory? In fact, the Regents have yet to take a position on a policy in the law allowing public universities to opt out of courses with “significant DEI or CRT (Critical Race Theory) content.” The Board has delayed voting on it after faculty unions and Iowans raised concerns about the vague wording.

Against this backdrop, is it any coincidence that young, educated Iowans are moving out of the state in record numbers? We now have the third highest brain drain in the nation among educated people of 25 to 29 years old, according to the nonpartisan Common Sense Institute of Iowa. In 2024, almost 38% of new college graduates who had career plans planned to leave Iowa. That’s a 14% jump from 2013.

On Iowa Public Radio Wednesday, Talk of Iowa host Charity Nebbe interviewed two young Iowa graduates on their plans. Significantly, each referred negatively to the state’s political bent and lack of appreciation for diversity. A young woman who just got her Master’s in public health from the University of Iowa mentioned the lack of abortion rights and of environmental regulations that have enabled the cancer rate here to skyrocket. “I don’t necessarily feel safe… here,” she said.

A young man with a Bachelor’s in graphic design from Iowa State University said he moved to Minneapolis after the 2024 election because, “I’m a gay man and Iowa has never really felt like a great place to be a queer person.” He said, “To feel safe, I had to leave.”

Asked what might make him want to return, he mentioned environmental progress and “getting a new governor.”

Several callers to the show echoed similar qualms about their state.

Iowa loses about $383,000 in tax revenues for every Iowa-educated person who moves away permanently, according to Ben Murray director of policy and research for the Common Sense Institute. It’s the disregard for progress and diversity that is pushing these two away. Yet instead of heeding their concerns, Iowa’s governor is hell bent on punishing the universities that educated them on diversity.

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