Brooklyn Draisey is a Report for America corps member covering higher education for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.
The Iowa Board of Regents is working with board staff and state universities to analyze diversity, equity and inclusion programs and positions and ensure their compliance under a state law set to take effect next summer.
President Sherry Bates said during the September 19 board meeting that she, along with Regents Greta Rouse, David Barker, and JC Risewick started this summer ensuring compliance with both DEI directives put in place by the board and Senate File 2435 at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and University of Northern Iowa.
“These requirements do not take effect until July 1, 2025, however, we have set a deadline of December 31 to complete our work, and I want to reiterate that we will complete our work by December 31,” Bates said.
Passed at the end of the legislative session, Senate File 2435 set the budget for public education in Iowa and codified rules relating to DEI offices and positions at public universities. Under the law, universities cannot create, maintain, or fund DEI offices unless for purposes of compliance with accreditors or state or federal law.
Universities are expected to provide annual reports to the general assembly about their compliance with the law by December 1 each year. The attorney general will handle any potential violations of the law.
The involved board members, alongside board staff and university leaders, reviewed state and federal laws and accreditation standards for the colleges, Bates said, and are now conducting a “unit-by-unit analysis” of DEI programs and positions to identify those required by law or accreditors and those that need another look with the possibility of making changes.
“We are aware there have been instances, events or programs that can be perceived as going too far,” Bates said. “As we learn of them, we review them in the light of the law and address them appropriately. That has been our practice in the past and will continue to be our practice in the future.”
The law defines diversity, equity, and inclusion as “any effort to manipulate or otherwise influence the composition of the faculty or student body with reference to race, sex, color, or ethnicity, apart from ensuring colorblind and sex-neutral admissions and hiring in accordance with state and federal antidiscrimination laws,” as well as efforts to promote special treatment of certain groups based on race, ethnicity or color.
It is also defined as efforts to promote policies, procedures or programming developed or implemented with reference to these demographics and sexuality and gender orientation, along with attempts to put out as an official stance of a university a “particular, widely contested opinion referencing unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, allyship, transgender ideology, microaggressions, group marginalization, antiracism, systemic oppression, social justice, intersectionality, neo-pronouns, heteronormativity, disparate impact, gender theory, racial privilege, sexual privilege, or any related formulation of these concepts.”
Before the legislature passed Senate File 2435, Governor Kim Reynolds mandated the Board of Regents to develop recommendations, later adopted as directives, relating to DEI offices, positions and activities on the university campuses. These included eliminating “unnecessary” DEI offices and positions, ensuring all services are open to all students and examining methods of encouraging diversity of thought and perspective.
In response to the directives, state universities reworked or eliminated their DEI offices and certain positions, as well as rename or otherwise change certain programs.
The board will receive a report on the most recent reviews of university programs and the universities’ status in coming into compliance with the law at its November meeting, Bates said. When asked for additional details on where the teams are at in their review, board spokesperson Josh Lehman said the process is still ongoing and more details will be available at the November meeting.
“This will not be a static effort,” Bates said. “We will continue to ensure we are following the law.”
4 Comments
Trimming the fat
There have been excesses with DEI programs at our universities. The idea that racism can be fought by more discrimination is wrong and does not work. Matt Walsh shows it very powerfully in his latest movie, with a lot of humor.
Our universities have hired an army of DEI “experts” who have been dumbing down curricula and discriminating against males, Asians and whites.
The pendulum always swings back. Time to trim the fat and rediscover the universal truths of Luther King and Jesus. They looked at the person, not the color of the skin.
Karl M Tue 24 Sep 5:39 AM
DEI
I have read several articles discounting the value of DEI training, which describe the training as (I guess) is provided in a corporate setting. That training (I guess) has become a “fly in, spout off, fly off” expensive for office workers. And the criticism is probably merited.
In schools, DEI means something different. It’s a continuation of the kindergarten lesson about keeping your hands to yourself. Or understanding that people’s feelings are important, and being rude or disrespectful to another sis wrong. The grades upward are more sophisticated versions, and in college, it can be a whole range of culture building behaviors and understandings.
Being “colorblind” is an answer some give. But failing to acknowledge another person’s skin tone can be as bad.
Gerald Ott Tue 24 Sep 10:54 AM
Gerald Ott is correct
when he says “failing to acknowledge another person’s skin tone can be as bad.” because sometimes that failure to acknowledge also includes failure to understand why that person thinks as they do. A white person has only a small inkling of what life is like for a person of color.
bodacious Wed 25 Sep 5:48 PM
Bodaliscious, why don’t you talk to them
“A white person has only a small inkling of what life is like for a person of color.”
Here is a scoop, Black persons have all kind of lives, from beautiful to miserable. They despise it when someone claims to know what life is like for persons of color. They are individual persons with their personalities, dreams, talents and weaknesses. Putting all Black people in the same box of “colored people we don’t know what life they have” is silly and racist. Work with them, talk to them, and you’ll get to know them. Jesus treated everyone with love and respect, no matter the status, the gender, the race.
Karl M Thu 26 Sep 6:13 AM