A Crisis Averted is Not a Crisis Solved: DEI Reforms Face Resistance

Many opposed to the woke orthodoxy have long waited for a systemwide course-correcting.

As early as 2022, red states began to legislate against ideological captures of higher education institutions by prohibiting the mandates of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) in areas like faculty hiring and classroom instruction. Anticipated changes at the federal level are solidifying hopes that insidious practices of dividing Americans by race, gender, and other arbitrary group traits may abate soon.

Around Christmas 2024, the University of Iowa (UI) announced plans to shut down the school’s 50-year-old Departments of American Studies, Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies as well as its American Studies and Social Justice majors—hurray! UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, which houses these majors, explains the reasons for the proposed closures as “limited faculty,” “overlapping curricula,” declining enrollment, and a new state law that bans DEI mandates in public schools. The UI Board of Regents will vote on the proposal at its February meeting and, if approved, will be implemented in July 2025.

[RELATED: ‘Diversity Is Important?’ That Doesn’t Cut it at University of Oregon.]

The new law, Senate File 2435, prohibits Iowa’s public educational institutions from installing DEI offices, employing “DEI” standards in hiring and admissions decisions, and promoting a host of ideological trainings related to DEI. The bill sailed through the Iowa State Legislature in a matter of a month and was signed into law by Governor Kim Reynolds in May 2024. It is set to take effect July 1, 2025. In addition, the Iowa House Republicans have created a higher education committee to review the state’s higher education system, curriculum, and spending and recommend reforms. The committee will be led by state representative Taylor Collins, a major critic of DEI.

Observers and pundits welcome the development as another sign of a “conservative revolution.” But there is a caveat. The school is not simply closing these indoctrination camps, which currently have a combined student body of fewer than 60. In their place, UI will build a new school, a School of Social and Cultural Analysis, to oversee the operations of all such programs under a single leadership structure. The new school will absorb all the faculty members from the soon-to-close departments and continue to offer courses including: African American Studies; American Studies; Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies; Jewish Studies; Latina/o/x Studies; and Native American and Indigenous Studies.

What seems like a course correction may just be business consolidation. Worse, it is an unapologetically progressive institution’s snub at the opposition. It is paying lip service to legislative restrictions on how much schools can inculcate students into far-left worldviews and waste taxpayer money doing so. The dean of UI’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences admitted that the proposal is a result of “two years of faculty discussion” in response to “leadership turnover, fiscal uncertainties, concerns about DEI.” By merging the majors and departments, the school hopes to carry on its “commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

Sadly, ‘tis is a story on repeat.

So long as a school’s leadership remains obsessed with DEI in place of merit, excellence, and actual equality, window-dressing changes to dial down DEI will always fall short of providing the systematic redress of which American higher education is in dire need. Similarly, the University of Alabama replaced its DEI offices, in compliance with the state’s legislative ban, with a new office called the Division of Opportunities, Connections and Success, led by the university’s former DEI administrator. The DEI division at the University of Tennessee was renamed “Division of Access and Engagement” following the passage of a state law that prohibits mandatory training related to “divisive concepts.” So on and so forth.

Earlier this month, Parents Defending Education (PDE) released an analysis of grants awarded by the Department of Justice to 946 public schools across 36 U.S. states, which found that the Federal Government spent over $100 million in taxpayer money on DEI and other similar practices in the last four years. In an interview, PDE president Nicole Neily said:

DEI administrators and acolytes have grown accustomed to simply waiting out their critics, assuming they’ll graduate, transfer, or move on to a new target of outrage. As the election has shown us, however, frustration with a racial spoils system goes well beyond conservative pundits; the vast majority of Americans are fed up with this programming, and opposition to it spans both racial and political lines.

[RELATED: Shaun Harper Has a Plan to Save DEI. It Includes Eradicating Dissenters.]

There are exceptions. For instance, the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) newly elected chancellor, Lee H. Roberts, has taken strong positions to ensure that the school not be hijacked by far-left political operatives and that public funds be used responsibly for student access. In May 2024, when he served as the school’s Interim Chancellor, disruptive, pro-Hamas student protestors were dealt with a strong rebuke from Roberts, who removed a Palestinian flag and restored the American flag in its place. In September, UNC joined other North Carolina public universities in removing 59 DEI positions.

The academic establishment’s defiant responses to DEI bans demonstrate the inexorable limits of government power. The stronghold of wokeism on the intelligentsia and the administrative state is a cancer that must be battled with not only legislation but, more importantly, long-term changes in attitudes and cultures. Having strong leaders dedicated to effecting changes is a necessary first state.

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Image of Iowa State Capitol Building by Jason Mrachina on Flickr