Iowa House passes bills to dramatically shift operations at public universities

Dive Brief:

The Iowa House passed a flurry of bills this week that would dramatically shift oversight of required classroom instruction and the process for picking leaders at the state’s three public universities.
Under legislation headed to the Senate, the universities would have to require students to take American history and American government courses. They’d also have to flag all required undergraduate classes “that include diversity, equity, inclusion, and critical race theory-related content,” at which point state regents — all of whom are appointed by the governor — could eliminate those courses or course requirements.
Under another bill, the Iowa Board of Regents would have to choose each university’s president from a pool of candidates selected by a committee of five voting regents with input from nonvoting employee, student and public representatives. The committee would not have to publicly disclose candidates.

Dive Insight:

The Iowa Legislature, a Republican stronghold, has increasingly sought to control higher education and remake it under a series of conservative policies. The coordinated legislative effort kicked off in earnest when House Speaker Pat Grassley announced the formation of the Higher Education Committee in 2024. Grassley tapped state Rep. Taylor Collins, a vocal opponent of DEI work, as the committee’s chair.

Under the bill that would mandate introductory American history and government courses, civics education centers at each institution would have to identify classes that could fulfill those requirements. Those centers would also be required to create a lecture and debate series to “promote civil dialogue and debate on the issues most important to the American republic.”

Civics centers at public institutions, often created in the name of increasing intellectual diversity, have become a favored cause of Republican lawmakers, who frequently lambaste campuses as loci of left-wing indoctrination. Critics of the centers argue they are being used to wrest academic control away from faculty and advocate conservative priorities to students on the taxpayer’s dime. 

An interesting academic conflict could arise if both the general education bill and the anti-DEI bill become laws. If the newly required American history and government classes make mention of DEI or critical race theory — a decades-old academic concept that teaches racism is systemic — they could be subject to elimination by the board of regents.

Conservatives in the early 2020s commonly referred to any instruction on race and ethnicity as CRT, according to PEN America. The free speech group has accused lawmakers of using anti-CRT legislation to censor viewpoints they oppose. 

Political attacks on CRT have declined in more recent years as lawmakers have begun favoring the term DEI as a way to target a wide variety of initiatives, according to higher education and free speech scholars.

Iowa lawmakers are also seeking to make changes beyond the state’s public colleges.

Another bill passed by the House late last month would block private colleges with DEI offices from participating in the Iowa Tuition Grant program. As of 2025-26, full-time undergraduates at participating nonprofit colleges can receive up to $7,500 annually. They can receive the grant for four years. 

Each bill passed Iowa’s House largely along partisan lines. If the state’s Republican-controlled Senate votes similarly, the legislation will pass and head to the desk of Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds.