(Radio Iowa) – The chairman of the newly-created House Higher Education Committee is calling on a state board to block the University of Iowa’s plan for a new School of Social and Cultural Analysis. Representative Taylor Collins, a Republican from Mediapolis, says it’s merely a name change that would let the university’s Gender Studies programming continue. “It has now become clear that the academic programs, many of the ones that legislators were concerned about, instead of eliminating them, they are now combining them into an entire school,” Collins says, “basically a ‘School of Wokeness.'” Last month, University Iowa officials proposed closing the Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies Department and the Department of American Studies — and creating a new School of Social and Cultural Analysis.

Collins initially praised the plan, saying the university was responding to the agenda of the House Higher Education Committee before the panel holds its first meeting. Now, the chairman of the SENATE Education Committee and Representative Collins are both calling on the Board of Regents to reject the plan. “Iowans are no longer interested in funding these kind of academic programs like Gender Studies,” Collins says. “Our universities need to be focused on providing for the workforce needs of the state, not peddling an ideological agenda.” Collins says some of the newly-appointed members of the Board of Regents will be change agents and allies in efforts to rid the state universities of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

University of Iowa officials have said the new School of Social and Cultural Analysis is part of a multi-year plan to reconstruct the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to better serve students and faculty. Administrators say many of the graduates from a new School of Social and Cultural Analysis would be employed in community and social services, where job openings are projected to grow eight percent over the next decade.