Iowa to mandate students take Intellectual Freedom classes amid low enrollment | Hacker News Reader

Iowa to mandate students take Intellectual Freedom classes amid low enrollment

kcrg.com

57 pointshn_acker63 comments

Things to know that the article doesn't mention: Christopher Rufo was the invited speaker for the opening event, and the interim director is UI economics professor Luciano I. de Castro[1]. In 2025 de Castro cited extreme bias in advocating for the creation of the center[2]. The sponsor of the bill to create the center, Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis also said while working to advance an earlier bill to ban DEI spending at public universities, "the bill is needed because the three universities are spending too much on DEI officers and programs. He said the salaries for the top four DEI professionals across the regents universities add up to about $750,000 per year."[3]

1 https://www.thegazette.com/news/gop-invited-to-center-for-in...

2 https://www.thegazette.com/news/education/university-of-iowa...

3 https://www.iowapublicradio.org/state-government-news/2023-0...

At first, I thought the saddest part was:

"The nonprofit Common Sense Institute reported student interest and enrollment was low — with just eight students in one class. The report said enrollment is unlikely to grow unless the state mandated students take the classes, which is exactly what Republican lawmakers passed."

But despite the overtly Orwellian effort, the Democrats responded in typical ineffectual, tone-deaf fashion:

"Democratic Sen. Janet Petersen slammed that idea, arguing it will drive up costs for Iowa college students and their families."

Costs. Yeah. That's the problem.

Cost of living is the only message that seems to work in the Trump era. I understand why they’re using it.

Iowa produces 1 in 8 eggs, and the 2024 election was about egg margins. It’s more honest to concentrate on relating egg margins to Iowans prosperity, than to try promoting intellectual freedom in a country which already has a first amendment.

"Common Sense Institute"? Life imitates satire once again, it seems.

The original title is:

> Iowa lawmakers move to mandate students take Center for Intellectual Freedom classes amid low enrollment

What is "center" in this context?

"Center for Intellectual Freedom" is the doublespeak for the reeducation camp.

I checked out their website -- it was carefully clean of leaking any agendas or biases out.

I'm all for challenging assumptions and what not, but that should come with a willingness to change one's mind when confronted with compelling evidence. I see a paucity of that from the people who push this kind of stuff.

Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea has requested a 15 minute job interview regarding your skepticism.

Personal insults don't move the conversation forward.

My point is simple: the opaque nature of the site is suspicious, and the wording about "debating" CEOs, etc is an interesting choice as well: rather than "engaging", "learning from", "hearing from" etc.

I'm all for what they ostensibly represent: social/poltical science and the constitution. Both subjects all citizens should be able to have critical reasoning skills about.

The fact that the current regime is flagrantly ignoring the constitution, that it's adherents don't mind at all, and that they are likely aligned with this org is worthy of scrutiny.

The University of Iowa has a Social Sciences department that has professors in for Political Science, Anthropology, Public Policy, and other fields. It’s an accredited institution.

But this isn't about the University of Iowa, it's about the "Center for Intellectual Freedom", which was created specifically to promote conservative values.

I'm all for challenging assumptions and learning about differing viewpoints, but this smells of indoctrination.

Conservatives hate colleges because they are "liberal hotbeds", but "reality has a liberal bias" and a lot of education on reality runs counter to their ideology. Case in point: studies on Critical Race Theory are considered to be blasphemous by the right but those studies are based upon the fact that the United States was built on systemic racism and is still deeply ingrained is a depressingly significant portion of the population.

Likely Homelander's Freedom Camps.

This is really light on details. What exactly is this? Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I think intellectual freedom is a cornerstone of democracy and freedom. We should want people to have freedom of thought. The headline makes it seem like some crazy right wing nut job, indoctrination camp, but don't we want people to have free intellectualism?

It was almost named after Charlie Kirk. It is, in fact, an indoctrination camp.

perhaps they will provide usefull training in how to read the room, and when to duck as I think those are generaly usefull skills no matter what you are talking about.

generally when you want people to have free intellectualism you don't force them to take your courses

> intellectual freedom is a cornerstone of democracy and freedom.

Indeed. And what better way to prove it than by mandating six credit hours worth of tuition fees on the topic?

I found a syllabus for each of the two current classes that they teach:

https://cif.uiowa.edu/sites/cif.uiowa.edu/files/2026-03/syll...

Aw yeah, can’t wait for the lecture on “Why Capitalism Rocks!”

State legislators in Iowa are mad that faculty lean left. So they created this institute that expressly hires conservatives and has conservative leaning curricula. But students would rather take a history class from a historian than some reactionary weirdo who thinks that all historians are communists. So the university is mandating students to take courses from this program.

This is the opposite of free intellectualism. It is faculty hired for their political beliefs and curricula created for political ends and mandatory enrollment so students must be exposed to these ideas whether they like it or not.

Not often I get to quote the greatest cartoon of all time, the Venture Bros, on HN, but hey it's appropriate:

> Catclops: Tourism has skyrocketed at the Well of Bitter Sorrows and Ünderbheit Birth Crevasse since you enacted the mandatory attendance edict.

> Baron Ünderbheit: Told you.

So, we've reached the point where, convservatives, generally speaking, are a direct analogy to a cartoon super villian. We are a stupid, stupid species.

Nothing says freedom like being forced to go to a re-education camp.

War is Peace, Government Mandated is Intellectual Freedom. Somehow it surfaced in my memory how in USSR they were explaining that the elections with only 1 candidate, put on the ballot by the Party, were the pinnacle of democracy.

The Republican Party is a big proponent of the freedom to force their speech on everyone — willing audience or not.

You mean the Ministry of Truth?

I went to Iowa State, and I am so glad I missed this shit, cause this is insane.

Not to be that guy, but you know this is gonna hit Iowa and Iowa State in the recruiting department. Athletics was part of the way some of these schools thought they’d make up for cuts in research and declining revenue elsewhere given increasing costs. “We’ll just get rich off football and basketball!!!”

realistically though, the rest of the B1G is definitely going to negatively recruit against this. Just like they are being told to negatively recruit southern states around the voting rights act stuff. Not that Iowa State cares about the B1G but they are generally going after the same guys. Now the B1G schools have wayyy more money, and the recruiting high ground.

It’s gonna get ugly in college sports.

> but you know this is gonna hit Iowa and Iowa State in the recruiting department

I don't see why, it'll just be one more class the kids don't bother with.

I share this sentiment. Go, Cyclones!

You can lead a horse to water, but can't make him drink. The students might not even be that thirsty anyway.

Even if it doesn't affect the students, it'll allow other countries to say that their Center for Uighur Freedom is no different to the US' Center for Intellectual Freedom.

Uhh so this is an Iowa thing, and China has already been running reeducation camps without feeling a need to justify itself by comparison. Also it's confusing why you think some other country would say this given that there's nothing in common between the two things, except being "mandatory", but not really. Like, who would be the target audience of such a statement?

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