Um, you might want to leave that up to the professionals. Just a thought! Nothing like some good old government censorship!:
Two weeks after it launched, the new Iowa House Higher Education Committee has introduced a spate of study bills directed at colleges and universities in the state that would, among other things, further limit diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on campus and impose mandates around what can and should be taught.
The committee, which has no direct counterpart in the Iowa Senate, was formed to deal with proposals “containing significant reforms to Iowa’s higher education system,” House Republican leaders announced, that would turn “higher education system away from ideological agendas” and “back to the pursuit of academic excellence.” Its focus extends beyond the state’s three public universities to include community colleges and private institutions.
Among the 15 higher ed bills introduced in the wave of proposals, House Study Bill 52 would require the University of Iowa to create a new “School of Intellectual Freedom” within its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences — charged with teaching and researching the “historical ideas, traditions, and texts that have shaped the American constitutional order and society.”
House Study Bill 56 would require all three of the public universities to mandate undergraduate students complete an “American history and civil government” course involving the “study of and devotion to American institutions and ideals” and “the basic principles of the United States’ republican form of government.”
That course, described by the bill, would educate students on the history of the U.S. government; landmark Supreme Court cases; and how the U.S. government compares with other forms like communism, dictatorship, oligarchy and autocracy.
The study bills were assigned the same day the House committee heard from an analyst with the Manhattan Institute — a New York-based conservative policy group — who urged lawmakers to get involved in higher ed by, among other things, changing Iowa Code to give them explicit power to add or cut university departments.
“It's crucial in our democratic system of government that the people have some oversight over the programs their taxpayer dollars go to fund — universities are no exception,” said Manhattan Institute policy analyst Neetu Arnold, who lawmakers invited to present following her publication on college spending titled, “Priced Out.”
“Those who would place academic freedom as a shield, not only to protect discussion of ideas but also to prevent democratic oversight, do a disservice both to democracy and academic freedom,” Arnold said. “So what can state legislators do?
“A simple place to start is to conduct an audit of university activities, looking for places where waste and bloat have occurred.”
One of the bills addresses that charge: requiring the Iowa Board of Regents by November to complete a review of all undergraduate and graduate academic programs across its universities.
“The purpose of the review shall be to determine whether and to what extent each academic program aligns with current and future workforce needs in this state,” according to the bill.
Several other bills look to broaden the Legislature’s crackdown last session on diversity, equity and inclusion programming on the regent campuses. One would extend the same DEI restrictions to Iowa’s community colleges, which — like the UI, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa — receive hundreds of millions in state appropriations annually, specifically $235.9 million in general state aid this budget year.
Another would prohibit Iowa’s private colleges and universities from having or staffing a DEI office if they want to maintain access to the Iowa Tuition Grant — to which the Legislature allocated $52.7 million this year for Iowa students attending one of its private institutions.
Any private campus found in violation of the DEI law would have 30 days to correct the problem and document the resolution or lose access to the tuition grant program for the next academic year.
Although lawmakers last year passed the measure barring DEI-related spending, staffing, training and other programming across its regent campuses, House Higher Ed Committee Chair Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, this session introduced another measure that would end certain DEI-related requirements for students and faculty.
For students, the bill would prohibit campuses from making them enroll in DEI or “critical race theory” courses to satisfy degree requirements. For faculty, the bill would restrict an institution from making them participate in any DEI practices or content.
A separate bill addresses general education requirements across the public campuses, listing the categories students must complete courses in — including “western heritage” and “American heritage.”
Western heritage coursework should include western civilization, British literature or Greek philosophy. American heritage courses could range from Iowa history to American government or American literature.
The bill mandates regents ensure general education courses “do not distort significant historical events or include any curriculum or other material that teaches identity politics or is based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States of America or the State of Iowa.”
For years, general education requirements for UI students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have included courses in “diversity and inclusion” and “values and culture.”
“During the fall 2024 semester, two general education requirement areas will be renamed,” according to a UI website. “‘Diversity and Inclusion’ is being renamed ‘Understanding Cultural Perspectives’ and ‘Values and Culture’ is being renamed ‘Values and Society’.”
Courses satisfying the former diversity and inclusion area include “diversity and inclusion in health living,” “race, gender, and sexuality on screen,” and “diversity and power in the U.S.”
In a letter Gov. Kim Reynolds sent Thursday to Iowa’s public university presidents, she noted that while the original DEI-prohibiting state law carved out exceptions for federal and accreditation requirements, that no longer should be an issue with President Donald Trump’s executive order on “illegal discrimination.”
“The executive order recognizes that illegal DEI policies not only violate the text and spirit of our long-standing federal civil rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”
Reynolds said the Trump action should “remove any justification for retaining illegal DEI offices, policies, or staff within your universities.”
And among the new higher ed bills proposed this week is one enabling the universities to sue any accrediting body that punishes them for complying with state law.
Bylaws for the school would require it to:
The bill explicitly states the school could accept and administer private and external donations and gifts — and any money appropriated or donated to it “shall be used only for the direct operation of the school and shall not be used for any indirect costs of the university.”
The school would have at least five tenure-eligible faculty, and faculty “who are not appointed to the school shall have no authority to approve, deny, or modify the terms of appointment of faculty to the school.”
Regents by the end of this year would have to appoint a nine-member “academic council” — including no more than one UI employee — to help choose a “dean of the school” through a nationwide search.
The dean would have “exclusive authority to manage the recruitment and hiring process and to extend offers for employment for all faculty and staff of the school and to terminate employment of all staff of the school.”
The dean — who would report to the UI president — also would have exclusive authority to invite guest speakers to campus.
Two weeks after it launched, the new Iowa House Higher Education Committee has introduced a spate of study bills directed at colleges and universities in the state that would, among other things, further limit diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on campus and impose mandates around what can and should be taught.
The committee, which has no direct counterpart in the Iowa Senate, was formed to deal with proposals “containing significant reforms to Iowa’s higher education system,” House Republican leaders announced, that would turn “higher education system away from ideological agendas” and “back to the pursuit of academic excellence.” Its focus extends beyond the state’s three public universities to include community colleges and private institutions.
Among the 15 higher ed bills introduced in the wave of proposals, House Study Bill 52 would require the University of Iowa to create a new “School of Intellectual Freedom” within its College of Liberal Arts and Sciences — charged with teaching and researching the “historical ideas, traditions, and texts that have shaped the American constitutional order and society.”
Lawmakers float bills on what should be taught on campus
One bill would create a UI ‘School of Intellectual Freedom’
nonpareilonline.com
Lawmakers float bills on what should be taught on campus
One bill would create a UI ‘School of Intellectual Freedom’
House Study Bill 56 would require all three of the public universities to mandate undergraduate students complete an “American history and civil government” course involving the “study of and devotion to American institutions and ideals” and “the basic principles of the United States’ republican form of government.”
That course, described by the bill, would educate students on the history of the U.S. government; landmark Supreme Court cases; and how the U.S. government compares with other forms like communism, dictatorship, oligarchy and autocracy.
The study bills were assigned the same day the House committee heard from an analyst with the Manhattan Institute — a New York-based conservative policy group — who urged lawmakers to get involved in higher ed by, among other things, changing Iowa Code to give them explicit power to add or cut university departments.
“It's crucial in our democratic system of government that the people have some oversight over the programs their taxpayer dollars go to fund — universities are no exception,” said Manhattan Institute policy analyst Neetu Arnold, who lawmakers invited to present following her publication on college spending titled, “Priced Out.”
“Those who would place academic freedom as a shield, not only to protect discussion of ideas but also to prevent democratic oversight, do a disservice both to democracy and academic freedom,” Arnold said. “So what can state legislators do?
“A simple place to start is to conduct an audit of university activities, looking for places where waste and bloat have occurred.”
DEI prohibited
One of the bills addresses that charge: requiring the Iowa Board of Regents by November to complete a review of all undergraduate and graduate academic programs across its universities.
“The purpose of the review shall be to determine whether and to what extent each academic program aligns with current and future workforce needs in this state,” according to the bill.
Several other bills look to broaden the Legislature’s crackdown last session on diversity, equity and inclusion programming on the regent campuses. One would extend the same DEI restrictions to Iowa’s community colleges, which — like the UI, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa — receive hundreds of millions in state appropriations annually, specifically $235.9 million in general state aid this budget year.
Another would prohibit Iowa’s private colleges and universities from having or staffing a DEI office if they want to maintain access to the Iowa Tuition Grant — to which the Legislature allocated $52.7 million this year for Iowa students attending one of its private institutions.
Any private campus found in violation of the DEI law would have 30 days to correct the problem and document the resolution or lose access to the tuition grant program for the next academic year.
Although lawmakers last year passed the measure barring DEI-related spending, staffing, training and other programming across its regent campuses, House Higher Ed Committee Chair Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, this session introduced another measure that would end certain DEI-related requirements for students and faculty.
For students, the bill would prohibit campuses from making them enroll in DEI or “critical race theory” courses to satisfy degree requirements. For faculty, the bill would restrict an institution from making them participate in any DEI practices or content.
A separate bill addresses general education requirements across the public campuses, listing the categories students must complete courses in — including “western heritage” and “American heritage.”
Western heritage coursework should include western civilization, British literature or Greek philosophy. American heritage courses could range from Iowa history to American government or American literature.
The bill mandates regents ensure general education courses “do not distort significant historical events or include any curriculum or other material that teaches identity politics or is based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States of America or the State of Iowa.”
For years, general education requirements for UI students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences have included courses in “diversity and inclusion” and “values and culture.”
“During the fall 2024 semester, two general education requirement areas will be renamed,” according to a UI website. “‘Diversity and Inclusion’ is being renamed ‘Understanding Cultural Perspectives’ and ‘Values and Culture’ is being renamed ‘Values and Society’.”
Courses satisfying the former diversity and inclusion area include “diversity and inclusion in health living,” “race, gender, and sexuality on screen,” and “diversity and power in the U.S.”
In a letter Gov. Kim Reynolds sent Thursday to Iowa’s public university presidents, she noted that while the original DEI-prohibiting state law carved out exceptions for federal and accreditation requirements, that no longer should be an issue with President Donald Trump’s executive order on “illegal discrimination.”
“The executive order recognizes that illegal DEI policies not only violate the text and spirit of our long-standing federal civil rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”
Reynolds said the Trump action should “remove any justification for retaining illegal DEI offices, policies, or staff within your universities.”
And among the new higher ed bills proposed this week is one enabling the universities to sue any accrediting body that punishes them for complying with state law.
‘School of Intellectual Freedom’
Regarding intellectual diversity and Republican lawmakers’ demand it increase across the state’s higher education system, the bill calling for a UI School of Intellectual Freedom goes into detail about what it would teach and how it would be run and led.Bylaws for the school would require it to:
- Educate students “by means of free, open, and rigorous intellectual inquiry to seek the truth.”
- Equip students with the “skills, habits, and dispositions of mind they need to reach their own informed conclusions on matters of social and political importance.”
- Affirm the value of intellectual diversity in higher education and enhance the intellectual diversity of the university.
- Affirm a commitment to “create a community dedicated to an ethic of civil and free inquiry, which respects the intellectual freedom of each member, supports individual capacities for growth, and welcomes the differences of opinion that naturally exist in a public university community.”
The bill explicitly states the school could accept and administer private and external donations and gifts — and any money appropriated or donated to it “shall be used only for the direct operation of the school and shall not be used for any indirect costs of the university.”
The school would have at least five tenure-eligible faculty, and faculty “who are not appointed to the school shall have no authority to approve, deny, or modify the terms of appointment of faculty to the school.”
Regents by the end of this year would have to appoint a nine-member “academic council” — including no more than one UI employee — to help choose a “dean of the school” through a nationwide search.
The dean would have “exclusive authority to manage the recruitment and hiring process and to extend offers for employment for all faculty and staff of the school and to terminate employment of all staff of the school.”
The dean — who would report to the UI president — also would have exclusive authority to invite guest speakers to campus.
