Indiana higher ed reform bill advances over Democrats’, faculty's objections

Provisions that changed trustees’ appointments are lifted, but the rest of tenure reform, ‘intellectual diversity’ measures remain as bill heads to Indiana House

A controversial higher education reform measure pitched as a way to keep conservative students from feeling like they don’t belong on state university campuses in Indiana cleared the House Education committee on a party line vote Wednesday.

The vote on Senate Bill 202, authored and carried by Sen. Spencer Deery, came with more heated words on the House floor, a week after it was derided during three hours of testimony by faculty, students and some university administrators who called it an attack on academic freedom in the name of “intellectual diversity.”

"This is one more attack on institutions for its own sake, so that we can wear a badge saying, ‘I attacked an institution,’” state Rep. Ed DeLaney, a Democrat member of the House Education committee, said. DeLaney had introduced a failed amendment that attempted to gut Deery’s bill to remove tenure process in it.

“We do not need to add the universities to the list of people we don't like,” DeLaney said. “We can adopt a resolution tomorrow saying, ‘We don't like the universities and we wish there were fewer liberals.’ That's what we're doing with this bill.”

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