Iowans are NOT hicks!!

In response to the astonishment about Iowa's gay marriage ruling, LINDA KERBER, a history professor at the University of Iowa, said she knows that many left and right coasters know nothing about Iowa or its long, progressive legal history. "You don't need a passport to cross the Hudson River, but many think you do," Kerber said. "These New Yorkers who say 'Iowa? What?', they're being very provincial. They need a passport to go to France, and they go to France a lot more than they go to Iowa." In 1847, the University of Iowa became the first public university in the country to give women unfettered access to higher education.