On Tuesday, June 2, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed an omnibus appropriations bill, HF 2800, a section of which (Division XVIII, pp. 29-30) enacts what I think is the most important higher education reform in the country. Iowa will now require all graduates of its public universities to complete a survey course in American history and a survey course in American civics. Crucially, at the University of Iowa, the state’s flagship campus, the independent and newly established Center for Intellectual Freedom will be the sole academic unit responsible for designing and teaching those courses.

Although the authority is too seldom used, state legislatures have long held the power to mandate courses of “general education,” i.e. graduation requirements. That legislative power is the key to restoring some semblance of intellectual balance at our universities, while also transmitting foundational knowledge, rather than funneling beginning students into courses built around professors’ hyper-specialized research.

Sadly, otherwise excellent requirements can always be subverted by professors more interested in debunking classic authors and foundational documents than in conveying and exploring their meaning. The way to prevent that is to put the design and teaching of requirements in U.S. history, civics, Western civilization, etc., in the hands of the new centers of “civic thought” that legislatures are now establishing at public universities across the country. Professors with knowledge of, and commitment to, a more classical approach to education won’t sabotage good requirements, as we’ve seen faculty do elsewhere.

This is what the Iowa legislature and Governor Reynolds have provided for. They’ve not only crafted new graduation requirements, but have put them in the hands of Iowa’s new civic center. Iowa, in fact, is the second state to take this step. Last year, Utah established an independent Center for Civic Excellence and gave it the task of designing and teaching a three-semester graduation requirement in the history and great works of Western civilization, as well as a single required semester of American civics.

Why is this the most important education reform in the country? Because getting rid of bad practices — like DEI-based admissions, bureaucracies, rules, and orientation — won’t truly fix higher ed if the courses that actually serve as the substance of a college education remain totally one-sided. Almost all colleges impose graduation requirements, but these requirements are often thin and meaningless. By allowing students to choose from hundreds of courses, some ultra-specialized and others ultra-silly, shared foundational knowledge is lost. And when graduation requirements aren’t hollow, they’re often just propaganda for different versions of DEI.

When multiculturalism (the ancestor of DEI) first took over our universities, shared requirements in U.S. history, civics, and Western civilization — courses built around seminal documents and great works of literature, theology, and philosophy — got junked to make way for what we then called the “politically correct.” Our universities won’t be fixed until that education in the classics returns.

In the current environment, however, a return of classical education won’t be to the exclusion of postmodernism or critical theory. It will be a supplement and alternative instead. By using their power to mandate graduation requirements, in combination with the power to create independent centers of civic thought, legislatures can ensure that public university students get a chance to compare competing approaches and make up their own minds.

Students who take a traditionalist graduation requirement will no doubt go on to sample elective courses in postmodernism or critical theory. Let students decide for themselves which approach to favor. But of course, this is exactly what the professoriate hopes to avoid, and why they oppose the new civic centers and traditionalist requirements so fiercely. They’re afraid that students will like them.

Special credit for this breakthrough reform goes to state Representative Taylor Collins, head of the Iowa House Committee on Higher Education. (Collins makes the case for the new law here.) Much credit also goes to Governor Reynolds who resisted Democratic demands for a line-item veto. The University of Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom is still getting started. The law thus allows a couple of years for the new requirement to kick in. For the new project to properly work, the legislature will have to support the hiring of a quality staff. And with the main university’s faculty no doubt straining to subvert or co-opt the program, the legislature will have to keep an eagle eye out for mischief.

Utah’s version of this reform was directly inspired by the model General Education Act (of which I am a co-author). That model helped to shape the new requirements and to set up the new center to teach them. In Iowa, as in a growing number of states, a civic center already existed. All that was needed was to develop new requirements and put them under the auspices of the existing center. By whatever route, however, this reform amounts to the same thing: a return to foundational knowledge and the provision of an authentic intellectual alternative for students.

Putting the new civic centers in charge of the design and teaching of classic graduation requirements is next phase of higher education reform. I just argued that Arizona is primed for this change. Now it’s come to Iowa. With luck, your state will be next.