The College Fix

Until this month, the public university ran 8 ‘diversity councils’ to ‘support’ various identity groups on campus

The University of Iowa is cutting a slew of diversity, equity, and inclusion-related programs – including its Latinx and LGBTQ+ councils – this month to comply with state and federal government actions.

Cuts also include identity-focused “living learning communities” for students in on-campus housing, The Gazette reports.

Prior to Feb. 17, the public university ran eight diversity councils “to support different groups of people on our campus,” according to its website. Members included faculty, staff, and sometimes students.

The councils were the African American Council, Latinx Council, Native American Council, Pan Asian Council, LGTBQ+ Council, Veterans and Military Council, Council on Disability Awareness, and Council on the Status of Women.

Liz Tovar, associate vice president of the UI Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity, cited a 2024 state law prohibiting public funding for DEI programs as the reason, according to The Gazette.

“To become compliant with Iowa Code Chapter 261J, existing diversity councils will transition to informal groups,” Tovar stated in a Jan. 31 guidance.

These informal groups will operate “independently” from the university, and be “responsible for managing [their] own funding, branding, promotion, and marketing resources, including maintaining a website, without utilizing university resources,” the guidance states.

Additionally, several university-run “living learning communities” in residence halls also will be eliminated this fall, The Gazette reports:

The university in 2013 became the first of its kind to require all residence hall students to join a living learning community — or “LLC” — which house students with peers who share similar interests or majors in hopes of forming deeper community connections that aid in retention and engagement efforts.

The university downgraded its LLC mandate to optional in 2018 — when it offered more than 20 different community options students could join, from “BizHawks” for business-minded students to several centered on academic endeavors like engineering, writing, and the arts to less academic and more identity-based communities.

Three of the DEI-related communities are being cut, including one called “All In” that focuses on “LGBTQ+ culture and identity.”

Another, “Unidos,” was focused on “Latinx” students, and the third to be eliminated, “Young, Gifted, and Black,” worked to “better Iowa’s Black Community through campus involvement.”

However, the cuts do not extend to student-run organizations, meaning the university’s Pride Alliance Center and the Latino Native American Cultural Center will stay, according to the report.

Nationwide, higher education DEI programs are in jeopardy due to executive orders from President Donald Trump.

Trump’s actions ban taxpayer funding for DEI programs. However, a federal judge recently blocked parts of the orders, The College Fix reported.

MORE: Agency halts scholarship program at HBCUs after Trump’s DEI crackdown

IMAGE: College of University/Shutterstock

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