There may be a solution to the complaint some Republican legislators have about the University of Iowa’s plan to close a tranche of departments and programs and create a School of Social and Cultural Analysis.

The lawmakers object to merging African American Studies; American Studies; Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies; Jewish Studies; Latina/o/x Studies; and Native American and Indigenous Studies. Majors in American Studies and Social Justice would be cut as part of the plan, which has been discussed for two years, UI leaders said.

Rep. Taylor Collins, R-Mediapolis, initially cheered the proposal. (“WINNING!” he wrote on Facebook.) Now Collins, chair of a new Iowa House Higher Education Committee, wants the Board of Regents to kill it. Apparently, a School of Social and Cultural Analysis is still too “woke” for him and Senate Education Committee chair Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, who cosigned a letter to the regents. The deaths of two majors and the 50-year-old Gender, Women’s and Sexuality and 77-year-old American Studies departments aren’t enough.

So, here’s an alternative to scuttling a school offering majors that some students want and that academic experts believe will help the pupils navigate and understand a complex world. The idea: UI starts a Department of White Christian Male (WCM) Studies.

I’m sure some conservatives would applaud this addition. They may think WCMs are victims of massive discrimination or that their culture is the only one worthy of study.

Most rational people, however, would think it’s absurd — and it is, because white male history and culture already infuse nearly every aspect of American society and academia.

That’s why courses like the ones UI has offered are necessary: Until curricula like this became available, education gave little attention to the history, culture and achievements of women and minorities and their places in society. For centuries, students got an incomplete, whitewashed version of history and culture.

Some conservatives celebrated recently when Meta eliminated independent fact checking from Facebook and its other platforms. These same folks often tout the free market, in economics and the public forum. Let ideas compete, they say, and the best ones will rise.

Nonetheless, some of these same people want to rig the marketplace of ideas by eliminating those they dislike. They seem to fear concepts that challenge WCM perspective.

No one forces students to take these classes; if they don’t want to understand the history, perspective, culture and place in society of women, Blacks, Jews, Native Americans and other groups, they don’t have to. And some of these disciplines seem to be fading in the marketplace: The two majors facing elimination have fewer than 60 students combined.

In November, Collins further justified the Higher Education Committee’s creation by saying universities should focus on meeting the state’s workforce needs, perhaps by cutting squishy majors like liberal studies in favor of engineering and computer science. Collins and some fellow conservatives seem to view higher education’s mission as serving Iowa industry. I believe universities were founded to serve students, society and democracy.

“Academic freedom doesn’t mean you get to take our money and do whatever the hell you want with it,” Collins said then. Of course, it’s my money, and yours, and I want these programs to continue. I suspect most Iowans just don’t care, or didn’t until conservatives opened a new front in the culture wars.

In any case, direct state support for the regents universities has fallen over the last quarter century from around two-thirds of their budget to only a third. So maybe legislators can close 33% of the programs they dislike.

Or just stop micromanaging universities for cheap political points.

Thomas R. O’Donnell is a longtime Iowa reporter, editor and science writer and blogs at IowaScienceInterface.com. He lives in rural Keosauqua.