The Department of Residence at Iowa State removed gender-inclusive housing (GIH) information from its website in accordance with instructions from the Iowa Board of Regents.
Freeman Hall is Iowa State’s singular gender-inclusive residence hall on campus and features Stonewall House, a living community with a name inspired by the 1969 riots in New York City that sparked the LGBTQIA+ civil rights movement.
Daniyal Shahbaz, president of Freeman Hall and a junior studying mechanical engineering, provided a comment through an email to the Daily.
“The Iowa State University Department of Residence changed all mentions of Gender Inclusivity on the Freeman Building website and the website for Stonewall, the house for Gender Inclusivity,” Shahbaz stated.
“To further my information, I got into a meeting with the Director of Residence to get clarity,” Shahbaz stated. “In this meeting, I was told this has been done to protect students. Regarding where the university stands on the issue, I was told that the university will comply with the law. The problem is that there is no law yet that requires the university to change the website.”
The Daily’s request for comment to the director of communication and marketing for campus life, Meredith Ponder Hanisch, was redirected to Katy Cran, the strategic communications advisor for the Office of the Senior Vice President of Student Affairs.
“Changes were made to the Freeman Hall page of the Department of Residence website to better align with other hall webpages,” Cran stated in the email. “Additionally, we have been instructed by the Iowa Board of Regents to review all ISU webpages that contain language related to diversity, equity and inclusion and are currently reviewing webpages to ensure compliance with that guidance. No decision has been made regarding the future of Freeman Hall.”
These actions are one of many that have been taken by Iowa State in alignment with the Regents DEI directives. “Iowa State University eliminated the central Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in compliance with Board Directive One,” according to Board of Regents documents for their November meeting. “This office was primarily responsible for supporting DEI programming, training and workshops across campus.”
In an interview with the Daily, Shahbaz expressed his concern about future actions by the university that could be hidden from students.
“We don’t know what else the university might change without informing anybody,” Shahbaz said. “They’re saying, ‘Right now, we’re just changing the website to keep us safe,’ but without talking to anyone about it.”
In a follow-up email, Cran provided the following response to the Daily’s questions about the university’s future plans to change other websites:
“The Department of Residence and the Division of Student Affairs are still reviewing websites to ensure compliance with the website guidance from the Iowa Board of Regents and will make appropriate updates where necessary,” Cran stated. “At this time, the Freeman Hall webpage is the only page where significant updates were made. The updated language on the Freeman Hall webpage was not communicated to students, however the changes that were made do not impact current practices.”
Shahbaz also expressed concern that gender-inclusive housing would be removed entirely from Iowa State’s campus.
“People are scared that they’re going to lose this option,” Shahbaz said. “This house exists so that [LGBTQIA+ students] can have their own space without being subject to any torment from people… it becomes problematic and people are scared about it.”
