More details in TFA. Nice recipe for turning your state into an intellectual+educational backwater.
A new Indiana law allows universities to revoke a professor’s tenure if they don’t promote so-called “intellectual diversity” in the classroom.
Supporters of the measure say it will make universities more accepting of conservative students and academics. But many professors worry the law could put their careers in jeopardy for what they say, or don’t say, in the classroom.
“I’d say it ends tenure in the state of Indiana as we know it,” said Ben Robinson, associate professor of Germanic Studies at Indiana University.
Tenure is supposed to mean indefinite employment for professors, where they can only be fired for cause or some extraordinary circumstance. According to Robinson, the status “allows faculty the freedom to pursue their inquiries and their teaching without fear of reprisal.”
But some academics in the state are worried that the new law allows university boards of trustees to interfere with tenure, which normally is handled by university departments.
That’s not how supporters see it.
Republican state Sen. Spencer Deery, a former chief of staff for the Purdue University president and the bill’s sponsor, said the new law would help conservative students feel more comfortable expressing their opinions on campus.
“The American public and Hoosiers as well are losing faith and trust in higher education,” Deery said. “One of the strong reasons for that is, frankly, higher education hasn’t done a great job of making every viewpoint feel welcome.”
The law also creates a system where students and staff can submit complaints that could be considered in tenure reviews.
The Purdue University Senate passed a resolution denouncing the bill.
The law does include some protections for faculty, preventing trustees from disciplining professors for criticizing the university or engaging in public commentary.
Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, said protections don’t go far enough.
“This is a big deal. This is a national thing,” she said. “I’ve read the bill, and it’s absolutely chilling.”
Indiana is the third state, after Florida and Texas, to redefine tenure in recent years. A survey of Florida faculty found that after its law passed, nearly half of professors said they planned to seek employment in another state.
“We are seeing the brain drain that we predicted in Texas and Florida, and I think Indiana will follow suit there,” Mulvey said.
higher education hasn’t done a great job of making every viewpoint feel welcome
That’s fine, there are plenty of viewpoints that shouldn’t be welcome in college - I can’t flat earthers or 6000-year-history people passing geology, for example. The problem is that they have an entire generation of right-wing homeschooled kids who are being confronted by the unpleasant reality that their parents lied to them and did a shit job preparing them for the real world, and the parents are desperate for their charade (and their relationships with the kids they lied to) to continue for a few more years.
What a weird law.
It has really awful implications. E.g if you’re a Med School professor are you supposed to give a passing grade to someone who wants to treat fever with blood-letting and incantations?
If you’re an Engineering professor are you supposed to pass students who hold the view that load bearing rules are a waste of time?
Also, are you no longer to discriminate entry to courses based on grades, since low IQ is a type of intellectual diversity?
I know their intent is to somehow make political points but it has far wider scope.
blood-letting and incantations
Won’t work for me. My illnesses are always due to possession by evil demons. Isn’t this true for all patients? I read, today I think, that the UK royals subscribe to some kind of “chemo” nonsense to banish the cancer demons. I guess we know who didn’t have the benefit of an Indiana college education.
Also, imagine you’re
- an American history prof who, assuming you’re allowed to teach about slavery at all, has to give class time to “diverse” opinions as to whether slavery was actually a Good Thing for the slaves, that slaves were actually a happy, healthy, grateful bunch.
- a physics or astronomy prof who has to teach “diverse” theories about how the universe was magic’d into existence just a few thousand years ago.
- a chemistry, geology, ecology, or atmospheric science prof who has to give credence, in class or via grades, to “diverse” viewpoints denying any connection between burning fossil fuels and anthropogenic global warming, not that the latter is a Real Thing, of course, I diversely protest!
I do wonder if Indiana religion-aligned “higher-ed” (either schools teaching religion only, or teaching a general curriculum and just aligned with some particular religious sect) faculty will have to welcome students who present “diverse” viewpoints regarding religious truths - viewpoints like atheism or (gasp) satanism or Native spiritualities or “Christian Science” or occultism or ancient Greek/Roman beliefs, to name a few. Probably not, eh?
Your second example-- I was recently in an online “first cause” discussion. One user put forth “God” because the idea that matter has always existed was ridiculous. When I asked from whence God came, he ironically said God just always was with a lot of circular babble. There may be a god, but the idea that that being requires no first cause but matter does is just dumbfounding.
Why would you make every viewpoint feel welcome? Some viewpoints are just objectively wrong. Like most conservative viewpoints.
Leave it to conservatives to think that promoting their backwater ideas is a form of diversity.
Kind of begs the question of safe spaces and snowflakes, doesn’t it?
So DEI is ok if it’s protecting delicate conservatives in schools?
Oh wait no, I see. DEI is ok if you don’t like it but want legal backing to fuck with all levels of education.
So, before reading the comments I copied a bit of text and was literally going to say “so, DEI” which is of course is one of the huge complaints with GOPers
Supporters of the measure say it will make universities more accepting of conservative students and academics. But many professors worry the law could put their careers in jeopardy for what they say, or don’t say, in the classroom.
Quite rich…
Scepticism has been weaponized by anti intellectualism. The demand that alternative facts be taken seriously has been coming for a while. The most popular comment on r/science was always ‘correllation does not equal causation’ and it was treated like esoteric wisdom, and a spell that invalidates all of scientific research. This law is the natural consequence. Good luck Americans.
“They don’t teach my intellectually unsound, experimentally unverified viewpoint at the learning place!”
And I’m considered a snowflake for having and expressing human emotions. Jfc
This article is vague. I’m not clear on what the new law actually is. This article should have provided some examples of what professors are actually expected to do to follow this law.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A new Indiana law allows universities to revoke a professor’s tenure if they don’t promote so-called “intellectual diversity” in the classroom.
Republican state Sen. Spencer Deery, a former chief of staff for the Purdue University president and the bill’s sponsor, said the new law would help conservative students feel more comfortable expressing their opinions on campus.
IU president Pamela Whitten criticized the measure as it was working through the legislature, saying it threatens “the economic and cultural vitality of the state.”
“We are deeply concerned about language regarding faculty tenure that 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,” she wrote.
The law does include some protections for faculty, preventing trustees from disciplining professors for criticizing the university or engaging in public commentary.
Russ Skibba, a professor emeritus at Indiana University, said he was worried what the new law will mean for discussions on gender, race and other sensitive topics.
The original article contains 664 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
