The Iowa Board of Regents committed to altering a proposal Wednesday that would prohibit Iowa’s three public universities from requiring students to take a class that contains “substantial” content on diversity, equity, and inclusion and critical race theory. 

The proposal outlined the possibility for exceptions for certain majors and degree programs that may require teachings on DEI and CRT, but those exceptions would have to be submitted to the board every other year and approved by the board. 

The proposal comes after a legislative session where state lawmakers specifically targeted Iowa’s regent universities.

Lawmakers promised a broad review of the state’s higher education system and even broader reforms. However, many of the proposed bills were shelved because the regents instead pursued them as board policy due to negotiations with lawmakers. 

The regents originally published agenda materials that would have made Wednesday’s action by the board the first and second reading of the policy leaving no time for public input on the policy change. 

However, following substantial backlash the regents altered the agenda documents, making the Wednesday action a first reading of the policy change. A second reading is planned for the July meeting.

If approved in July the policy would take effect in July 2026 to give the regent universities time to review and evaluate course materials to comply with the new policy, according to regent officials. 

“We’ve received many dozens of emails about this policy, and some of the emails were helpful,” Regent David Barker said on Wednesday. “The helpful emails convinced me that we can improve on this first draft of the policy.” 

Barker said that the goal of the policy is not to shut down a particular point of view, but rather to prevent instructors from presenting controversial ideas as settled fact. 

Barker said that the policy is aimed at combating a crisis of confidence in higher education that has bore out in national public opinion polling.  

“The belief that colleges indoctrinate students with fringe ideologies is one reason for that loss of confidence, the belief that that happens is a reason for that loss of confidence,” Barker said Wednesday. “We need to do something about that, and some version of this policy will be an important first step.”

According to a July 2024 Gallup Poll, confidence in higher education is at an all-time low with roughly the same number of people having confidence in higher education as those who do not. 

The poll showed that 36 percent of U.S. adults who responded to the poll had a great amount of confidence in institutions of higher education, while 32 percent had little to no confidence and 32 percent had some confidence. 

Of respondents who had little to no confidence, 41 percent said the institutions indoctrinated students or were too liberal. 

However, speakers during the public comment period at the end of Wednesday’s meeting of the regents said that the policy in its current form censors ideas and do not allow for a free marketplace of ideas. 

“What you’re proposing does not open up intellectual spaces, it restricts them,” Will Tjeltveit, a graduate student and teaching assistant in the UI’s Department of History said. “It removes critical tools for students to understand the world around them. By saying that the primary principles of DEI and CRT cannot be part of required classes, you’re limiting what discourse and what learning can take place.” 

Chris Martin, the president of the University of Northern Iowa’s faculty union, said that the policy would result in censorship by dictating the topics not allowed in the classroom. 

“For example, I would not be able to convey substantial content on the topic of anti racism, yet, presumably I could talk endlessly about racism,” Martin, who is a professor of Communication and Media at UNI, said. “That’s an odd choice, but that’s a weird problem societies get themselves into when they start making lists of things they don’t want people to say.” 

State Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, challenged the legality of the policy proposed by the regents in a letter Wednesday. Quirmbach said that existing Iowa code did not give the board the authority to dictate what can and cannot be taught in classrooms. 

“No recent legislation has given the Board of Regents any authority over course content regarding diversity and race or sex discrimination,” Quirmbach said in a news release Wednesday. “Moreover, existing Iowa law contains strong protections guarding the academic freedom of both faculty and students, protections that the Board’s proposed changes would violate.”

The regents committed to changing the policy so that it was more content neutral and didn’t hone in on DEI and CRT and rather had a more broad focus to capture extremes on both the left and right of the political spectrum. 

The regents committed to working with board staff to bring a revised policy in July.