Diving Overview:
- Three Iowa public universities will suspend implementation of new diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the behest of the state Board of Regents, it announced this week.
- Over the next several months, the board will study all DEI efforts at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, Chair Michael Richards he said in a statement on Tuesday. The board ordered that all pending DEI initiatives be halted during this time.
- Three regents will lead the evaluation and report any recommendations to the full board, Richards said.
Diving statistics:
The ban on DEI efforts at Iowa universities comes as conservatives campaign against them nationwide.
Policymakers in states like Texas and Florida have pledged to eradicate DEI programs from public higher education, saying they have strayed from their original mission of uplifting historically marginalized groups in higher education. Both states have introduced legislation that would ban DEI efforts at public colleges.
And similar to the universities in Iowa and the University of Texas System it stopped creating last month new DEI policies.
Iowa legislators they are considering legislation this would block regent-governing institutions from funding DEI offices or diversity-related administrative positions.
