U Nebraska at Omaha Professor Set to Lead Iowa Civics Center

The Iowa Board of Regents voted Tuesday to hire the first permanent director for the civics center at the University of Iowa, despite the interim director’s call to suspend the search.

The board offered the position leading Iowa’s Center for Intellectual Freedom to Carson Holloway, currently the chair of the political science department and interim chair of the philosophy department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Holloway has also served as a visiting fellow at multiple conservative organizations. He was a William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life at the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, a program that has been influential in the formation of public university civics centers such as the Center for Intellectual Freedom. Republican lawmakers and university governing boards have created these centers on prominent public university campuses in red states.

In addition, Holloway has been a Visiting Fellow in American Political Thought at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The Claremont Institute, another conservative think tank, also lists him as a Washington Fellow at its Center for the American Way of Life.

This year, the conservative publisher Encounter Books published his No Liberty to Libel: The Constitutional Case Against New York Times v. Sullivan, in which Holloway argues the Supreme Court should throw out that landmark case, which increased journalists’ defenses against defamation lawsuits. He’s also authored and co-edited books on Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

Iowa board president Robert Cramer told Inside Higher Ed after Tuesday’s vote that the board was looking for someone with university administrative experience “who has good academic credentials and has some research background and a passion for civics and history.” Cramer also said he was “looking for somebody who’s going to be student-focused.”

“We feel very optimistic that he is the right guy for a reset,” Cramer said. “And that will mean he has a real partnering attitude, but also understands the requirements and goals of the center.”

The board’s choice of Holloway comes after the Center for Intellectual Freedom had a tumultuous start under interim director Luciano I. de Castro, who was one of 11 finalists for the permanent position, and a 26-member advisory council. Nearly half of that council—including vocal conservative-leaning faculty—resigned late last month. De Castro recently released a report accusing the board, board office and university of improperly sidelining him as the center’s leader.

All the faculty who departed were from out-of-state institutions. Just two faculty remain on the advisory council, and the center has no faculty employed beyond de Castro, who a board spokesperson said is leaving his position Thursday. The center faces a fall 2028 legislative requirement to start offering the American history and American government courses that all University of Iowa undergraduates will be required to take. The university has more than 23,400 undergraduates as of this fall.

Mark Bauerlein, an Emory University professor emeritus whom Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis named as a New College of Florida trustee, also became the faculty leader of the search after the mass advisory council resignations, according to Iowa board member Christine Hensley. Cramer said the board is still negotiating a contract with Holloway; the anticipated salary range in the position posting was between $200,000 and $450,000.

The board spent nearly five hours in closed session Tuesday, emerging briefly at the end to vote unanimously to offer Holloway the job and to make concluding remarks. Cramer commented on de Castro’s report.

“The legislation creating the Center for Intellectual Freedom clearly states that the director of the center reports to the Board of Regents,” Cramer said. “As Professor de Castro is one of the proponents of the legislation, he should’ve understood that the board takes an active role in the institutions that it governs.”

“There was a small subset of the advisory council on the center and the interim director that appeared they did not want any oversight of the center and its use of taxpayer dollars by following the university policies or board advice and counsel,” Cramer said. He added, “This subset of the advisory council that wanted no oversight resigned.”

Richard Lowery, a University of Texas at Austin associate professor and now former advisory council member who previously chaired the search, told Inside Higher Ed the board under Cramer hasn’t “provided anything resembling reasonable oversight” of the university, and he finds it absurd that someone like Cramer would have “any role governing a university whatsoever.” Lowery also said, “All the serious academics on the advisory board” resigned.

“Everything on governance of universities says regents should be reviewing budgets and hiring the apex executive,” Lowery said. “And the day-to-day decisions about what goes on, who gets invited to speak, who gets hired—that belongs with whoever is put in charge of the academic unit. It doesn’t belong at the board … This particular board certainly shouldn’t be involved in running an academic unit.”