Repair and Improve the Iowa Civil Rights Act
Five Key Changes to Make the Commission Effective
by Sondra Wilson. Updated Sept 22, 2025.

If it were not for my firsthand experience dealing with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission (ICRC) to try to find help, I would not have become so intimately familiar with the exact manners in which the Commission needs to be reformed. I am not the only Iowan who has had a negative experience with ICRC, however. They have a score of 1.3 for its Google review score, and if you read through the reviews you’ll find a familiar theme: Iowans showing them hard evidence of their claims, only to be turned away. In my case, I showed ICRC hard evidence that the other party intentionally lied in their response to Commission, however they simply told me to “Find a private attorney.” This brings us back to part one of the Justice Accessibility Act: the high cost of attorneys that makes them unaffordable to average Iowans. 

The Des Moines Register has released at least two articles on the ICRC within the past couple years, including Why 60% of Iowa workers’ civil rights complaints aren’t investigated; why process is so difficult by F. Amanda Tugade, and Iowa should stop tilting the scales in civil rights cases by Lucas Grundmeier. After I released an article on January 13, 2025, Has the Iowa Civil Rights Commission failed you? Share your story, multiple individuals have contacted me since. Besides forming the group Citizens for an Effective Iowa Civil Rights Commission, if elected Governor I will work to implement the following reforms:

1.) Change Iowa from an “at will” to a “for cause” state – Iowa needs to end “at-will employment”, which means that “an employer can terminate an employee at any time for any reason, except an illegal one, or for no reason”. At-will also means that an employer can change the terms of the employment relationship with no notice and no consequences. For example, an employer can alter wages, terminate benefits, or reduce paid time off. “At-will” leaves employees unfairly at the mercy of their employers’ whims. Simply put, at-will states endanger employees. How this fits into the Iowa Civil Rights Commission, and needed reforms, is that our state’s at-will status essentially allows businesses to come up with “any excuse under the sun” besides discrimination in order to justify unfair treatment of employees. 

2.) Amend the Iowa Civil Rights Act to protect volunteers, interns, and contractors – while the Iowa Civil Rights Act provides protection against discrimination in the areas of employment, credit, education, housing, and public accommodations, as it is currently written it does not protect volunteers (for nonprofits), interns, or contractors. Although the Equality Clause of the Iowa Constitution may extend protections to these areas, this should not be left to the Court’s discretion. Iowans should be protected against discrimination, and in order to do this, the Iowa Civil Rights Act needs to be amended.

3.) The Commission must send a copy of the file to each party at the time the Commission makes their determination – currently, at the time the ICRC makes an initial determination, they send their evaluation of the materials to each party involved. Their evaluation often contains hearsay (e.g. “The owner of the business said that the employee stated X”). This leaves the complainant not knowing if (i) the owner lied about the employee, or (ii) if the employee made a false allegation. In order to receive a copy of the case file (which includes the actual evidence), you must request a “letter for the right-to-sue”. The problem is that, from the time you request the letter, you then are put on a strict 90 day time limit to file in court. Even though there is generally a two year limitation period for civil cases, this leaves complainants with less than 90 days to evaluate the evidence before filing in court. Another reason this is very important, is that when ICRC administratively closes a case (chooses not to investigate), they generally advise discrimination victims to “find a private attorney”. What do attorneys like to see, however? Evidence. Essentially, the way the ICRC’s broken process is currently set up they withhold evidence from the victim and tell them to go look for an attorney without it. As Governor, I will work to reform the ICRC’s process so that parties may access the case file at the time ICRC closes the case.

4.) Allow 60 days instead of 30 for plaintiffs to file an appeal – after receiving a slough of information to assess, a strict 30 day time limit may be too short of a deadline to create an effective appeal. Additionally, based upon my personal experience and after hearing testimonies of others who have had the misfortune of needing to file with the ICRC, it seems that word has gotten out among certain members of the business community that “it is not a crime to lie or deceive the ICRC”. Even though retaliation is prohibited by the Iowa Civil Rights Act, there appears to be little to no enforcement when businesses retaliate via entering false, defamatory information into the public record against victims who come forward. When this happens, it can cause severe distress to the victim, and creates a slough of unpaid labor to have to prove each lie the adverse party put forward. Because of this, complainants need 60 days instead of 30 days to file an appeal.

5.) Make it a crime to lie to or deceive the Commission – Although it may be a crime  under Iowa Code 714.8(4) to knowingly enter false information into the public record, there does not appear to be any enforcement. This, therefore, allows businesses to come up with “any reason under the sun” (other than discrimination) in order to get away with it. Additionally, this allows businesses to submit disparaging lies against the complainant into the public record. As Governor, I will work to improve the efficacy of the Iowa Civil Rights Act, and require strict enforcement against parties who lie and/or deceive the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

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