University of Iowa Firsts

• The first public university in the country to admit women and men on an equal basis.
• One of the first institutions in America 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, 1879).
• The first Big Ten institution to promote an African American to an administrative vice president’s position (Dr. Phillip Hubbard, promoted in 1966).