“The past, present, and future of state-established civics centers”

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The conversations fall to whispers, interrupted by Chick-fil-A wrappers crinkling, in the Boyd Law Building on Sept. 3. 

Luciano de Castro, interim director for the Center for Intellectual Freedom, steps up to the platform, the light from the projector reflecting off his forehead. 

“But I can see it clearly, like someone looking at the horizon before the sunrise,” de Castro said. “The birth of a new discipline. You don’t know this yet, but you will find out soon.” 

The topic slowly shifts, but the sentence echoes throughout the room. 

A state-mandated unit designed with right-leaning courses and speakers may be new at the University of Iowa, but not nationally. The upward trend of civics centers focused on American ideologies has been undeniable in recent years. Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, and more have initiated state-funded civics centers, and the trend only seems to continue.

As centers at other universities continue to grow, one common question keeps coming up: Is this what students want and what schools need? 

Paul Carrese, the director of the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, emphasized the importance of civic education within universities. With a background in political science, he says civics centers are a positive change across the country.

“They want to restore some space for the original mission of state governments chartering and establishing public universities, which is to educate citizens and, implicitly, future civic leaders,” Carrese said. 

He says he’s seen a shift away from classes surrounding political theory and more into political practice. But Carrese stressed that they both matter and should be taught. 

The Center for American Civics is housed under the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. The school offers two undergraduate degrees and one minor. 

ASU was one of the first schools to establish a civics-focused program in 2017. According to its website, seven other state governments directly copied their model. 

Carrese said the problem with this lack of patriotism is a lack of understanding about the civic institutions of the U.S. With a lack of understanding, he said, comes a lack of involved and educated voters. 

“We need to teach America about America, our form of government, and politics. Being a self-governing citizen is not obvious,” Carrese said. 

Other civics centers have received pushback from students and faculty. 

“They’re trying to push their political agenda, and we are seeing that more students are learning about this and are not okay with that,” Hannah Hayes, a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and member of Sunrise UNC, said. 

Sunrise UNC is a chapter of the national Sunrise organization, focused on climate change and other social reform initiatives. 

The School of Civic Life and Leadership at UNC is a civics-center established by the College of Arts and Sciences in 2023. The school, which became independent of the College of Arts and Sciences last summer, does not have to abide by the college’s hiring practices. 

This independence comes after a months-long internal review was withheld from public viewing, citing confidential information. The review, which was performed by K&L Gates LLP and cost the university $1.2 million, was initiated after the program was accused of tampering in the hiring process. 

“Without having some of the information from the investigation public, there’s no way for faculty or students to know what accountability looks like,” Hayes said. 

UNC cites the school’s increasing enrollment and student interest for its independence from the College of Arts and Science. According to UNC’s historical course records, the mean growth in student enrollment for classes taught over 2 semesters is +1.4 students per class. 

The school has been met with controversy, much like the UI’s Center for Intellectual Freedom. For example, UNC Board of Trustees member David Boliek said in an interview with Fox News that the school was created to help the “lack of right-of-center views” on campus. The school claims it was designed to address the decline in civic knowledge and discourse. 

Florida center regarded as the gold standard 

For University of Florida staff, the Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education came as a surprise. 

A $3 million fund for the program appeared in the legislature in June 2022. The University says it did not request the funds or the establishment of the school; the Council on Public University Reform requested them. 

The request was headed by John Holdenried, a prominent figure in the Heritage Foundation and Napa Legal, both conservative and faith-based organizations. The Council on Public University Reform was not in contact with the University of Florida at all. 

The Hamilton School, named after the first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, began very similarly to the UI’s center: small. 

The Hamilton School began in 2023 and only listed four courses, all centered around literature. Now, it is a sprawling institution offering multiple majors, minors, and certificates alongside its classes. 

The Hamilton school is often cited, including by de Castro, as one of the most aspirational state-funded civics centers. 

Ben Wise is a professor teaching American history at the University of Florida. In his article, “How to Fire a Professor at The University of Florida,” he studies how the government has historically interacted with higher education, specifically the humanities. 

“How do you explain these moments where [humanities] becomes politically controversial?” Wise said in an interview with the Daily Iowan. 

He said he hasn’t seen an issue of “indoctrination,” Democrat or Republican, in classes throughout his department. 

“I think it relies on a bad-faith argument that professors are uniformly liberal and indoctrinating kids to overthrow America,” Wise said. “That’s just not happening.” 

The indoctrination argument has been echoed by prominent politicians like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis says in his memoir, “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” that educators are hurting more than helping. 

“They teach our kids to hate our country or to hate each other based on false narratives about American history,” DeSantis said in his book. 

The Hamilton School offers classes to combat these “false narratives” lawmakers claim are a problem. The classes are on a range of subjects, from history, economics, literature, and more. Wise sees no problem with this, as long as it is more course offerings for students. 

Looking through the most optimistic lens of the school, Wise said more class offerings are in disciplines not offered through traditional programs. The school teaches specific history classes like war studies, which he said are not offered in the history department. 

Wise said the worst case is replacement and erasure of academic units throughout the university. With Hamilton’s yearly $10 million budget, they have the ability to hire a lot of faculty in a short amount of time. Wise worries that the school could hire so many professors for Hamilton that the university’s original departments, including the history department, could face funding cuts.  

As more schools continue to open across the country, Wise stresses collaboration between civics centers and universities. 

“Collaborate as much as you can in the interest of serving students, serving the larger intellectual project of understanding the human condition, because there’s no one right way to do that,” Wise said. “Be aware in every department, whether it is a civics institute or a history department, that political bias on either side is not helpful to the core mission of the humanities.”

Following in the footsteps

Back in Iowa City, de Castro said he is pulling from multiple different programs for curriculum inspiration in preparation for the Fall 2028 mandate requiring students to take two classes through the center. Traveling around the country to various schools, he noted what worked well and what fell short for similar civics-based programs. 

De Castro admits the Center for Intellectual Freedom does not have the capacity to imitate schools like the Hamilton School due to stark budget differences. Hamilton gets $10 million a year in recurring funds, while the UI got $1 million for the 2026-27 school year. 

“So you cannot imitate what they do, but we can see what they are trying to do, and then try to adapt to our situations,” de Castro said. 

One of these adaptations was trying to increase student participation within the center. On the center’s informational poster, they cite supporting student organizations. The two organizations listed are Turning Point USA and Young Americans for Freedom. 

While knowledge about the program remains minimal among students, according to interviews by the DI de Castro is optimistic that with more marketing, students will want to enroll in classes and attend speaker events. 

The future of the new state-funded civics centers remains unknown. Iowa has pushed through a rocky start, including the pausing of classes until 2028 following a directive by the Iowa Board of Regents, the governing body of the center. There is hope from center leadership that one day a program as prominent as North Carolina or Florida could take shape in Iowa City. 

“This is an intellectual enterprise that is useful and important, and this is why I think it’s a very important thing to bring here,” de Castro said.