Purdue tries to reassure faculty after higher ed reform bill clears Indiana House

Sen. Spencer Deery calls vote on his higher ed reform bill a ‘win’ for campus. Professors stew. President Chiang: Purdue ‘resolutely stands for freedom of speech and academic freedom, and always will'

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

A higher education reform bill that faculty at Indiana’s state universities warned would tie academic freedom in knots for years easily cleared the Indiana House Tuesday, setting up state-mandated tenure reviews and new complaint systems targeted for conservative students who complain that campuses are too liberal for them.

Senate Bill 202 – drafted by Sen. Spencer Deery, a West Lafayette Republican who spent the past decade as deputy chief of staff for Mitch Daniels at Purdue – cleared the House on a 67-30 vote, after House Democrats railed on a measure they said would stifle speech on campus and make universities less competitive when recruiting and retaining faculty, students and researchers.

“This bill and the debate surrounding it creates a caricature of university professors,” state Rep. Matt Pierce, a Bloomington Democrat and a telecom instructor at Indiana University, said during an hour-plus of often blistering arguments ahead of the vote. “It stereotypes them and it goes completely against what the vast majority of the professors … believe the whole point of university is – the strength of your ideas.”

Rep. Bob Behning, the House Education committee chairman who carried the bill in the House for Deery, called much of the protest from faculty and from Democrats “fear mongering,” calling the bill reasonable and in line with tenure review policies in two-thirds of the states.