(Radio Iowa) – The Board of Regents has approved the bylaws for the Center for Intellectual Freedom that lawmakers required to be created at the University of Iowa. Board member Christine Hensley led the effort. “We realized fairly quickly that the legislation in some areas was vague. And so we tried to be sensitive to that and had questions with the appropriate people along the way,” Hensley says. During the Board of Regents meeting Wednesday, Hensley says they did their best to put the bylaws together. “After having conversations with legal counsel and staff. Determined that the best approach for the bylaws would be to keep them simple and maybe understanding also that we would maybe miss or not address every single thing. So this is the start,” Hensley says. “I would anticipate that maybe in the long run there might be an amendment or two. I have no idea at this point what that might be.”

She says they tried to address how the center moves forward operationally, and says there is a lot of interest in the center throughout the country. Hensley says there’s been concern that other like centers have ended up not being successful because they diverge to something that was not really anticipated. Regent Robert Cramer talked about his view of the center. “I think the goal is, is to raise the level of civic, both knowledge and engagement, by our students,” he says. Cramer says the idea is to impact the entire campus. “But then also with the long term intent of bringing people of different, adding more debate to our campus, you know where people of different sides can view different opinions and we can let the students, grapple with those things,” he says.

Some Democratic lawmakers have criticized the new center, calling it ideologically motivated.