- This month if you hear an unusually loud buzz about March Madness coming from the campuses of Indiana and Purdue Universities, the subject might not be basketball.

Instead, the hubbub may well center on another high stakes competition that involves shots vows and tip-offs namely the battle over who will control what can be taught and to a certain extent merely uttered at the state's public colleges and universities.

Hi, I'm John Schwantes.

And on this week's show, we'll examine a multifaceted, highly charged debate that more or less boils down to this.

Are left-leaning professors trying to force their beliefs on students or at least stifle debate?

Or are conservative lawmakers attempting to impose their views at the expense of academic freedom?

Get ready to go court side, the court of public opinion that is, with Indiana Lawmakers from the State House to your house.

Tension between the Indiana General Assembly and the state's leading post-secondary institutions is nothing new.

Oh sure, lawmakers have long enjoyed celebrating sports championships.

And over the years, they've adopted countless resolutions recognizing the achievements of students, faculty and staff.

Those accolades, however, often have been overshadowed by broad-based suspicion, misunderstanding, and thinly-veiled animosity.

And on occasion, that animosity has given way to full-blown acrimony.

One such, Donnybrook erupted in 1946 when three members of Indiana University's law school faculty signed a letter encouraging the State Board of Elections to include the Communist Party on an upcoming election ballot.

A decade later, hundreds of IU students wore and distributed green feathers to protest efforts to cleanse the state's public schools of any book mentioning Robinhood ostensibly for fear that the characters steal from the rich to give to the poor antics promoted communism.

And in the late 1960s, Purdue University's administration attributed reductions in state higher ed funding, to lawmakers dissatisfaction, with students growing opposition to racial repression, gender stereotyping, and US involvement in Vietnam.

Some disputes have spanned decades as evidenced by the general assemblies long running battle against IU's renowned Kinsey Institute.

Last year, after complaining for more than 70 years about Kinsey's exploration of human sexuality, conservative lawmakers succeeded in shutting off all state funding for the institute.

This year, the cause of uproar is Senate Bill 202 which would require Indiana's public universities and their faculties to accommodate, quote, intellectual diversity.

Supporters of the bill, now awaiting action by Governor Eric Holcomb, say the measure will allow conservatives to feel more comfortable on campus.

Critics including most if not all of the state student groups and faculty organizations condemn the legislation as a shortsighted, heavy handed attempt to upend academic freedom and promote intellectually tenuous beliefs.

Whether SB202 actually protects diversity is yet to be determined.

But one thing is certain.

This Hoosier tradition of debating what should and shouldn't take place on our college campuses is likely to continue for years, if not decades to come.

I am pleased to welcome four people who've been at the forefront of this session's most significant higher education debates.

Republican representative Bob Behning of Indianapolis, Democratic representative Sheila Klinker of Lafayette, Republican Senator Spencer Deery of West Lafayette, and Democratic Representative Ed DeLaney of Indianapolis.

Thank you all for being here during what I know is crunch time.

May be missing some conference committees, but I feel like we're having a conference committee right here.

You're all on some of the same bills, in fact.

Let me start with you, Spencer Deery.

You authored what arguably is one of the most controversial, highest profile bills of sessions, Senator Bill 202.

What were you hoping to accomplish with that?

What prompted it?

- You know, John Stewart Mill said that both teacher and learner go to sleep at their post when there's no enemy in the field.

Few people can tell me with a straight face that across every department of every university in our state that students are being exposed to rigorous scholarly debate that crosses ideological lines.

And I believe that contributes to a low growing, low going university attending rate in our state which trails the national average and is on the decline.

And it's also disservice to students of all political stripes when they're not challenged and exposed to debate.

And so it's an measured attempt to try to reinforce academic freedom and tenure rights but also to ask a little bit more to change that culture.

- Did you see examples of this when you were at Purdue?

You were not there as a student, but you were there for a decade or so as deputy chief of staff to then president, former governor Mitch Daniels.

Is this something that was on your radar back then?

- I think that few people will tell you that there's ideological diversity in any university.

I think that Purdue is a leader in this area, a leader in academic freedom.

But we can do more and we can do better.

And there's also a conversation to have about who is tenure-designed in our state in a way that's working for taxpayers, working for students.

This bill reinforces tenure protections, elevates them to law from where right now there are policy, but it does also ask them to come back every five years as is common throughout higher education.

Two thirds of states already require this and to report on what they're doing with that right.

- And DeLaney, he mentioned John Stewart Mill.

Does this mean- - I've read John Stewart Mill.

- You have give equal opportunity to Rousseau, Locke, and Karl Marx.

- No, I think we gotta give equal opportunity to ourselves.

Over 200 years, we came up with a system of state universities with tenure.

This gentleman now wants to rescue and enforce tenure.

He wants the Indiana General Assembly to decide the issue of tenure.

That's a remarkable idea.

That's not our job.

And what he's done in effect, he's the guy that starts a fire so that he can put it out.

That's what he's doing.

The fire is to say there's all this problem with these universities, so I'm gonna create a solution.

It's not a solution.

It's a threat.

And we need to think very carefully and hopefully undo this over time.

- Well, I wanna get everybody in the discussion but I feel that begs a response.

So are you starting fires just to put them out?

- As I said, I think few people can say that we don't... That we have ideological diversity.

And there you look around the country and there are examples of tenure being avoided, being manipulated.

And this says that's not okay.

Right now there's nothing in state code that protects tenure rights.

This changes that and makes it a matter of law that you cannot be retaliated against for your research, for your political views, or your criticism of the administration.

- It's already a law.

- It's appointed in committee that you saw this actually as advancing the cause of- - Absolutely.

- We have a constitution that provides that.

We have academic freedom.

You're protecting us from risks that we don't have but you're creating new risks, okay?

We're gonna have a test.

Are you in affirmative action?

Is that the idea?

'Cause you say in your article you want more conservative professors.

Are we gonna have a quota that I use to how many conservatives will suit you?

- That's not the bill at all.

- Well, that's what you said in your press release here the other day.

You want more conservative professors.

How are you gonna get there?

You got a quota?

- I don't have any idea what you're talking about in terms of press release or...

But what I want is I want as much ideological balance.

- I'd be happy to read it for you.

- It can be in a way that respects- - Yeah, this was written yesterday.

- We only have 25 minutes.

Reading the excerpts may not work as well.

You look it up.

- We fail to recruit and cultivate conservative scholars.

So you wanna get more or don't you?

- Of course, we wanna have ideological diversity.

Now that doesn't mean that...

There has to be balance.

There's no quotas.

All it says is we want to be able to have faculty that come back and say, "You know, here's what we're doing to promote ideological diversity."

- And Bob Behning, what's a guy who's known as the grandfather, the architect of the voucher program for K through 12 weighting into this debate?

Obviously, I'm being somewhat facetious that your role is a longstanding role with education.

But you obviously support this.

- First off, you'd have to understand that the education committee in the House and the Senate actually are responsible from pre-K all the way to the higher ed.

So Representative DeLaney and I have had on the floor, I think he mentioned that we seldom if ever get involved in higher ed.

There are times where I think it's appropriate.

And I felt that 202 are looking at some of the provisions.

Obviously the house changed some of the things significantly.

We took out the trustee language.

We did tweak and I think made it a better bill in terms of trying to soften some of the- - We're talking about taking out trustee language.

That was the provision that would've given lawmakers or leadership more opportunity to place members on those boards as opposed to alumni vote.

- Correct.

The Senate had sent over where they were gonna change the makeup of the trustees.

And while I think Representative DeLaney and I have chatted about that that if you look at our state universities and the appointments and how they kind of randomly...

It really I think depended on when we founded them.

And then we put in place, this is who gets this, this gets that.

We probably need a thorough review, but it didn't make sense to me to drop that in this bill.

So, we pull that out.

I do believe that Senator Deery was trying to really strike a balance.

And to his point about tenure, I mean, it is...

The state of California, I believe, is one that legislated tenure and review.

It's in 37 states.

67% of colleges have some form of tenure review.

Indiana State already had tenure review in place every three years.

This just puts some parameters in it.

We don't require...

I actually amended the language so that it's not required that the board of trustees, but actually they can delegate to their peers- - Which would be good 'cause every five years, every member would be up, who has tenure would be up, and that would be almost a full-time proposition presumably for- - But you really...

The way the bill works though, you're actually...

There's the...

The board of trustees sets the policies and then their peers are the ones that are evaluating the tenure and whether or not- - You ultimately would go up to it.

- Correct, yeah.

- You know, and I'm just making note of here on this date at this time, Bob Behning said Indiana needs to be more like California.

- We wanna be like Florida or California.

I like to be Indiana.

- Those are pretty distinct choices.

- I like to be Indiana.

- Let's talk to somebody who's spent a good deal of her career in and around higher education.

- Thank you.

- Not only a Purdue graduate, but certainly a long time educator there.

Is the system broken?

- Well, as a parent of three students who graduated from Purdue, I have to say that I thought that their education was very, if I can say this, straightforward.

And they had many professors who happened to be Republican as well as democrat.

Dr. Phil VanFossen who's a very fine professor and head of the Ackerman Center happens to be a Republican.

So I saw very a bipartisan work being done at Purdue and didn't really see the need for this situation.

And I think with the three-hour discussion that we had on 202, one of the longest discussions I've ever seen on a bill, there were fears that we were going after a university tenure and faculty people that may be wonder why this was a problem and why we were bringing this up at this time.

All the schools testified, but I think Purdue doesn't have this problem at all.

I think Mung Chiang will tell you, the new President of Purdue, that this is not a problem.

- That's what he said in the letter to faculty when they were rather concerned about the absence... We saw Pam Whitten, the president, his counterpart at IU, who was vocal in opposing the bill.

Not so much from Purdue, which the faculty association there said...

I think the word was cowardly.

Was that a cowardly response?

- Well, I think they felt like they were already doing what the bill proposes, that the faculty is very bipartisan in their approach to issues.

And I would say tend to be very open-minded and allow for discussion on more democratic issues and republican issues.

- You know, and I wonder sometimes is probably...

I don't know what majors your kids were, but it does vary perhaps depending on the field of pursuit of degree.

I was journalism, political science.

I had avowed Marxist in one of my Poli Sci classes.

I had an avowed socialist in one of my... And here I sit today.

I weathered the storm.

Maybe not so much in my geology classes and others.

And I know you're thinking primarily about politics and governance, but you've heard all the what if scenarios and I'd like you to address them.

You probably have addressed them a thousand times and I think Ed DeLaney has brought up a few of them.

But what about the biology professor or the medical professor that has to explain that some people.... And there is scholarship on this.

Say that vaccines can put someone in position to be on the autism spectrum.

Or the history professor who has to say what was motivating Hitler in the Third Reich in a World War II history class.

And I could certainly go on.

Climate change.

Environmental scientists.

There are scholarships suggesting it's not a serious problem.

- I think this is one of the biggest myths about the bill, that it either requires the teaching of something or the prohibiting of teaching of something else.

The bill doesn't do that at all.

All it simply says is every few years, five years, you should be able to express ways which you've promoted free inquiry, intellectual diversity, and free expression.

- Even if they disagree with that.

- The definition is very focused on scholarly by what that means.

But that doesn't mean you have to teach anything.

If you don't believe you should be teaching it, then don't teach it.

And you'll be able to explain that why it shouldn't be taught.

It has no mandate that anything be taught.

And it's ludicrous to claim that that requires that you teach that 'cause it's not in the bill.

- I mean, the sky's not falling, is it?

What's the worst case scenario that can happen?

- Let's start with a couple points.

First of all, Purdue has behaved very badly here.

The president of Purdue put out a letter with the trustees that basically says, "We are already good boys and girls.

But they're not good boys and girls down in Bloomington and we're gonna impose our rules on them."

That's literally the gist of what they're saying there.

Okay, now- - I just remember who has the new Olympics or good for you.

- Yeah, but you see the problem.

All right, so that's very divisive and very unnecessary.

We didn't need that kind of competition.

Let's play basketball.

Let's not play this.

But the second thing is the bill, the only really requirement is that you can't be hired or given tenure if you don't show a likelihood of creating intellectual diversity.

That's a test of ideology and a test of speech, okay?

You can't force people to speak.

There's two sides of the First Amendment.

You can't restrict my speech but you also can't force me to say something that I don't believe.

And that's the core problem with this bill.

So we're all supposed to come in and say, "Well, I'm very much into intellectual diversity.

I had a leftist in my class."

What is that all about?

Let the professors teach what they want and let's pretend...

This fake thing that the schools are losing students 'cause there aren't enough conservatives, go down to the Business School of Bloomington and find out who's there.

How many liberals are there in the Ag school?

People are different.

There's a reason that there are not so many conservatives.

- Well, former Dean of the Business School testified against the bill, I believe.

- Yeah, I think this whole- - So it's not... - So we're fighting a myth.

But it's dangerous to fight a myth on the field of people's free speech.

- I mean, what is the state's obligation here?

We hear a lot about discomfort for students.

And in fact, there was the survey that the state commissioned, that the General assembly commissioned.

And what was it?

40 some percent... 46% of conservatives felt comfortable and that they could express views.

70 some percent said they could- Does the state have an obligation to make students feel comfortable?

I mean, is that... And how do you reconcile that with the notion that a lot of republicans a few years ago were talking about snowflakes and political correctness and people need to have thick skin.

I mean, is there inconsistency here?

- I don't think that the state has an obligation.

I think the state has an obligation to make sure that students have an opportunity to have the same freedom of speech, diversity of thought.

And I think a quality teacher, and Representative Klinker would probably agree with this, I don't think when you walk in a classroom, you need to challenge the student but you should not necessarily...

Your political belief should not be put- - [Sheila Klinker] Should not be.

- You should not know whether...

I mean, and it kind of surprises me when Representative Klinker says, "Well, I know this person's a republican and this person's a democrat."

'Cause I think an effective educator is gonna challenge all theories of thought and not put their personal beliefs in terms of at least... And clearly there's gonna be some that bleeds through just because of who you are.

But that is not what effective teaching is.

But effective teaching is pushing the edge of the envelope on both sides.

And I think the way that... Where it talks about intellectual diversity, that's clearly where I think we all wanna have.

We don't wanna have a one-sided...

I know Representative DeLaney do not want a one-sided rights leaning ideology.

And I think we could all agree we don't want left.

So how do we figure out that we have intellectual diversity?

I think that's what the bill is attempting to provide.

- As a teacher, sixth grade and eighth grade, in English, we had many people come into the classroom.

Both Republican and Democrat were asked to come into the classroom and state some of their beliefs.

And I never thought it was a partisan situation at all.

We had many teachers who were very active outside of the classroom in both parties, both Republican and Democrat.

And that's the way we wanted it to be.

We didn't want any certain political view.

And when the students would ask me something while I was teaching, I refused to answer that because that's the way it ought to be.

Both sides should be heard in the classroom.

And we had that come some middle school.

- Well, Spencer Deery, is this a one and done?

I mean, it's awaiting still the governor's signature.

We don't, as we tape this, know exactly what its fate will be in that regard.

But is this a mission accomplished as you see it or... You know, I've been talking to this gentleman sitting to your left for the past decade about... For instance, I'll go back to school choice and vouchers and it's been an ongoing incremental process.

I think he would agree.

Turning it into the most expensive program of its type in the country.

Is this step one or is this... Are you done?

- So if the question is, is this bill gonna fix every issue and challenge we have in higher education?

Absolutely not.

It's a first attempt to try to change some cultural issues that I believe will help both improve the quality of education that students receive as well as the quantity of Hoosiers who are willing to enroll.

But we'll continue to fine tune and tweak and address other issues in higher education.

- Taking the culture is a core problem.

How do you do that without affecting free speech?

How do you change the culture of a university?

When will you be done with making sure there's enough conservatives in Bloomington?

I'm sorry.

I think you're on a very dangerous path here.

We are not Florida.

We are not California.

We are Indiana.

We have great universities.

Is there a harm that there's more liberals in Bloomington than West Lafayette?

That's a problem somehow?

The thousands of kids who are applying the IU.

Thousands.

I think they have the highest application ever.

People aren't afraid to go there because they're conservative.

You're taking a car... And my friends in the black caucus have pointed this out.

You're taking something away from the DEI movement and turning it into the conservative I movement.

Let's get the conservatives in here.

We need more conservatives.

Where are you going with this?

How many conservative professors do we need?

Who's gonna decide who's conservative enough?

You think you're gonna do that?

You can't do that.

But more importantly, you shouldn't do that.

- Well, and you also brought up the diversity and inclusion, equity and inclusion issue, and you do have the group, concerned clergy, and some civil rights groups that have called on the governor to veto this because of their concerns about the... What you've described as transparency surrounding DEI.

Is there a valid complaint that they have?

- No, the bill is very measured and boosts and increases academic freedoms.

It does nothing to inhibit or prohibit DEI.

- On that front, you're basically just looking for an accounting, an annual accounting of what's done and what's spent.

- If you were to ask universities how much they spend on diversity, equity, inclusion, they could not answer that question because it's marbled so much throughout the university.

It's hard to define and it's a lot of money we're talking about.

And so it makes sense to have an accounting and determine what is being invested.

Are we getting the right ROI on it?

This bill doesn't say you can't spend money on it.

It just says, "Let's know what we're spending on it."

And we should all want to know that.

- What are we spending on this idea?

What are we gonna spend to review 2,500 faculty members every five years?

IU says $3.7 million.

So, what's that gonna cost statewide?

- The nonpartisan fiscal analysts didn't think it had a large- - They didn't know how to count it, did they?

- I think they did a great job.

- So 2,500 people, we're gonna decide what they taught, when they taught, and whether they're likely to increase the culture of diversity in thought.

- Well, but in fairness, Representative DeLaney, you would remember too, President Whitten did institute and when she was in Georgia tenure review so- - I'm back to this.

I ain't in Georgia.

That's what the property of Republican party.

I'm not in a competition with bad states.

- I'm not in competition either.

- I'm still with your endorsement of California.

- Yeah, I use California as a reference.

- More than 37 state do it, so you can find all kinds of examples.

- You'll take a bad idea from anywhere.

They don't care.

- You know what?

We should close out with something less controversial, the antisemitism measures.

- Oh, yeah.

That's good.

- Which is also still pending.

- Yes, it is.

- Do we need to... You know, that...

It's changed.

It's not what it was as initially drafted and it's made it more palatable to some and less palatable to others.

What do we need to do on that front?

- I think, we have, as a matter of fact, a review of that bill today.

- You all are gonna be heading there to discuss that very thing.

- Yes, that's right when we leave here.

- Feel free to make news here and now if you'd like.

- Yes, we're going to be discussing that.

And I think that it's a very important bill and we want it to certainly include the diversity and inclusion in antisemitism, but the wording I think has to be looked at very carefully.

- The concern was that the examples that were included in the initial house bill open the door to a ban or prohibition on criticism of the nation or government of Israel.

At least that's how some interpreted it.

Now I think the bill was drafted specifically to say it could be criticized as any other country would be criticized, but I guess that would be decided perhaps in court.

Are you satisfied?

You know, it passed essentially with no votes.

It was what?

83 to 17.

It came out of the- - Twice.

Two years in a row.

- The house and didn't make it through the Senate last year.

Would you find the change as satisfactory?

- No, I think if you go to the Jewish community and majority- - We agree for once.

- We agree on numbers.

- Yup.

- We go to Jewish community, they actually are opposed to the bill as it stands right now.

I think the intent of the bill has been totally submerged.

- Some aspects of the Jewish community.

I mean, it's hard- - Correct, it's hard to say that everybody does.

I agree with that.

But the majority of the people of the Jewish community have come in and they're very concerned about the direction of the bill.

- And I hear you weighing in.

- You're right.

- I agree with him.

The Senate version essentially has no content.

And among of the things that left out is the statement that you can criticize Israel.

They took that out.

That was in the house version.

- So wait, you saying you're...

I thought you just agreed with it.

- I agree with it completely.

- Yes, we agree on that.

- We think we need to pass the bill.

I think we need to pass the bill as it passed the house two times in a row, two years in a row.

- You don't have concerns about free speech issues.

- Look, some of the examples that are used in there could be a little more precise.

But on the whole, it's a very good measured approach to saying that you can criticize Israel without being antisemitic, but you can't be antisemitic.

And it helps us understand what that means.

The current bill is so short from the Senate that it doesn't help anybody understand anything about antisemitism or what it means.

- [John ] Mr. Deery, final word as we wrap up.

- You know, I was a little disappointed in the way that it came out of the Senate.

And particularly, I was led to believe that this was a compromise that everybody was good with before the testimony started to happen.

And so I would've liked to- - Anytime you hear everybody's good with a compromise.

- I would've liked to have gone farther and I'm hoping that we can find that right balance as we negotiate it across the finish line.

- We'll work on that today in the conference committee.

- Good luck.

- Thank you all.

Thank you all for taking time from conference committees to come and share your thoughts on these very important issues.

Again, my guests have been Republican representative Bob Behning of Indianapolis, Democratic representative Sheila Klinker of Lafayette, Republican Senator Spencer Deery of West Lafayette, and Democratic representative Ed DeLaney of Indianapolis.

It's been a short but by no means quiet session.

Next week we'll do our best to make sense of it all with Indiana's legislative leaders on the next Indiana Lawmakers.

Time now for my weekly conversation with Indiana Lawmakers' commentator, Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of Indiana Legislative Insight and its sister newsletter, Indiana Education Insight, both part of Hannah News Service.

It's a crazy...

It's a witching hour.

What's gonna happen?

Here, I don't have a crystal ball.

I got a mug.

What's gonna happen?

- We love conference committee time because everything happens that you didn't expect to have happen during the first half of the session.

All the assumptions that you made during the first half of the session go out the window.

- I got first 9/10th of the session, forget the first half.

- We've already seen the PFAS bill come back.

The language got inserted into another bill.

So everybody- - These are the forever chemicals which were going be exempted had died, but only two apparently really be forever chemicals.

- So basically the last bastion here is the governor.

You know, when a bill gets to him, will he sign it or veto it?

And this is gonna be very interesting this year in particular because it's his last opportunity to leave a mark on these pieces of legislation and to make a statement about things.

And he can do it without being bound because he doesn't have to worry about being accountable to the voters or to get through many programs in the general assembly next year.

He won't be here.

- He doesn't have to witness an override which has been the record in many of his vetoes to date.

- Yeah, he would, he could, and this could happen in May if he does decide to veto something.

And I think if he does decide to veto something, I think that the one bill right now that we're looking at would be the... That's reached him already would be the bill restricting the public access counselor from making decisions based on certain kinds of circumstances.

I think perhaps Spencer Deery's bill is another one as Representative DeLaney made real clear is one that will get a very close look in the governor's office.

- There's a lot of pressure.

As I mentioned, clergy groups, civil rights groups have been petitioning the governor.

- And what's interesting here is that the universities, the major research universities are not on the same page on this one.

And usually on policy issues like this, you see them in lockstep.

- And we certainly saw that in terms of their opposition, in how forceful and how visible.

Ed, as always, appreciate your insight.

- Thank you, John.

- Well, that concludes another edition of Indiana Lawmakers.

I'm John Schwantes.

And on behalf of commentator, Ed Feigenbaum, WFYI Public Media and Indiana's other public broadcasting stations, I thank you for joining us.

And I invite you to visit wfyi.org for more State House news.

Until next week, take care.

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