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Coventina

(29,496 posts)
Tue Feb 10, 2026, 04:07 PM Feb 10

UI student accused of 'trying to assault' lawmaker as she was escorted out of DEI hearing [View all]

DES MOINES — A University of Iowa doctoral candidate was escorted out of a higher education subcommittee meeting Monday following a contentious back-and-forth over a DEI-related bill, compelling the woman to take a swipe at Rep. Steve Holt as she left.

“I don't know what is going on, but we have to have civil discourse. It's a subcommittee,” Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Hull, said. “Name calling, attacking, trying to assault a legislator is not constructive. And if your goal is to try and end these bills, I want to give you some friendly advice — I wouldn't act that way. Because other legislators are going to see that and go, maybe I need to vote for this thing if they're going to act this way.”

The proposal in question is House Study Bill 542, which would prohibit across Iowa’s public universities any general education or core curriculum courses or content related to diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory.

University of Iowa graduate student Abigail Escatel was third to speak on the measure, calling the proposal “willful ignorance.”

“I'm here today to address the white male fragility that sits in this room that feels so threatened by the idea that there are Black and Brown intellectuals that know more about the United States and this world and its legacies of colonialism, and the very grotesque ways that you invoke a willful ignorance,” Escatel said, accusing the lawmakers of failing to recognize “the very complex racial history that was built on the backs of Black folks, that was taken when Indigenous people were unsettled from this land.”

https://www.thegazette.com/higher-education/ui-student-accused-of-trying-to-assault-lawmaker-as-she-was-escorted-out-of-dei-hearing/

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WARNING: Forbidding subjects in Higher Ed is mind control.

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