The Iowa Legislature's Campaign Against Free Thought
A Letter From Iowan Gordie Felger
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The Iowa Legislature effectively shut down the state’s public university’s DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) offices last year. This year, they plan to target specific courses of study.
What kind of courses? Women’s studies. Gender studies. African studies. Cultural studies of any kind. Anything the majority party considers subversive. Heaven forbid college students should learn about issues that affect them.
I’m a recent college graduate. Here’s what I’ve observed about young people. Most middle and high school kids just want to fit in. Being different opens them up to teasing and harassment. But college is about being an individual and discovering who you are. Those who choose college do not want limitations on what they can learn.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ takeover of New College in Florida forewarns of what’s happening in Iowa. He allocated $15 million in taxpayer money to “transform” the college. His new hand-pick college board eliminated courses and entire majors that they labeled “woke.” Faculty members lost their jobs as a result. Others chose to leave. Students and parents protested for weeks. Students who could afford to do so transferred to other states.
The Iowa Legislature’s anti-DEI actions will not end well. Students and faculty members will go where they find freedom of thought and expression. Where they feel safe and seen. A few years from now, Iowa lawmakers will wonder why higher education enrollments dropped. They’ll wonder why attracting new students and professors got harder.
And they’ll look for someone else to blame.
Gordie Felger
Hiawatha, Iowa
This was originally published on Felger’s Substack, wtfiowa.substack.com.
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I want to start an underground college. and a high school. and a middle school. Take the trail through the park. turn where you see a deer wearing a stocking cap, wade through the mutliflora, then knock on the window closest to the birdfeeder.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion courses were in their infancy when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Iowa, from 1965-1969. When I returned to school in my '30's, I studied art and design at Iowa. My fellow graduate students were mostly younger, and I was sorry to have missed out on some of the basic women's studies. My daughter took more courses in sociology, that included some cultural diversity that I would have welcomed. Kids are automatically accepting of other kids and must be taught to hate. One party has totally disappeared into a cult of fear. The Democratic Party is the only party left. In my opinion, it will take our county a long time to crawl up out of the hole of cultism created by the demise of the Republican Party.