Bruce Lear lives in Sioux City and has been connected to Iowa’s public schools for 38 years. He taught for eleven years and represented educators as an Iowa State Education Association regional director for 27 years until retiring. He can be reached at BruceLear2419@gmail.com 

The dictionary definition of intellectual freedom is, “The fundamental right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas from all viewpoints without restriction, censorship and fear.” That’s the goal of almost all liberal arts public universities in the country.

But politicians on the right have long contended universities are drowning innocent students in liberal think tanks. During the last legislative session, the majority party played lifeguard to save those students.

They created a new Center for Intellectual Freedom housed at the University of Iowa, but managed directly by the Board of Regents and active in all three public universities. It’s no coincidence it’s housed in Iowa City, long considered the epicenter of liberalism in Iowa.

An intellectual freedom center sounds wonderful, but in this case, the devil is not only in the details, but also with the intent. Quite simply it’s another legislative attack on public schools that don’t mirror a MAGA world view. It’s akin to the idea that K-12 schools should be run by parents. This version has the Board of Regents (entirely appointed by Governor Kim Reynolds) meddling in university classroom content, by monitoring what can and cannot be taught.

Lately, the battle cry for Republican legislators is public K-12 schools and universities are being destroyed by diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and liberal professors are indoctrinating students.

So, the Center for Intellectual Freedom really isn’t about the freedom to test all ideas like its dictionary definition. It’s about creating more public universities with only one narrow world view. 

It’s clear, the majority party in the Iowa legislature really isn’t against indoctrination. It just wants indoctrination of conservative viewpoints.

There was no need for a Center for intellectual Freedom when I was a college freshman in 1975. Freedom to think was alive and well the minute I opened the door of my 1967 Ford to a new world at Central College in Pella. Although it was a cool day, drops of sweat hit my high tops. I was 104 miles from my high school, but it seemed like a different universe a million miles from my hometown.

When you graduate from a tiny class and you weren’t the valedictorian or salutatorian, but maybe cracked the top ten, you’ve something to prove in college. 

After a couple weeks of classes, where I was challenged to think, explore, and reason, I recognized college was where you tried-on different ideas to see what fit. Professors challenged me to critically analyze assumptions and become intellectually curious about other ideas I’d never considered.

Central is a conservative school supported by the Reform Church of America. I joked that my parents sent me to reform school. But classes weren’t taught by conservative or liberal professors. Classes were taught by gifted academic scholars in their fields. They challenged us to think independently, critically and to argue our ideas. It wasn’t always comfortable, but it was always needed.

Yes, that was 50 years ago. But my guess is if legislators took the time to visit university classes in Iowa now, they’d find students wrestling with ideas and facts their high school minds never considered. They’d see a variety of teaching styles, and they’d see students uncomfortable as their ideas are challenged. 

That’s how intellect is honed and nourished. 

What they wouldn’t see is widespread indoctrination, forcing liberal or conservative thought. There may be isolated examples where students and parents scream bias, but it’s not the norm. It’s the exception.

The Center of Intellectual Freedom is about as useful as the “g” in lasagna. Intellectual interference by legislators pretending to be professors is dangerous for higher education. To produce the best and brightest, we need our universities to be learning laboratories teeming with every idea imaginable.