House bills address college activism

This was week 10 (March 21) of the session. We held debate Monday through Thursday, passing dozens of bills that reflect the priorities that Iowans have asked us to address.

For decades many, if not most, of our taxpayer-funded institutions, such as public schools, Regents colleges and libraries, have been overrun by and abused by Democratic Party oriented activists.

Whether it’s by imposing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ideologies, transgender agendas, critical race theory or many other left-wing ideologies, the taxpayer’s dollars have been grossly misused to promote one party’s socio-political agenda.

Furthermore, many students have told us that they are avoiding the University of Iowa due to the overt left-wing political bias pervading the campus.

On Tuesday (March 18) we debated and passed a suite of bills that had a theme of ensuring that our educational and public institutions become free of these trendy socio-political and left-wing agendas.

House File 269, known as the Freedom From Indoctrination Act, ensures that no student is forced to take courses promoting ideological activism, such as critical race theory or DEI, as a condition of obtaining a degree.

It also protects the academic freedom of faculty from mandatory infusions of DEI-related course content. This is to ensure that students and faculty of all political views are welcome at our Regents schools.

Currently the faculty at UI are reportedly over 90% Democratic Party affiliated, a shameful bias.

House File 856 prohibits any state entity from using taxpayer funded Iowa Tuition Grants to establish or support any DEI offices, replacing DEI with MEI, Merit, Excellence and Intelligence.

This bill allows citizens to bring civil actions against state entities for violating this prohibition and gives the Attorney General the authority to enforce compliance.

House File 437 requires the University of Iowa to establish a Center for Intellectual Freedom within the physical space of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences This Center shall conduct teaching and research in the historical ideas, traditions and texts that have shaped American Constitutional order and society.

The center is charged with offering a course in American History and Civil Government that will be available to all three regent universities, increasing the intellectual diversity of the academic community and fostering civic engagement among students and faculty.

The bill requires a minimum of five tenure eligible faculty members.

House File 401, the Core Curriculum Act, requires the Regents schools to adopt general education requirements that meet required content in the bill. This content includes Western Heritage and American Heritage courses.

This content cannot distort significant historical events or contain elements that teaches identity politics, systemic racism, sexism, oppression or privilege. The bill allows any student to notify the Attorney General of potential violations for investigation.

Taxpayer investment should be met with taxpayer return, and taxpayer investment should not be used for ideological indoctrination.

The state has a vested interest in ensuring state dollars are being used to address workforce shortages rather than enforce these ideological agendas. These bills, and several others not mentioned, are on to the Senate for consideration.

As always, I look forward to seeing you at the capitol or in the district.