Iowa’s Josh Turek, Self-Described ‘Common-Sense Moderate Democrat,’ Voted To Protect Race-Based DEI Programs in Iowa Schools
Collin Anderson and Peter Hasson
Washington Free Beacon
July 6, 2026
Iowa’s Josh Turek, who presents himself as a “common-sense moderate Democrat” running for Senate in a red state, voted to protect race-based diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in Iowa’s universities and K-12 schools.
Turek, a former wheelchair basketball player who has served in the Iowa state house since 2023, voted against a trio of anti-DEI bills between April 2024 and May 2025, including two that became law. In April 2024, he opposed SF 2435, which prohibits public universities from hiring DEI officers. Less than a year later, in March 2025, he voted against HF 269, which would have prohibited public colleges and universities from requiring students to take any “diversity, equity, inclusion, and critical race theory related course” to graduate. And in May 2025, Turek voted against HF 856, which barred state funding for DEI offices and initiatives at the college and K-12 levels.
The bills prompted Iowa’s public universities to scale back race-based initiatives. The University of Northern Iowa amended its 2023-28 Strategic Plan to remove portions calling to “increase diversity” among faculty and students and increase graduation and retention rates among “traditionally marginalized students,” which the school defined as “specifically American Indian or Alaskan Native; Asian; Black or African American; Hispanic/Latinx, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.” The updated version called to increase those “success rates” among “all students.”
The legislation also addressed equity trainings offered to Iowa’s K-12 teachers.
The Iowa City School District’s “Department of Equity,” for example, trained teachers on topics like “Ethnomathematics: The Study of Math as a Cultural Activity,” which called on participants to “examine mathematics teaching and learning through a cultural lens” and “approach the mathematics classroom as ethnographers, exploring the origins of our current practices and questioning the hierarchies they produce,” according to public records obtained by the watchdog group Parents Defending Education. Another course, “Analyzing Systems of Behavior,” called on teachers to “examine how you show up in your classrooms and what you need in order to challenge yourself in regards to bias and privilege.” A third, titled “WE ARE EVERYWHERE: Paris is Burning,” centered on “New York City’s African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene” in the 1980s and explored “forgotten Herstory and ideas of intersectionality and discuss topics of Race, Sexuality, Class, and Gender discussion focusing on LGBTQIA+.”
The district has since shuttered the department, and its former director of equity is now an HR director for Minneapolis Public Schools.
Turek’s votes appear at odds with his “moderate” image. Turek describes himself as a “prairie populist” and “common-sense” lawmaker who can appeal to “Iowans of all political stripes.” But two of Turek’s votes defending DEI came after President Donald Trump placed opposition to such “woke” initiatives at the center of his campaign, which carried Iowa by 13 points.
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