Faculty barrage Deery's bill aimed at ‘declining’ conservative faith in higher ed

Three hours of testimony Wednesday label bill unnecessarily ‘chilling.’ Vote could come next week to advance Sen. Spencer Deery’s sweeping Senate Bill 202, which would reform university tenure, more

A wide-ranging bill intended to reform tenure for university professors and chip away at perceptions that Indiana’s college campuses can be inhospitable to conservative students faced a barrage of criticism Wednesday, as an Indiana House committee took up the measure.

Senate Bill 202 – authored by state Sen. Spencer Deery, a West Lafayette Republican who was a deputy chief of staff in Purdue President Mitch Daniels’ administration – was heckled by dozens of professors and students as vague, based on perceptions rather than reality and unnecessarily chilling during three hours of testimony before the House Education committee.

Besides the faculty and student comments, five of the state’s universities sent officials to either object to Deery’s bill outright or to raise concerns about specific aspects of the sweeping measure.