The Iowa Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would bar local governments, boards and departments from having DEI offices, officers and policies. (Photo by Kathie Obradovich/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Iowa lawmakers differed Tuesday on definitions and merits of diversity, equity and inclusion while debating legislation to restrict local governments’ DEI efforts.
The Iowa Senate passed Senate File 507 with a vote of 34-15 and sent it to the House for consideration.
If signed into law, the bill would bar county and city governments, offices and boards from opening or keeping DEI offices as defined in the bill unless required by law. Local government bodies would also be prohibited from having an employee or third party perform the duties of a DEI office and from requiring or soliciting anyone to submit a DEI statement.
Included in the bill’s definition of diversity, equity and inclusion are hiring practices that aren’t “colorblind” and “sex-neutral,” or that provide deferential treatment or special benefits to someone based on race and other demographics. The bill also defines as DEI programs or activities promoting deferential treatment or topics disclosed in the legislation like implicit bias, transgender ideology and antiracism, among others.
“Iowa taxpayers deserve for us to use the best hiring practices and to hire the very best people,” floor manager Sen. Cherielynn Westrich said. “Why would we not just hire the very best person, regardless of their particular characteristics?”
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Similar legislation, amended to include community and private colleges, passed out of the Iowa House on March 18. House File 856 would bar state entities from spending any money, allocated or received through other methods, on DEI offices, positions and programming, with exceptions.
One exception listed in the Senate bill is for programming to teach deescalation techniques and “prevention of bias,” which Westrich said was requested by law enforcement to maintain their current training programs.
Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, said during debate it seems like law enforcement has realized that diversity is important in their job duties of keeping their communities safe. Ensuring police have the understanding of their communities’ languages, cultural practices, history and more is necessary enough to put into this bill, he said, but the legislation would prohibit another important aspect of serving communities — recruiting from a diverse applicant pool in order to have the best force possible.
“I want to choose the most qualified police officers, the most qualified candidates,” Quirmbach said. “But when you deal with issues like this, diversity is one of the elements of merit. We hear this from the other side of the aisle all the time, ‘Oh, well, we’re all about merit.’ Well, diversity and merit are not antithetical.”
This applies to other areas of public work as well, Quirmbach said, from firefighters to 911 operators to housing coordinators. Limiting applicant pools by barring departments from recruiting from diverse areas stops cities and counties from having the most qualified people in the job, he said.
Other Democratic lawmakers agreed with Quirmbach, voicing concerns about how the legislation could affect human rights commissions, cultural and ethnic recognition and celebrations and emphasizing that DEI is necessary in the worlds of business, academics and government.
Westrich pointed out during debate the Senate has a female president and the Republican caucus as an Indian chief of staff and “many diverse people” as members, elected or appointed without the need for DEI training or policies.
Westrich said the words making up DEI in the context of local government have only served to apply unequal standards and set preferential outcomes for people based on their race, sex, gender identity and other demographics.
“The DEI movement is not about a sincere desire to make local government more diverse, more fair, more inclusive,” Westrich said. “Equal rights based on merit, talent, skill and qualifications is what we should have in our local government.”
When asked by Sen. Zach Wahls, D-Coralville, about examples of local governing bodies breaking current Iowa law and discriminating against people in their hiring practices, Westrich said she has no specific examples but she knows that with DEI practices going on across the state, it has been happening.
Most pieces of legislation introduced to the Senate usually come with at least one example of a negative consequence of whatever it is the body is trying to change, Wahls said, adding it was “unfortunate” Westrich had none.
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