Preserving educational quality and the freedom to learn at Iowa's public universities
Iowa Board of Regents
In June, 2025, the Iowa Board of Regents proposed a policy to prohibit required courses if the Board determined they contained “substantial content” on a broad array of topics related to the ill-defined categories of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” or “critical race theory.” The policy would have affected students enrolled in many degree programs, including nursing, medicine, public health, education, social work, sociology, law, political science, criminology, philosophy and world religions, and others. Students in certain fields—such as social work and nursing—would have been at a special disadvantage, since those professions’ standards require graduates to show competency in various topics banned under the policy. Finally, the policy would have given the Board sole authority to reject or approve course content, putting them in the unprecedented (and impractical) role of serving as a censor for Iowa’s entire public university system.
Raising our voices is making a difference! Following widespread criticism, the Board withdrew the June version of the proposed policy and have stated they will not consider it at their July meeting. However, the Board is continuing to consider next steps, and may "identify a future meeting to consider this issue." Please join us to let the Board know that politics should never dictate what students are allowed to learn or the careers they have the opportunity to pursue at Iowa’s public universities.
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Iowa Board of Regents
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We – as students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff, and concerned Iowans– write to urge the Iowa Board of Regents to firmly reject efforts to restrict what students can learn at Iowa’s public universities.
We were alarmed to learn last month that the Board of Regents proposed a policy which would have violated the First Amendment rights of students, staff, and faculty. This policy proposed giving the Board power to ban any required course if they decided it contained too much material related to the vaguely-defined categories of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” or “critical race theory.” By singling out specific subjects of study and putting the Board in the role of government censor, this policy would have undermined the bedrock educational principles of free speech and open inquiry. In the words of Iowa law professor Joseph Yockey, the proposed policy “sends the message that some ideas are too politically inconvenient to teach unless the board says otherwise.”
Partisan censorship degrades the quality of education. We are proud of Iowa’s long tradition of providing students high-quality instruction so they can succeed in an extraordinary array of professions. We are also proud that so many graduates of our Regents universities choose to build their careers in communities across Iowa, enriching our towns and cities and laying the foundation for future generations. Simply put, Iowa’s higher education system belongs to all Iowans, and it is too precious to sacrifice its quality to partisan whims.
As the Regents consider how to move forward, we ask them to firmly reject all efforts to subject Iowa’s public universities to partisan politics. We call on Board members to ensure that all Iowa students continue to have the freedom to learn and the opportunity to pursue career paths and courses of study of their choosing.
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The Iowa Higher Education Coalition includes the following organizations:
-Iowa State AAUP (American Association of University Professors)
-UNI United Faculty, AAUP/AFT Local 6752
-University of Iowa AAUP
-UE Local 896 – COGS (Campaign to Organize Graduate Students), University of Iowa
-Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO