Meeting Public Comments

Ingrid Lillskau

This entire study bill reads like an onion article.I would seriously implore you all to consider if this is an effective use of taxpayer dollars or even your own time and energy. Iowa was once a state where people from all over the country could come to get a high quality education. Now it is a state where the House and Senate seem to be dedicated to demeaning the value of actual freedom in education across the board. Is intellectual freedom at the University of Iowa truly the goal of this Bill? Or is it instead intended to rile up and agitate Liberal Arts students at UI? Based on what I can see, it seems as if it might just be the latter.Tom Collins, if you truly cared about Intellectual freedom, you would not have introduced HF 115. In fact, you would have likely been against it on the grounds that it may infringe on the Intellectual Freedom of nonimmigrant visa holders on college campuses. Unless of course, this idea of Intellectual Freedom only extends to those whose views you share?Should we really be such a contradictory state? Introducing bills to chill certain types of speech on college campuses by certain types of individuals (HF 115)while simultaneously;Introducing bills to create Colleges of Intellectual Freedom? (HSB 52)Introducing bills to have the board of regents make sure colleges meet quotas for certain types of people in higher education (HF 137)while simultaneously;Having created a Law denying colleges the ability to have DEI offices, denying them the ability to have those very same types of quotas?(Iowa code 2.61J) Ultimately, Tom and Heather, I would ask you to defer to David Jacoby. Not because of his political affiliation but because this is a bill that would directly affect his constituents and have absolutely nothing to do with yours. All of that said, all three of you should do what you can to get HF 66 through. Dear Lord am I sick of daylight savings