EDITORS' CORNER
A new Iowa law that requires students at public universities to take an American history class and a U.S. government class to graduate is being championed as a way to turn around higher education and curb student indoctrination.
The legislation, approved last week as part of a budget bill, was heralded by one of the state’s top conservatives as something that “makes history and civics great again.”
Rep. Taylor Collins, the Republican who chairs the state’s house committee on higher education, wrote in an op-ed that the law will force campus leaders to require relevant courses instead of “absurd options” focused on leftwing and progressive ideologies.
“As our country prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, HF 2800 ensures Iowa is doing its part. The bill mandates genuine survey courses in American history and government, delivered through dedicated centers such as the University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom,” Collins wrote. “Students will now engage in the study of our founding principles instead of ideological electives.”
“Civic education is not partisan,” the lawmaker added. “It equips students to ensure they understand and protect the system that safeguards our rights and freedoms.”
The law was also championed by the center-right National Association of Scholars.
“These reforms are good and necessary. Iowa college students, as American college students generally, know too little about their nation’s history and form of government. Too many of them, alas, querulously vilify both of these because they have never learned what their country and their republic actually are like,” the association stated.
As NAS explained, the new requirement will replace an existing one that Iowa’s public universities incorporate just one course in both American history and civil government into their humanities general education requirements.
But what’s more, “Iowa’s three civic centers—the University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom, Iowa State University’s Center for Cyclone Civics, and the University of Northern Iowa’s Center for Civic Education—will offer courses every year to fulfill these GER requirements.”
And in fact the University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom “will be the sole academic unit at the University of Iowa responsible for offering these courses,” NAS reported.
“With our applause, we provide a caution: Iowa policymakers will need to conduct detailed oversight to make sure that members of the far-left higher education establishment at the University of Iowa do not attempt to sabotage, capture, or otherwise bureaucratically nullify the Center for Intellectual Freedom’s full freedom to carry out this educational mission,” NAS added. “Policymakers must use their powers of oversight and the purse to make sure that bureaucrats do not make this provision a dead letter.”
Inside Higher Ed reported the new requirements “won’t apply to students who already completed “substantially similar” coursework or who are pursuing degrees that are supposed to take three years or less.” The law takes effect in fall 2028.
MORE: Iowa governor signs bill mandating American government, history courses at public colleges
