(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird says her office will thoroughly investigate undercover videos that suggest University of Iowa staff are circumventing Iowa’s law barring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programming on campus.

“Basically it is people who work at the university talking about how they are disregarding and getting around the law that the legislature passed that said they can’t do D.E.I.,” Bird said Saturday. “…Instead of changing and following the law, according to the video, it looks like they just renamed it.”

One of the undercover videos was featured on Fox News last week and Governor Reynolds filed a complaint with Bird’s office. The second video of a different University of Iowa staffer appeared on the Townhall website. Both university employees have been placed on leave.

Bird said her office plans to review internal university documents. “We’re going to let the facts go where they go and investigate all of it, pull that curtain back and get some sunlight on what is going on at the University of Iowa,” Bird said.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird speaks at a campaign fundraiser in Adel on August 2, 2025. (RI photo)

Bird cautions the probe will “take some time,” but when it’s done she says the results will be made public. “Here in Iowa, our taxpayer funded universities are supposed to be about education, not indoctrination,” Bird said. “It’s your tax dollars.”

Bird made her remarks this weekend to a crowd at a fundraiser for her 2026 campaign. Bird announced this summer that she would not run for governor and would seek a second term as attorney general. “I was born and raised on a farm…and I learned something on the farm. You don’t quit halfway through the job, do ya? You keep on going until you get the job done and we’ve done some good things in the attorney general’s office to help Iowa, but we are not done,” Bird said. “The work is not done and I’m not going to leave that unfinished to run for something else.”

Bird told the crowd her reelection campaign is in “high gear.”

“I believe 2026 is going to be a pivotal election and it’s nothing tht we can take for granted,” Bird said. “…Last time we kind of caught them napping in the attorney general’s office a little, but this time around they already have a candidate running against me for the last three months.”

Bird defeated Democrat Tom Miller in 2022 by a 1.7% margin. Nate Willems, an attorney from Mount Vernon, is the only Democrat to enter the race for attorney general.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the winner of the Iowa GOP’s 2016 Caucuses, and Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt were scheduled to speak at Bird’s fundraiser, but both remained in Washington, D.C. for senate votes on Saturday.