This just goes to show how severe the backlash to DEI policies has become.
Campus Reform reports:
Iowa House passes bill targeting private universities with DEI officesThe Iowa legislature could soon target private universities for maintaining Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices. If enacted, the bill would be the first state law penalizing private universities for having DEI offices.House File 2488 removes funding through the Iowa Tuition Grant from private universities that maintain DEI offices. The Iowa House passed the bill on Tuesday.According to the bill, DEI refers to “[a]ny effort to manipulate or otherwise influence the composition of the faculty or student body with reference to race, sex, color, or ethnicity, apart from ensuring colorblind and sex-neutral admissions and hiring in accordance with state and federal antidiscrimination laws.”Adam Guillette, the president of Accuracy in Media (AIM), a watchdog organization, indicated his support for this bill on Thursday. In August, AIM published an undercover video showing an Iowa State University official claiming DEI remains at the school.The organization “strongly supports any effort to remove hateful, divisive DEI from education,” Guillette told Campus Reform.Of the 32 Iowa private universities, two have offices with explicit DEI language in their titles.Drake University’s Office of Equity and Inclusion “values diversity as an institutional strength that encompasses a broad range of human differences.”“We acknowledge the role Drake University can play in redressing historic injustices that result in continued marginalization of members of specific groups and seek to understand and respond to contemporary calls for inclusivity as necessitated by social justice,” the office’s web page says.Similarly, Grinnell College maintains a Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The division’s page clarifies that its DEI initiatives “DO NOT create or result in illegal discrimination under any federal or state law.”
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