Good morning, and welcome to Monday, May 5. Dan Berrett wrote the top of today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Transitions. Rick Seltzer wrote the rest. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Oversight in Indiana

The impact of the Hoosier state’s controversial “intellectual diversity” law on professors is starting to come into view, as The Chronicle’s Christa Dutton reports.

Indiana law required public colleges to set up a complaint system for students. It was supposed to identify professors who failed to “foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity,” among other things. But free-speech and academic-freedom experts worried it would chill open discourse.

Twenty-one complaints were filed during the first sixth months the law was in effect. That’s according to the results of open-records requests The Chronicle filed.

Those complaints occurred almost entirely at two institutions. Ball State University received 11 complaints. The campuses of Indiana University fielded a total of nine; Indiana State University got one.

Details were vague. Eight complaints had to do with political speech in the classroom. One was related to “a failure to consider alternative viewpoints on a non-political matter.” Two others related to “classroom dialogue” and one was about course materials.

At least one complaint has resulted in an investigation. Benjamin Robinson, an associate professor of Germanic studies at Indiana University at Bloomington, is being investigated after an anonymous student in his “Introduction to German Thought and Culture” course filed a complaint.

• The complaint says the professor has repeatedly criticized the university, accusing it of restricting free speech. Robinson has also described during class time his arrests at a protest encampment on campus last year and at the Israeli Consulate in Chicago two years ago.
• Robinson doesn’t dispute the events described in the complaint. But he sees the law under which he’s being investigated as unconstitutional and a “direct attack on academic freedom and free speech.”

Academic freedom was a key concern raised when the law was passed last year. The law gives boards the power to decide whether to punish professors if they “subject students to political or ideological views and opinions that are unrelated” to their discipline.

What’s related or unrelated to a discipline is in the eye of the beholder. Teaching isn’t about content alone; it’s also about the way you teach it, Robinson says. “When you teach, you want to say and bring in certain things that might not be directly related to the content of the course but to the social context of learning and to the speaker.” His course concerns the philosophy of freedom and the public use of reason.

Some professors already reported feeling chilled in their speech. That’s despite the stated goal of the law: fostering intellectual diversity (that phrase appears 30 times in the legislation). The effects were often subtle: altered assignments, less attention given to current events, and fears that a stray remark could sink one’s career prospects.

Now comes a new law changing the nature of board oversight. A provision added at the 11th hour of this year’s legislative session gave Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, sole power to appoint trustees at the Bloomington campus.

Legislative attention to the classroom is happening in other states. Here are just a few examples:

• Ohio: A law requires public colleges to develop a course on American civic literacy that students from the class of 2030 onward will have to take. Mandatory texts include the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and at least five essays from the Federalist Papers.
• Florida: Lawmakers have taken aim at the state university system’s general-education and core curricula.
• Texas: The Legislature is considering a bill that would give university boards the power to approve or deny courses in the core curriculum and require institutions to include viewpoint diversity in their mission statements, though provisions banning DEI exempt “academic course instruction.”

The bigger question: Is the term “viewpoint diversity” doomed to be a Rorschach test? Legislators, mostly Republicans, see emphasizing viewpoint diversity as a way to level the ideological playing field on campus, while many faculty members view it as an Orwellian inversion of what it purports to support. Whose vision will prevail?

📱 Read the full story in The Chronicle: Indiana Required Colleges to Accept Complaints Against Instructors. Here’s How Many They Got.

Quote of the day

“It’s what they deserve!”

— President Trump pledged to revoke Harvard University’s tax exemption in a post on his Truth Social network on Friday.

The White House said Trump wasn’t issuing formal instructions to the Internal Revenue Service, The Wall Street Journal reported. The IRS has already reportedly been asked to consider whether Harvard has violated rules governing charitable organizations, such as prohibitions on political activity.

• Harvard maintains Trump has no grounds to yank its tax exemption, even as it fights to reclaim funding the government started withholding after university officials rejected demands that they make wide-ranging changes. Its president said such a move would be “highly illegal.”

For context from The Chronicle:

• 📱 3 Big Questions at the Heart of Harvard’s Legal Battle With Trump
• 📚 Legal Scholars Take Stock of the Trump Agenda

More federal news

• NSF caps overhead: New grants will include a 15-percent cap on indirect costs paid to colleges, the National Science Foundation announced on Friday, citing efficiency as a reason to limit funding expenses that accompany direct research activity. It’s the same cap sought by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy before their policies were held up in court. The NSF’s strategy differs from those agencies’ because it’s not trying to cap or end existing grants under the policy — although it terminated more than 1,000 grants in weeks leading up to the change. The Council on Governmental Relations called the change a “disaster in the making for American science & technology.” (The Chronicle, NSF, Nature, COGR)
• Trump seeks deep cuts to TRIO, Federal Work Study, OCR: The president’s opening budget bid to Congress asks it to cut $127 million, or 30 percent, from the U.S. Department of Education’s administrative budget. Other major cut requests include $1.6 billion from the TRIO and Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, and $980 million from the Federal Work Study Program. The administration wants to slash $49 million from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which would put it 35 percent below 2024 levels. Education Secretary Linda McMahon supported the proposal as part of winding down the agency, shifting responsibilities to the states, and delegating operations to other parts of the government. (The White House, Education Department)
• U. of Maine touts federal funding: The Maine Sea Grant will receive three more years of funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the university announced on Friday. That’s a sharp reversal from earlier this year, when NOAA moved to cut existing grants and the Trump administration tried to withhold other funding amid a fight over trans athletes playing women’s sports in the state. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, has advocated on behalf of the university. (University of Maine System)

Quick hits

• UT chancellor heads to UC: James B. Milliken is leaving the University of Texas system to lead the University of California system, departing a red state whose lawmakers have taken an intense interest in higher ed for a system in a blue state that’s become a target of the Trump administration. Milliken is the second top leader to leave the Lone Star state’s flagship this year after Jay Hartzell stepped down as University of Texas at Austin president to lead Southern Methodist University. Milliken told UC regents that higher ed faces “unprecedented times” and must “do everything we can to right that ship.” (Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle)
• Sacramento State backs off from consolidations: The university killed a plan to merge its seven colleges into four because of “considerable anxiety” on campus, leaders said. Sacramento State has work to do to close a $37-million deficit, even though it’s already cut 28 management positions, laid off 15 people, eliminated classes, and pitched new student fees. (The Sacramento Bee)
• Hood boosts endowment draw: Facing a budget crunch, leaders of the private college in Maryland are pulling 7 percent from its $204-million endowment, up from the typical 5 percent. Hood recently lost its largest benefactor, the Hodson Trust, which used to provide several million dollars each year. The trust gave the college $54 million in 2023 as it was dissolving, but that money is restricted until 2027. (The Frederick News-Post)
• Utah Tech wants to cut Spanish and ASL: Leaders have proposed cutting Spanish and American Sign Language majors, along with a dramatic theater program, to comply with a new state law that reduces public funding until colleges eliminate programs deemed to have low enrollment or poor job outcomes. Colleges can claw money back if they show officials they’re investing in meeting demand for high-wage, high-demand jobs. (KSTU)
• Employee arrested after shooting: A 40-year-old security guard was being held on $1-million bail after allegedly shooting two people at Spartan College of Aeronautics & Technology in what the mayor of Inglewood, Calif. called “an act of workplace violence.” A dean was hospitalized in critical condition. A receptionist was hospitalized in stable condition. (Los Angeles Times)

Transitions

• Heather Pence has been named president of Chattahoochee Technical College after serving as interim president.
• Cheryl A. Wilson, dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at State University of New York at Old Westbury, has been named provost and vice president for academic affairs at Eastern Connecticut State University.
• Stephen L. Pruitt, president of the Southern Regional Education Board, has been named president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com. You can also find Transitions online here.

Footnote

Worried that artificial-intelligence tools have helped cheating become normal? Take heart. Efforts are underway to make it more difficult.

Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence recently held a “Cheat-a-thon” to test college-level questions in this new AI age. Dozens of faculty members submitted exam questions and assignments they thought the bots might bungle. Then students tried to complete the work using AI as their only resource.

One faculty winner has been crafting homework questions that force students to explain their reasoning.

“Students can use large language models to assist, just like they could in real-life scenarios, but the goal is to get them to think carefully about their response,” Vikash V. Gayah, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, told Penn State. “However, I expect that LLMs will catch up and require us to push even further in the very near future.”

The cat-and-mouse game continues.