What’s New
Indiana’s House of Representatives this week passed a controversial bill that would revamp tenure at the state’s public colleges by linking it to intellectual diversity, clearing the way for what faculty critics say is an abrogation of their academic-freedom rights. The bill could soon be signed by Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican.
While bills across the nation have independently targeted tenure and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, the Indiana measure, which was introduced in January, combines the two by elevating in importance a particular kind of difference — intellectual diversity — and tying how well professors foster it to their employment status.
The Details
The bill, SB 202, would allow public colleges’ boards of trustees to deny faculty members tenure or promotion if they are deemed “unlikely to foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity within the institution” or to expose students to scholarship representing a variety of ideological viewpoints, or if the board determines that the faculty members are likely “to subject students to political or ideological views and opinions that are unrelated” to their discipline. The measure’s authors and sponsors are all Republicans, and it passed along party lines in both the House and the Senate.
“Recent events and blatant antisemitism have placed a spotlight on the hyper-politicalization and monolithic thinking of American higher-education institutions, and many are warning that universities have lost their way,” the bill’s lead author, Sen. Spencer Deery, said in a written statement. “SB 202 prods the leaders of these institutions to correct the course.”
The legislation also calls for faculty members to receive post-tenure reviews, which would examine their adherence to the intellectual-diversity requirement, every five years; in doing so, however, boards would not be allowed to consider factors such as whether faculty members had criticized their institution’s leaders or participated in political activity outside of their teaching. Repercussions could include demotion, a pay cut, or termination.
Lea Bishop, a professor of law at Indiana University who analyzed the bill’s language, said its provisions increasing board members’ sway over academic affairs would go further. “It’s not just about weighing in on promotion and tenure decisions,” Bishop, who noted she spoke only for herself, told The Chronicle. “It is a blank check to fire any faculty member for any reason, at any time, regardless of tenure. I think people find that hard to believe, because it is so shocking and so radical and so un-American, but that is what the text says.”
The bill joins dozens being tracked by The Chronicle that would ban the use of diversity statements; it would replace them with “neutrality statements” and require boards’ diversity committees to “make recommendations to promote recruitment and retention of underrepresented students,” with the word “underrepresented” replacing the word “minority” in the current law. Colleges would also be required to establish procedures for students and employees to submit complaints against faculty members or people they believe aren’t meeting the intellectual-diversity standard.
A slew of faculty bodies have publicly opposed SB 202, including the faculty senates and American Association of University Professors chapters at Ball State, Indiana, Indiana State, and Purdue Universities. So have the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the American Historical Association, and the Modern Language Association, among others.
The Backdrop
The backlash to the bill has stemmed in part from the fact that it affords boards what faculty critics described as “a tremendous degree of interpretive latitude.” Bishop, the Indiana law professor, called its definition of intellectual diversity “completely subjective.” In her analysis, she noted that the use of the words “likely” and “unlikely” to describe the conditions under which professors could be disciplined means that “faculty can be punished for something they have never done, if a trustee suspects they will do that thing in the future.” That vagueness, she said, sets the Indiana bill apart from new laws inhibiting DEI work in Texas and Florida. “There’s already a narrative about it, but this is a very big twist.”
Administrators at the state’s two most eminent public universities have had differing reactions. Pamela Whitten, president of Indiana University, said in early February that the bill “would put academic freedom at risk, weaken the intellectual rigor essential to preparing students with critical thinking skills, and damage our ability to compete for the world-class faculty who are at the core of what makes IU an extraordinary research institution.”
On Wednesday, following SB 202’s passage in the House, administrators at Purdue released a statement saying that its commitment to freedom of speech would minimize the bill’s effect on its campuses. “Many of the provisions do not impact what Purdue has been doing already, e.g., the institution being a home for critics but not a critic itself, incorporating free-speech programs into student orientation, not requiring personal statements of support for political ideologies, and protecting the right of individuals to criticize the government or the university,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, the Hoosier State has been the site of several academic-freedom controversies in recent months, centered on responses to the Israel-Hamas war. Administrators at Indiana University at Bloomington in December canceled an exhibit of art by the Palestinian refugee Samia Halaby; that month, the university also penalized Abdulkader Sinno, a longtime professor of political science and the faculty adviser to the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group that hosted a talk by a former Israeli soldier critical of Israel.
The Indiana University board is also set to determine the fate of the Kinsey Institute this week, after conservative lawmakers voted last year to defund the famed sex-research center. At the time, Whitten, the university’s president, said the funding ban had set a “troubling precedent” for legislative interference with academic freedom.
What to Watch For
SB 202 will now return to the Indiana Senate, where it has already passed. If lawmakers there approve changes made by their House colleagues, the bill would advance to Holcomb. It would take effect on July 1.
