1. United States
2. Iowa
3. Letter

Why Are Iowa Students Being Forced Into Classes They Rejected? I am asking you to oppose the mandatory attendance requirement now attached to the University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom, and to push for legislative oversight before it takes effect in 2028. The Center for Intellectual Freedom was created by Republican lawmakers in 2025 to counter what they described as liberal indoctrination on campus, with similar centers at Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa. Students didn’t show up. In its first semester, only 19 students enrolled in the center’s courses, and one class drew just eight. A April 2026 report from the nonprofit Common Sense Institute concluded enrollment was unlikely to grow unless students were required to attend. Rather than ask why, lawmakers tacked a mandate onto a budget bill during a 35-hour marathon session, and Gov. Kim Reynolds signed House File 2800 on June 2, requiring six credit hours from the center for graduation at all three universities starting in 2028. The state has already committed $2 million in taxpayer funding to a program students voluntarily avoided. This isn’t a partisan complaint. Democratic Sen. Janet Petersen warned the cost will come “straight out of student and parent’s checkbooks,” and former Sen. Liz Mathis pointed out the obvious contradiction: a center built around “intellectual freedom” that now forces attendance. Even the center’s own advisory board has described a “hostile reception” from university staff, and the center paused its courses in July while searching for a permanent director. I have watched my own tuition dollars and tax dollars get stretched thinner every year. When a program can’t earn student interest on its own merits, the answer shouldn’t be to force enrollment and send the bill to families already struggling to afford college. I am asking you to: • Introduce or support legislation repealing the mandatory attendance provision in House File 2800. • Demand a formal legislative oversight hearing on the center’s enrollment numbers and its use of the $2 million in taxpayer funding before 2028. • Push for an independent audit of the center’s spending before any additional state dollars are committed. Iowa students already answered the question this center’s supporters won’t ask: they didn’t want it. Forcing them into empty seats doesn’t make the program work — it just makes it mandatory. Thank you for your attention to this issue.