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Iowa Gov. Reynolds signed HF856 banning DEI offices across state and local government

On May 27, 2025, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed House File 856 into law, barring state agencies, cities, counties, and other governmental entities from spending public money to establish or maintain diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or to employ DEI officers. The law also prohibits those entities from promoting an enumerated list of concepts — including "transgender ideology," "systemic oppression," "intersectionality," and "implicit bias" — and creates a private cause of action allowing students, alumni, and public employees to sue to stop violations. Its core prohibitions took effect upon enactment.

Jurisdiction
Iowa
Location
Des Moines, Iowa

Abuses documented

Actors

On May 27, 2025, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed House File 856 into law, prohibiting state agencies and political subdivisions from spending public funds to establish or maintain a diversity, equity, and inclusion office or to employ a DEI officer. The measure defines a "state entity" broadly to reach state agencies, departments, boards, commissions, and institutions as well as cities, counties, townships, and other political subdivisions, extending an existing ban on DEI programs from Iowa's public universities to the whole of state and local government.

Beyond the office and staffing ban, the law forbids covered entities from promoting a lengthy enumerated list of concepts, including "unconscious or implicit bias," "transgender ideology," "systemic oppression," "anti-racism," "social justice," "intersectionality," "heteronormativity," and "gender theory." It provides that a student enrolled in a public school, an alumnus of a public school, or an employee of a state entity may bring a civil action for injunctive relief to stop a violation, and it authorizes the state attorney general to seek a writ of mandamus. Because the legislature deemed the provision one of immediate importance, its core prohibitions took effect upon enactment rather than on the standard July 1 effective date.

HF856 was among a series of 2025 enactments in Iowa narrowing civil-rights and identity protections. It followed the state's earlier restriction of DEI programming at public universities and preceded further measures limiting local anti-discrimination authority, extending the removal of diversity and inclusion structures from higher education into every level of Iowa government.

Why we recorded this

Diversity and inclusion offices in government exist to help agencies serve residents of every race, sex, and gender identity on equal terms, and civil-rights norms hold that public bodies should not single out protected groups for disadvantage. This law dismantles that infrastructure across state and local government and forbids officials from even acknowledging concepts tied to the experiences of marginalized groups, backing the ban with a private right to sue. Recording it preserves an instance of a state using its spending and enforcement power to withdraw equal-treatment commitments from residents defined by race, gender, and gender identity.

Sources

  1. House File 856 (enrolled Act) — Iowa Legislature primary accessed July 12, 2026
  2. DEI Prohibitions Taking Immediate Effect — Ahlers & Cooney, P.C. secondary accessed July 12, 2026
  3. HF 856: Iowa Prohibits State Entities From Funding DEI Offices or Officers — Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP secondary accessed July 12, 2026

See also