Fear and scrubbing rule at the University of Iowa

State universities in Iowa have been ordered to remove anything that could be tied to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion from websites

Photo by Stephen Ogunnubi on Unsplash

Well, the University of Iowa’s webpages are getting a good scrubbing and a refreshing coat of whitewash.

This scrubbing is aimed at making sure the university’s websites say nothing about diversity, equity and inclusion. This stuff needs to be deleted under orders from the Board of Regents, which is taking its orders from angry Republican state lawmakers.

They control of everything, but they’re always angry.

According to an extensive story Sunday by The Gazette’s Vanessa Miller, the scrubbing isn’t just tossing webpages, it’s erasing pieces of UI’s history. Do any of these records belong to the public? Is this censoring protected speech? Who knows?

Miller described some of the content being purged — diversity scholarships, a letter to the university by former President Bruce Herrald after the George Floyd verdicts and a letter from the Trans Inclusivity Coalition pledging to support trans students.

“I am directing the institutions to pull down any current or archived webpages regarding diversity, equity, and/or inclusion,” regents President Sherry Bates said after Republican lawmakers dressed down the universities for not moving quickly enough to dismantle Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts.

Sure, it’s just some webpages. No big deal.

But similar scrubbing is happening in businesses, organizations and local governments -- any entity that needs federal funding. Climate data once posted by NOAA and the USDA has been removed. It all stinks of authoritarianism.

The regents fear retribution from the Statehouse, although most board members are willing redactors. Our great universities, our historic guardians of knowledge, bullwarks against ignorance, now tremble in fear of Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis.

Lawmakers talk about returning to a “merit” based university system. The flip side is a persistent smear that students who benefited from diversity efforts lack merit. Black college graduates who succeeded after college and started careers are “DEI hires.” You know, like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

It’s racism. They don’t even try to hide it anymore.

Scaring the hell out of people has become fashionable. Journalism is pulling punches and settling B.S. lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies. Billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos barred his newspaper from endorsing Harris and is ordering the opinion page to change its objectives.

Federal workers fear being abruptly fired by Elon Musk. Military officers and lawyers judged to be disloyal to Trump are being sacked. Republicans are too frightened to stop, or even question, the madman.

Our “golden age” is making this country dumber, meaner, darker and scary. We didn’t even get low-price eggs.

“When you see important societal actors — be it university presidents, media outlets, CEOs, mayors, governors — changing their behavior in order to avoid the wrath of the government, that’s a sign that we’ve crossed the line into some form of authoritarianism,” said Steven Levitsky, co-author of the book “How Democracies Die,” told the New York Times.

Our Republican heroes have a remarkably inflated notion of their power to erase ideas. Ideas are stubborn and stick around. The more you try to purge ideas, the more powerful they become. Ask any authoritarian on the scrap heap of history.

Oh, and one more thing, it’s the Gulf of Mexico.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com

This column first appeared in The Gazette published in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Subscribe to our independent, employee-owned news outlet.

My columns are part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. Many of Iowa’s best writers share their stories and thoughtful viewpoints. Due to a clerical error, they let me in.