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UI law professor’s non-profit promotes civics education
University of Iowa law professor Josephine Gittler has founded the “Alliance for Civic Education of Iowa” to address what she sees as a “very big” problem.
“There are many young people here in Iowa who do not have a basic knowledge of American government and American history, and the rights and responsibilities of American citizenship that they need to be informed and responsible citizens,” Gittler said during an interview with Radio Iowa.
Gittler was at the Iowa Capitol last week to lobby for the bill that would make passing the U.S. Citizenship test a requirement for high school graduation. The bill has won approval in the House and Senate and is likely to be signed into law by the governor, who listed the proposal among her 2025 legislative priorities. Gittler said the test is just “a first step” toward what’s needed.
“There are many polls and surveys that show ignorance about basic facts,” Gittler said. “For example, one recent poll showed 36% of adults could not name all three branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial. What could be a more basic fact than that?”
Gittler founded the non-profit “Alliance for Civic Education of Iowa” last summer to promote civics education in Iowa’s public and private K-12 schools as well as colleges and universities. Gittler said the alliance will provide curriculum for teachers to use in their classrooms, and it will host events. One of her goals is to start a civics competition for Iowa high school students.
“Every person that graduates from high school who is a U.S. citizen is going to have the rights and responsibilities of citizenship for their whole life, ” she said. “They may or may not use the other things they learn in school and they’re going to have to know what to do to be good citizens.”
n 1973, Gittler became the first woman faculty member in the University of Iowa College of Law. One of her heroines is Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“When she stepped down from the Supreme Court, she devoted herself to promoting civics education,” Gittler said, “and founded a center at the University of Arizona which is called iCivics, to promote civics education.”
Forty-four years ago, Gittler was the co-founder of a national think tank that still provides education about maternal and child health. Gittler is also a professor of pediatrics in the University of Iowa College of Medicine and a professor of nursing at the university.
