Meeting Public Comments

Randy McNeal

Iowa HF856: Is bad for Iowa.HF856 would ban public funding for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in schools and institutions. This is a step backward for Iowa.1. Hurts Education & Reputation:DEI supports inclusive learning and critical thinking. Cutting it risks our schools accreditation and makes Iowas degrees less competitive.2. Bad for Business:Companies want a workforce that reflects todays diverse world. Banning DEI puts Iowa behind in preparing students and attracting employers.3. Silences Important Voices:The bill threatens academic freedom and open discussion, making campuses less welcomingespecially for marginalized students.Bottom line:HF856 weakens our schools, economy, and communities. It sends the wrong message about who belongs in Iowa.

Gabrielle DeWitt

I am writing to urge you to oppose HF 856 if it comes to a vote. This bill would impose unnecessary and harmful restrictions on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in our local governments and universities.Over the past year, DEI has been unfairly portrayed as a threat. In reality, it is essential to fostering understanding, empathy, and inclusion within our communities. I fail to understand the threat of initiatives help individuals learn about different cultures, recognize the challenges faced by fellow community members, and ensure that everyone interacting with local government and universities feels welcomed and valued. Moreover, DEI programs strengthen our workforce by attracting and retaining talent, making our state a more appealing place for young professionals to establish their careers and futures. At a time when Iowa faces workforce shortages and struggles to retain young talent, we should be investing in efforts that enhance inclusivity, not limiting them.Our state motto is "Freedom to Flourish," yet current legislative efforts, including HF 856, contradict this ideal. Instead of restricting programs that promote fairness and opportunity, we should be advancing policies that ensure every Iowan has access to the resources and services they need to succeed. Legislation like HF 856 sends the wrong message about our values as a state.Ironically, the Governor recently signed a bill requiring county supervisors to be elected by district to ensure rural communities have a voice in local government. Whether acknowledged or not, that is a DEI initiativeone that promotes equity and inclusion by guaranteeing fair representation. We cannot selectively support DEI when it aligns with political convenience while rejecting it in other contexts.I urge you to stand against HF 856 and any other legislation that hinders our ability to serve all community members equitably. Please vote no on this bill.

Courtney Collier

Please vote yes on HF 856. Our education institutions need to focus on merit based learning and culture. The scourge of Marxist and communist DEI policies needs to be swiftly and completely removed from our education centers to protect our innocent children and set them up for success.Further, we need to make sure that education institutions are not allowed to simply rename the departments and positions and continue the destructive work of DEI. Waukee renamed their DEI Director position. You can be sure she is still doing the same DEI work.

Myke Selha

If you are in favor of this bill, are you opposed to diversity, equity, inclusion, or all three? A vote against DEI is a vote against merit. The whole purpose of DEI strategies is to ensure that mediocre White men dont get the jobs that better qualified individuals should be getting. White men should get the jobs based on their qualifications, not by benefiting from discrimination.

Jeffrey Anderson

Having Iowa's private colleges included in the same bill with "state entities" and community colleges which are governed by different laws/rules is mixing apples with oranges. That alone is problematic. It was a standalone bills that the House amended onto this to prevent the opportunity for the public to weigh. The fact that anyone, regardless of whether they have first hand knowledge or have been in any way personally impacted, can contact the Attorney General's office with a complaint is going to invite people to stir the pot for the sake of stirring the pot. No one is required to attend a private college or university, but those that do are aware of the values those institutions they choose to attend. There have been any number of bills this session that say someone cannot be required to do something (get a vaccine, treat certain patients, perform certain procedures, etc) if it conflicts with their "sincerely held religious or moral beliefs." Iowa's private colleges have implemented DEI programs and initiative in part because they work; improving understanding, fostering a more welcoming campus culture AND providing supports that impact student outcomes, like increasing retention and graduation rates. However, the reason they implemented them in the first place is that they are absolutely aligned with the sincerely held religious (for many private colleges) and moral (for all of them)beliefs. If religious beliefs don't matter when they support DEI, which almost every denomination is on record as supporting, saying they do in other situations will be seen as playing the "religion card" to support what are really politically motivated goals.

Michael Henning [Retired]

This is a harmful bill. Do not pass this. Find better ways to make a positive impact this one is NOT right for Iowa.

PATRESA HARTMAN

Please OPPOSE HF 856. As a school psychologist, anyone supporting the targeted exclusion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts clearly does not understand the fundamental importance of Belonging and seeing oneself represented positively to overall academic achievement and wellbeing. HF 856 is absolutely harmful to our shared community and goals.

Phil Webb

As a graduate of Morningside College and the father of three children, each of whom graduated from Simpson College, I believe in private higher education. It must be preserved to let each private college and university to function as they see needful in terms of values, content of curriculum, hiring practices for staff and faculty, administration, and student life opportunities. Otherwise it is not a private institution. To deprive students who choose private colleges and universities of their financial aid is an undue punishment and is against any practical and moral targets that favor the truly American value of freedom of choice in one's life path. HF 856 is nothing more than big government trying to dictate what one's Godgiven conscience may be and where it leads them. This bill is the definition of government overreach, and I oppose it in the strongest terms. Thank you.

Gemma Sala

I am a teacher who always tells students to try new things and to formulate their own thoughts, but the range of what they can explore is very limited if they are only exposed to people with similar experiences, who take similar positions, who confront the same problems the same way. A rich body of students and personnel is absolutely necessary for anyone or any company that wants to thrive beyond their confines. It is the basic premise of free trade and competition. If you already have a lot of one thing, would you not be looking to stock, to bring in what you are missing? We need students who have different backgrounds and belief systems from each other, we need workers who see the world differently, precisely because they help us understand and prepare for it better.I urge you to avoid the soothing pressure to be conformists.

Bobbie Maltas [United Methodist Church]

As a United Methodist I believe in the beauty of diversity and we can only appreciate that diversity when we experience it through one another's gifts. Scrubbing our society of DEI initiatives is scrubbing it of beauty. Please vote no on this bill. We need more beauty, no less!

Heath Johnson

This bill will result in unecessaary expense, litigation, loss of productivity, and lower the quality of life for all Iowans and as such I urge legislators to vote against it. Legislating the erasure and denial of real and verifiable health, wealth, education and opportunity disparities faced by Iowans will create a population that is less intelligent, less capable, less compassionate, and less competitive in a national and global workforce. Diversity is the truth of life, and the strength derived from that diversity is only available when we provide equitable and inclusive policies to strengthen EVERY Iowan. Iowa businesses will lose patronage if this bill is passed into law, Iowa students will emerge from their education careers with limited understanding of a diverse global community. Let's pretend for a moment that the above were not true and this were all about dollars, cents, and merit based opportunities the wasted time and expense that will result from litigating violations of this bill will be significant and divert legal and law enforcement resources from doing the real work of making Iowa a safe and just place for all Iowans. The bill far overreaches any superficial justification of creating a "color blind" or "merit based" system of opportunity for Iowans, and instead will make a mockery of the state on the national and world stage and needlessly mire the courts, school systems, employers, and citizens in legal challenges to this unjust bill. I urge conservative lawmakers to consider the real impacts of this bill on the states finances and legal system, if they cannot find within them the moral strength to recognize it for what it is a bill designed to further marginalize people while attempting to censor anyone with enough intelligence to call it what it is.

Danielle Lussier

Dear Subcommittee Members,The comments I share are within my personal capacity as a citizen and should not be considered as representing the views of my employer. I am a professor at Grinnell College, a private institution that enrolls students who could be affected negatively by HF856 through the loss of their tuition grants. By training and practice, I am a political scientist who respects the law and believes in the value of institutions to solve society's greatest problems.In reading this bill, I am dubious as to its constitutionality with regard to the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and remain unclear what problem the bill aims to solve. While the bill makes several references to obligations under the Title IX of the Federal Education Amendments Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the federal Civil Rights Act, the writing of the bill suggests compliance with legal technicalities related to these laws while also constraining First Amendment Rights to free speech that could foster, ultimately, violations of Civil Rights.To provide a concrete example: Section 1.d prevents any trainings that make reference to "race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation." This provision could interfere with the ability of colleges to host orientation sessions to our community that allow students who come from all over the world feel welcomed in our community. As a second example, "Academic Course Instruction" is consistently listed as an area where funding should not be impacted. As a professor and department chair, I read this with no idea of how to understand what is covered in "Academic Course Instruction." Much of my time instructing students happens not only when I stand in front of a classroom, but also when I meet with students in office hours and when I provide written feedback on their work. If these same students raise questions about race, ethnicity, gender, etc. and their own experiences at the College or in life in these contexts, seeking my response, is my response protected?As a social scientist, I have training and methods to examine and critique the social and political world and I have delivered curricula in Iowa that has done so in a manner that is unbiased and professionally sound. I am uncertain how I can reasonably comply with this law without compromising the quality of the education I deliver.This bill, frankly, reads as legislative overreach that is seeking a solution to a problem that does not exist. I have a hard time seeing how the various exemptions that are laid out could be interpreted and understood by the institutions being held to them. In reading it, the intent to me seems obvious: to try and compel institutions of higher education to preemptively comply by removing any reference to race, gender, and ethnicity from their documents in order to ensure that they do not lose access to funding. In other words, this strikes me as an attempt to diminish the value of higher education and interfere with its conduct. I strongly urge you to not advance it further.Sincerely,Danielle Lussier

Johnny Rogers-Smith

Please oppose HF856. When I hear or see reasons why this bill was proposed, it becomes clear that supporters of it are expressing concerns about fairness that are rooted in a lack of understanding of what diversity, equity, and inclusion mean. This is actually demonstrating why DEI education and programs are so important. We need to expand DEI education, not ban it.

Oliver Schoenborn

I insist that you OPPOSE HF 856, which will affect private universities and colleges in Iowa by making them ineligible to receive the Iowa Tuition grant if they have offices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Since when is being inclusive towards all people something that Iowa, as one of the first states to legalize gay marriage in 2009, actually opposes? No average Iowan actually wants this kind of legislation, as DEI offices have done nothing but make underrepresented Iowans feel welcome and included in the opportunities that most of us take for granted. Please vote no.

Oliver Bardwell [Iowans 4 Freedom]

We are strongly support HF 856 and urge the subcommittee to vote YES. Iowas public funds should focus on education, not divisive DEI programs. This bill ensures that our schools remain neutral and focused on academic excellence. Redirecting DEI funds to job training and workforce development is a positive step for Iowas future. Please advance HF 856 to the full committee.

Betsy Fickel

A DO PASS this bill. Interesting we have survived all these millenia without it. We are seeing some of the detrimental effects in our government and in the public sector when jobs are not awarded based on merit and ability, but soley on sexual orientation or skin color.

Tilly Woodward

Iowa HF856: Is bad for Iowa.HF856 would ban public funding for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in schools and institutions. This is a step backward for Iowa.1. Hurts Education & Reputation:DEI supports inclusive learning and critical thinking. Cutting it risks our schools accreditation and makes Iowas degrees less competitive.2. Bad for Business:Companies want a workforce that reflects today's diverse world. Banning DEI puts Iowa behind in preparing students and attracting employers.3. Silences Important Voices:The bill threatens academic freedom and open discussion, making campuses less welcoming especially for marginalized students.Bottom line:HF856 weakens our schools, economy, and communities. It sends the wrong message about who belongs in Iowa.

Anita Johnson

Please do NOT support this legislation. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are values I and many Iowans hold dear, because it holds dear the diverse people among us who have been historically not been given equal access and fully included in our institutions and society. Higher education is a setting where these people can be given a chance and the majority population education and lives enriched by studying about and interacting with them. This legislation of threatening and manipulation harms all Iowans. It prevents those with economic need from gaining a college education because of the bias of some legislators. It inserts the state into private education.Lets stop at attacking diversity, equity and inclusion here.

Kim Jenkins

Vote to pass. DEI lowers the bar for all. Its racists to judge people by the color of their skin and not the content of their character