University of Iowa Firsts

• The first public university in the country to admit women and men on an equal basis (1855)
• The first public U.S. university to grant a law degree to a woman (Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson, 1873), to grant a law degree to an African American (G. Alexander Clark, 1879), and to put an African American on a varsity athletic squad (Frank Kinney Holbrook, 1895)
• The Daily Iowan was the first daily campus newspaper west of the Mississippi. (1901)
• Home to the nation's first female college newspaper editor (1907)
• First university to devote a program to rehabilitating children with disabilities
• First tax-supported college to establish a school of religion
• The first Big Ten institution to promote an African American to an administrative vice president’s position (Dr. Philip Hubbard, promoted in 1966)
• The first state-university to officially recognize the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Allied Union (1970)
• The first public university in the country to offer insurance benefits to employees' domestic partners (1993)