University Of Iowa Senior Director Details Covert ‘Strategy’ To Keep DEI

Another employee at the University of Iowa has been caught trying to get around the state’s new anti-Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion law, and this time it’s a higher-level director in the Office of Access and Support. 

Accuracy in Media’s investigators recently went undercover to speak with Cassandra Gordon-Fletcher, a senior director in the Office of Access and Support (OAS) at the school. 

She told AIM’s investigators, “we got a strategy” to keep implementing their DEI agenda despite the new law. 

According to Gordon-Fletcher, other schools in the area had closed their DEI programs, but their president made sure theirs stayed up and running. 

“Our president said it’s important to us but we just need to reimagine it a certain way and abide by the rules and the law,” she told investigators. 

She also shared that what was once known as the Inclusive Education Strategic Initiative (IESI) has since been combined with another department. 

“So we just have the one Office of Access and Support and a part of it is doing those workshops,” Gordon-Fletcher told investigators, assuring them that specific DEI instruction known as bias training and ally workshops are still happening. 

“It’s not going away, we’re just reimagining how we’re doing it,” she reiterated. 

She further described a program called BUILD, which stands for Building University of Iowa Leadership Development, which she said those trainings will be a part of. 

And while Gordon-Fletcher said they aren’t necessarily moving DEI into academics, she claimed, “we’re going to use academics to help us make it come to fruition.” 

Gov. Kim Reynolds, R-Iowa, recently signed the anti-DEI law which bars public institutions from establishing and funding DEI offices. 

It took effect on July 1, 2025. 

But soon after, a video emerged of a different assistant director in the Division of Student Life bragging about skirting the new DEI restriction. 

After the video came out, Reynolds responded in a statement. “I’m appalled by the remarks made in this video by a University of Iowa employee who blatantly admits to defying DEI restrictions I signed into law on May 9, 2024,” the governor said. 

“I already issued a letter to the Board of Regents on January 23, 2025, reminding university representatives to comply, not only with state law, but an executive order signed by President Trump ending implementation of DEI policies at public institutions. I will be referring this matter to Attorney General Brenna Bird for her review as it relates to Iowa’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Act,” Reynolds continued. 

The Iowa Board of Regents is meeting Tuesday to consider policies on DEI and controversial subject matter, which had been left out of the July meeting. Board President Sherry Bates announced the special August 12 meeting in order to take up the item. 

Go to DEIinIowa.com to send one message that goes directly to the state Board of Regents.

Tell them that radical administrators should not be plotting ways to circumvent the law in order to advance their divisive ideology.

This article originally appeared on [publication]. It is republished with permission.

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