Iowa lawmakers mull anti-DEI bills for private and public colleges

Dive Brief: 

Iowa lawmakers are mulling legislation that seeks to curb diversity, equity and inclusion instruction in general education courses at the state’s public universities and bar private colleges from participating in a state student aid program if they have DEI offices. 
The Iowa House Higher Education Committee on Wednesday advanced those and other proposals that seek to exert more control over the state’s higher education sector, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch. 
Iowa is one of several Republican-controlled states where lawmakers have been introducing a flurry of legislation to more tightly regulate colleges, spanning from proposals governing what they can teach to how they select college presidents. 

Dive Insight: 

Iowa lawmakers have sought to more tightly control the state’s higher education sector in recent years. To that end, House Speaker Pat Grassley announced the formation of the Higher Education Committee in 2024, tapping a staunch opponent of DEI efforts to lead the panel. 

The next year, Iowa enacted several laws that PEN America, a free expression group, describes as “indirect censorship bills,” meaning they “restrict the mechanisms that protect academic freedom and erode long-standing norms of autonomy and self-governance in higher education.” 

That includes a law that expanded a state ban on DEI offices and initiatives at the state’s public universities to community colleges as well. That ban, initially enacted in 2024, also requires public colleges not to make official statements that reference a litany of wide-ranging topics, spanning from social justice to cultural appropriation. 

Now, lawmakers are ramping up those types of efforts. 

One of the new bills would require the Iowa Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s three public universities, to review each of their undergraduate general education courses for content related to DEI and critical race theory. 

The bill’s definition of those concepts is sweeping and includes any content that discusses how systemic racism, implicit bias, microaggressions, gender identity, social justice, race-based privilege and more relate to “contemporary American society.”

The original bill would force the board to direct universities to eliminate any courses or course requirements that touch on DEI or critical race theory, as the bill defines them, from their general education requirements or core curricula for undergraduates. An amendment to the bill would give the board more discretion over which courses or course content must be eliminated, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported. 

Another bill would bar private colleges from participating in the Iowa Tuition Grant program if they have DEI offices. The grant program gives each eligible student up to $7,500 for the 2025-26 year. 

Jeff Anderson, the legislative advocate for the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church, filed a public comment strongly opposed to that proposal. 

Anderson said the conference has opposed all similar bills because of “strongly held religious beliefs that call us to advocate for policies in support of DEI” and added Iowa has three private colleges affiliated with the United Methodist Church. 

“We see HSB 537 as [an] attempt by the state to exert control over Iowa’s private colleges, potentially putting their financial viability in jeopardy unless they disavow one of the strongly held beliefs they were founded upon,” Anderson said. 

The committee advanced other bills on Wednesday, including one that would require the state’s universities to join President Donald Trump’s sweeping higher education compact that offers priority for federal research funding in exchange for making policy changes in line with the administration’s priorities.