Category: Education

By all accounts, this was a rough week for higher education, both private and public. The Iowa House of Representatives passed several bills in its continued attack on diversity and social justice efforts, while claiming this clamp down on DEI discussion is actually an effort to preserve free speech on campus. The party line votes sent the following bills over to the Senate:

• House File 269: The “Freedom from Indoctrination Act” prohibits all Regents universities from requiring or incentivizing a student to take a class in a diversity, equity, inclusion or critical race theory in order to get their degree, including any general education degree. A professor’s teaching of DEI related concepts cannot be taken into account in a teacher’s salary, promotion or tenure. There are exceptions for degrees that are focused on racial, ethnic, or gender studies.
• House File 295: The “Accreditation Autonomy Act” prohibits any federally recognized education accrediting agency from taking action against a higher education public institution for refusing to violate state law. Sanctions by any accrediting body would be subject to civil action, effective immediately upon signing.
• House File 401: The “Core Curriculum Act” requires Regents universities to include new core courses in their undergraduate degree programs, including western heritage (British literature, Greek philosophy, western civilization) and American heritage (American history, Iowa history, American literature, American government). Applicable beginning July 1, 2027 (so would apply to current freshmen classes).
• House File 437: This establishes a Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa, because for sure they’re not limiting free speech and intellectual freedom in any of these other bills. Of course, the Center is limited in what it can teach: research in historical ideas, traditions, and texts that have shaped American constitutional order and society. No funding is appropriated, the University would need to fundraise for it. This bill is no on the Senate Calendar because it had a companion already there. It’s just one Senate vote from becoming law.
• House File 440: The “College Affordability Act” requires decisions to increase tuition at state universities to be done by April 30 for the next college year. It also requires each institution to offer at least one BA/BS degree that can be completed in three years. Each institution is also required to implement at least one work study program where the students works part-time and attends classes part-time. Requires the Board of Regents to study a tuition freeze guarantee (four years at same tuition).
• House File 856: Prohibits all governmental bodies, including local governments and community colleges, from using any funds to support DEI offices or staff, effective immediately upon enactment. It also makes any private college with DEI offices/staff ineligible for Iowa tuition grants.
• House File 865: While not a higher education bill, they did slip this one in the middle of debate on all the other bills listed. This changes the definition of bullying in K-12 schools to repeated and targeted acts toward a student, instead of including “based on any actual or perceived trait or characteristic of the student.” It also strikes the very DEI sounding definition of “trait or characteristic” of the student. School officials say this makes the definition more vague and less enforceable.

The Senate Education Committee now has two weeks (by April 4) to send these bills through the subcommittee and committee process or the bills will be tabled until 2026. Several other education bills also passed over dealing with math instruction and assessments, but they received bipartisan support.

The new House Higher Education Committee has been pitching fastballs this legislative session, but not in a good way. After decades of dormancy, the committee was revived without a clear agenda, aside from addressing what Republicans called a “crisis of confidence” in Iowa’s higher education system. But it didn’t take long for the committee to find direction, largely through the influence of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) and its partner organization, the Civics Alliance. The organization, which has presented twice to the Higher Education Committee, advocates against diversity and civic action, all with a goal of “saving American civics.”

It seems that at least three bills being considered by the committee have been inspired by policy proposals on the NAS website. 

Take HSB 52, which is nearly identical to the Civics Alliance’s School of Intellectual Freedom Act. This bill would establish a School of Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa, dedicated to teaching and researching the ideas that shaped the American constitutional system. Unlike any other department at a regent institution, the school would operate independently, with its own faculty, funding, and governance structure. And this bill has legs, it’s running straight to the Iowa Senate, where SF 127 is moving forward as its companion. Both bills have passed subcommittees and are headed to the full committee.

HSB 56 follows a similar pattern, with almost identical language to the Civics Alliance’s American History Act. If passed, students at Iowa’s public colleges and universities would be required to take a three-credit course on American history and government to graduate starting in 2027. The course would cover key principles of the U.S. government, major historical events, landmark Supreme Court cases, and foundational documents like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. While the bill sounds like a reasonable attempt to ensure students understand the basics of American governance, coupled with other legislation its supporters seem to be pushing a very specific narrative about what constitutes “American history”. This bill passed subcommittee on February 5th and is moving forward to the full committee.

HSB 55 is another bill from the Civics Alliance to keep an eye on. While it is a more lax version of the Syllabus Transparency Act, it still requires all public universities in Iowa to post their course syllabi online, including details like instructor names, major assignments, required readings, and a general course overview. The bill is framed as a push for transparency, but it could also be seen as a way to ensure that universities are teaching what lawmakers deem appropriate. The bill passed committee on February 5th and is now headed to the House floor under the number HF 270.

Another proposal, HSB 63 seeks to change general education requirements at Iowa’s three regents institutions. If passed, this bill would reduce the credit hours for general education courses to just 40 and mandate a set list of subjects, such as English, math, science, and American and Western heritage. But here’s the catch: it also explicitly bans courses that focus on identity politics or theories of systemic oppression. While the bill allows some exceptions for certain degree programs, it’s clear that the overarching goal is to limit the scope of what students can learn, particularly when it comes to courses that address race, gender, and power. This bill passed its subcommittee on January 28th, and it’s headed toward further legislative action.

Perhaps the most direct attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts comes from HSB 61 and HSB 60. These bills aim to prohibit both public and private universities from establishing DEI offices. HSB 61 extends an existing law that already bans DEI offices in public institutions to include community colleges, while HSB 60 threatens private colleges that receive the Iowa Tuition Grant with the loss of funding if they continue to maintain DEI offices. While HSB 61 has been tabled, HSB 60 is set to have a subcommittee hearing on February 12th. If they pass, these bills could have serious ramifications for how Iowa’s colleges support students from marginalized communities.

HSB 53, the so-called “Freedom from Indoctrination Act,” would prevent universities from requiring courses related to DEI or critical race theory (CRT) as part of degree programs. This bill also prevents universities from using DEI or CRT activities as conditions for faculty hiring, promotion, or tenure. HSB 53 has already passed subcommittee and committee, and it’s on its way to the House floor as HF 269.

And then there’s HF 115, also known as the “Combatting Terrorist Sympathizers Act,” because apparently Iowa’s biggest campus crisis isn’t underfunding or brain drain—it’s international students secretly cheering for terrorism. The bill requires public colleges to create policies banning visa-holding students and employees from publicly supporting terrorist organizations. How universities are supposed to enforce this remains unclear. Perhaps a “thoughts-on-terrorism” section in the student handbook? After a long debate this morning on the definition of terrorism, the bill passed subcommittee.Finally, we have what just might be the most important bill of the 2025 Iowa Legislative Session. HF 153 requires Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa to reinstate men’s baseball teams. The bill doesn’t just encourage schools to add teams, it requires them to compete at the NCAA level. Although the teams were originally cut due to lack of student support, the legislature must believe that if you build it, they will come.

This post was written by Chloe Gayer, Government Relations Associate with The Advocacy Cooperative

The House Education Committee approved a bill (House File 88) to virtually eliminate oversight of home schooling and blur the lines between home school and private education. The bill’s floor manager is freshman Rep. Samantha Fett (R-Indianola), one of the founding Iowa members of Moms for Liberty.

What the bill does and the League’s reasons for opposing it:

• It removes requirements that families homeschooling their children provide proof of immunization and blood lead tests.
  • This weakens public health strategies to combat pandemics and control spread of disease to those who cannot get vaccines.
  • Lead exposure is a preventable cause intellectual disabilities and other serious health conditions, so early detection and mitigation is important. This would negate that work.
  • Public health experts are already alarmed about dropping rates of vaccinations and lead testing, especially in a state like Iowa with known lead exposure risks. The US EPA notified 330,000 Iowa homeowners at the end of last year that they may be at risk of lead exposure because of lead service lines. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported 9,000 homeowners in Cedar Rapids received notice. Some communities have large swaths of their town at risk, including Vinson (66%) and Anamosa (half of the city).
  • Chaney Yeast (Blank Children’s Hospital) told the Capitol Dispatch: “When we think about Iowa’s aging housing stock, and we know that there’s lead in our homes in our rural homes in Iowa and in our urban areas of Iowa, we know for children … that can impact their long-term ability to learn and be healthy.” 

• Homeschooling families would no longer have to submit an “outline of course of study” for their children.
  • These changes could lower educational standards and leave kids vulnerable to gaps in learning.
  • With no oversight, there is no guarantee the parents are doing anything to education their children.
  • This is already a very flexible requirement; it is an outline not a full syllabus or lesson plan.
  • It is the only mechanism that allows the state to ensure a child is getting basic, grade appropriate instruction.

• It eliminates current limits in law that only four children who are not related to the homeschooling instructor receive private instruction.
  • This may be the most dangerous provision of this bill.
  • Without oversight, expanding the number of unrelated kids in a homeschool could blur the lines between homeschooling and unregulated private schooling. 
  • Melissa Peterson (ISEA lobbyist) told subcommittee members that this language was put in place through compromises made under former Gov. Terry Branstad’s administration as a way to provide families less monitoring and state oversight while ensuring that there were still sufficient safety and educational professional standards being taken into account.
  • This was considered a fair compromise to balance parent’s rights and state oversight.
  • Children will be at risk of sexual abuse and exploitation, allowing a gap in private school instruction that allows unregulated, unlicensed instructors that have not undergone background checks to instruct larger groups of children who are not their own.

• It doubles the current tuition and textbook credit from 25% to 50% for the first $2,000 spent.
  • This has not gotten much pushback, but there is a general concern that the state keeps giving financial incentives for non-public school options, which erodes resources and confidence in public schools.

• Mandates that Iowa colleges and universities treat homeschool diplomas as equal to high school diplomas for admissions.
  • Homeschooling families always point statistics that demonstrate their students do better than public school students on test scores and admissions, so why is this necessary?
  • Advocates against the bill have said there is political motivation for this change, as it feeds into the narrative that “woke” schools are not accepting kids who were educated outside the public school system. There is, of course, no evidence to this assertion.

• Prohibits the inclusion of gender-neutral language in grades 9-12 world language classes that use a grammatical gender system.
  • This is purely political and yet another effort to put a target on transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming students. This continues to marginalize and put these students in danger, for a made-up reason.
  • World language teachers teach the language and they don’t make up gender neutral terms that do not already exist in that language.
  • Keenan Crow (One Iowa) said the bill is “kind of baffling in its current draft format, because it seems to imply that teachers are … being required to make up words — like new words that don’t exist and aren’t in current usage already.”

If you would like to take action on this issue, contact your State Representative and ask that they oppose House File 88. Note that the following legislators are sponsors of the bill: Reps. Brooke Boden (R-Warren), Mark Cisneros (R-Muscatine), Jon Dunwell (R-Jasper), Rep. Samantha Fett (R-Warren), Cindy Golding (R-Linn), Bill Gustoff (R-Polk), Robert Henderson (R-Woodbury), Steve Holt (R-Crawford), and Craig Johnson (R-Buchanan).

There is a Senate Companion – Senate Fine 204 sponsored by Sens. Doug Campbell (R-Cerro Gordo), Dennis Guth (R-Cerro Gordo), Mike Pike (R-Polk) and Sandy Salmon (R-Bremer). It has been assigned to the Senate Education Committee, but not assigned a subcommittee. You can connect with your Senator about that bill too.