Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and on this week's show, we'll examine a multifaceted debate that more or less boils down to this our left leaning institutions and professors trying to force woke beliefs on students.

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

from the statehouse to you, our House.

is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.

Who has the authority to make decisions in higher education.

University presidents, faculty and staff in public institutions might argue that it's their right.

While some legislators disagree and say it's their responsibility.

Last session, the Indiana General Assembly passed a law allowing universities to evaluate and subsequently revoke the professor's tenure if they fail to show, quote, intellectual diversity.

Proponents of the bill, SB 202, which was signed by Governor Eric Holtham and went into effect last year, said it would cultivate a friendlier environment for conservative students and perspectives.

Several universities and organizations, such as the ACLU, voiced concern about the law's subjective ity and its potential to limit faculty's right to free speech.

In 2024, demonstrations focused on the war between Israel and Hamas inflamed both antisemitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric nationwide.

More than 50 people were arrested during a pro-Palestinian protest and banned from IU's Bloomington campus for one year.

This change to campus policy was viewed as limiting students freedom to protest by some, while others saw it as preventing discrimination and hate speech.

And higher education is not free from the recent purge of D-I programs across federal and state organizations.

In February 2025, the U.S. Department of Education sent a dear colleague letter clearly outlining that educational institutions receiving federal dollars cannot use race as a factor in admissions, hiring, promotions, and programs.

Similarly, state legislators have authored bills requiring schools to post diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum publicly online.

I am pleased to welcome Republican Senator Jeff Raatz of Richmond, chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development.

Democratic Representative Ed DeLaney of Indianapolis, a member of the House Education Committee.

Republican Senator Greg Goode of Terre Haute, a former chief lobbyist for Indiana State University who now serves as ranking member of the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development.

And Democratic Representative Matt Pierce of Bloomington, whose district encompasses Indiana University Bloomington, where he's a member of the faculty.

Ronald Reagan type question.

Are Indiana's public colleges and universities better off today than they were, say, the past decade or so, are things moving in the right direction or not?

Well, I think so.

It begins with the tremendous generosity that the state of Indiana has invested in higher education, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars that have helped transform campuses across the state of Indiana over the last decade.

those physical campuses help attract students, both from within the state of Indiana and outside of the state of Indiana.

And it helps position those campuses to fuel the Indiana workforce and priority economic priorities for the state.

but I think the perception of higher education has diminished, in all candor, over the last ten years, for a host of reasons, many of which have probably been spurred by some anti higher ed rhetoric, but in part also from by some decisions that have been made, a time or two amongst the public universities.

But I believe that the higher education system in Indiana has really never been stronger.

And I think the future is, very bright.

Matt Pierce, Do you share the assessment that we're better off, say, than we were ten years ago?

I think the universities are delivering very good quality for their students.

But I do think that, universities feel under siege right now.

It seems to like we're in a lot of ways we've become a punching bag for some people.

You know, we're we're just accused of being anti-Semitic, of indoctrinating students.

I mean, there's all kinds of allegations I don't think are supported by the facts.

And we get legislation then the kind of results from that, I think false perception of what's happening on our campuses.

Senator Roberts, how about that?

Do you what did you sense the perception is of of the, public institutions in our state?

tend to agree with Senator.

Good.

I think the higher ed institutions are functioning well.

I believe with the new vertical that the governor's set up with Katy Jenner, over both K-12 and higher ed sets the state in a position where we're not operating in silos.

And so, generally speaking, government operates in silos.

And so this this eliminates that to some degree.

And so, preparing students to head to college is happening now in a, in a more direct way because of that alignment.

so there are some good things happening in the state that are just getting started.

I, we can talk about some of the things that have happened on some of the campuses, the anti-Semitism.

I'd like to you think back to the late 60s, in, UC Berkeley, in Ronald Reagan, in some of the things that happened, there, I think are equivalent to today.

And, and that would be there's no reason to allow anybody to break the law, to destroy a campus because of protests.

There are ways to do it in ways not to do it.

And that's part of what the battle has been in the last year or so or two years.

When we talk about some of the things that happened.

I'm thinking specifically of, IU campus.

But I honestly, my personal belief is that that, the president handled it well.

And the governor, I think it was last year, set it down and said, no, we're not going to do it this way, we're going to do it.

If you want a protest, that's great.

But we're we're not going to destroy the campus or buildings while doing it.

And the board of trustees, in a split vote, did impose a new or adopt, I should say, a new expression policy, which proved controversial.

well, yeah.

I really get exercised about this.

There is no destruction on the IU campus.

There was none.

I went to done.

Meadow.

After two arrests occurred, two raids on that protest.

And I watch what was happening.

There is no violence there is no intimidation.

It was interesting you had the Chabad house across the street from the protesters that the, pro-Israel forces were blasting their, music.

The protesters and Damita were blasting their music back, but there was no interaction.

There was no violence.

There are no threats.

And, you know, the university claimed that Don metal was somehow damaged.

That was a pretext.

They could put a ten foot fence around the entire done meadow and keep anyone from going in there.

So I really have to object to this characterization.

I think that what happened is people watch things happen in Columbia or UCLA, and they assume that was happening at IU and it was not.

Well, speaking of a graduate of an institution that's gotten a lot of attention, you're an Ivy leaguer, I want to ask you to weigh in on Harvard.

It's handling.

But as long as Senator Ross brought this up, what's your take on how the presidents of our public institutions have dealt with these issues of expression and the highly charged debate surrounding, the terrorist attacks of October 7th of last year?

Well, I guess I could caricature, I think my friends from Purdue have acted very sainted and wholly as if they have no problems and everything's under control.

It's probably because the mix of students, they have a different group of students.

We got humanities and social science students at Bloomington.

We don't have so many of those at Purdue, so schools are going to behave differently.

I went through the whole 60s thing.

I was a demonstrator before I was a naval officer.

Okay, I understand all this.

I'm not happy with what the president of IU did.

I told her that publicly.

I thought, and this is a key point, fits within that.

Don't confuse your Hoosier students with somebody at Berkeley or Columbia.

We are different.

But she acted as if the worst of the worst were threatening her.

They weren't.

Okay, so she overreacted.

yeah.

I'm very concerned about what we're doing with the university.

Free speech is fundamental.

Difference of opinion is fundamental, and the fact that some student chooses to scream his position is not a grounds to upset the whole university.

And I don't think the legislature, by the way, or the governor, are helping at all, in my view.

Well, go ahead, Senator.

Good.

the term punching bag.

And I think that's very appropriate.

the, October 4th, edition of the Chronicle for Higher Education, used that term as well.

Punching bag from the left and the right, illustrating that a lot of people are unhappy based on perceptions with higher education, perceptions around cost, perceptions around value, and increasingly, free speech.

And back in the day, when I reported to four different university presidents, and in my life, it used to be, be prepared for, the following questions.

What's enrollment like and what are you doing about it?

What's tuition like and what are you doing about it?

I think there's a third now that I would advise any higher education administrator who I believe has one of the toughest jobs in America.

how is free speech and what are you doing about it?

And I think the more that we can work together and perhaps not such a heavy handed way, but as as in a collaborative way, as partners to spur, and foster free speech on our campuses in an organized and respectful way.

it uplifts Indiana.

And I think we're doing a great service to the students that we're educating.

I want to I don't want to spend the whole time on this, but it is timely because last week, the governor issued an executive order sort of mirroring what the Trump administration did in terms of, you know, in the case of Trump, it's federal funding.

and on the heels of that, there was an executive order from Mike Braun said something similar and that he's calling for this investigation of how presidents are handling this.

You and your colleague, Senator Goode, both suggested that Pam Witten and others have done a pretty decent job.

Does that mean that this is an unnecessary investigation that the governor is calling for?

And is it going to turn up something that we're not aware of?

light of the conversation here today, I think it's doesn't hurt anything to take a good look at it.

these are very difficult situations.

And this is the president of as, Senator good mentioned in these gentlemen, these are they're difficult situations.

And so, your as you mentioned, Pamela was, punching bag, and you kind of darned if you're doing darned if you don't in the middle of these things.

And I can't agree more on on free speech and all.

There's just appropriate way to do it and an inappropriate way to do it.

When it last year I mentioned Senate Bill 202, which again, I want to talk about this year's legislation.

Not dwell on the past, but what's the lingering after effect?

There were there were claims that this would be the worst thing ever, to strike, you, Purdue and other institutions.

Others said, no big deal.

What's the reality?

Well, I think there is a chilling effect.

I mean, right now, I think at the university, they're still in the process of of putting in place the policies to implement the law.

And that involves the school level as well as in university and campus level.

And I can just tell you, I was speaking to a graduate student the other day in, in another department, and she said our professors will no longer discuss any, current events or controversial things.

And this is in a public affairs class.

Right.

And and she felt really frustrated about that.

And the only way I think you explain that is that just some professors are like, I'm just not going to go anywhere near anything that might be controversial or get someone upset because I'm going to have a complaint filed against men and who knows what happens from there.

And so I think there has been a chilling effect from that long.

Tenure is tied to a large extent, and to it in a way that it wasn't before.

Senator.

Good.

is that what you're hearing?

from her former colleague?

Respectfully disagree.

I've taught state and local government some other political science courses, and I think there is a way I one of the greatest compliments I have received from students is, you know, professor.

Good.

which party do you align with?

I think that I take that as a tremendous compliment, because I think if you do your job in presenting both sides in a in a neutral way, you can you can tackle and, the complex issues facing our great democracy in a way that spurs, that intellectual ism, that, and that critical thinking that we want from our students.

I tell you, the, the, the thing that interested me the most about that legislation and ultimately I voted against the bill because I thought the way to go about it was to focus more about trustee appointments, frankly, because the trustees are the drivers of the policy of the university.

but ultimately is about tenure review quality, academic quality.

Are you how are you producing, the output that uplifts the quality of the institution where you work?

And, I thought that was probably the single most, important highlight of that legislation it is the issue of student expression, faculty expression pretty much now in the rearview mirror.

Or Is this just the new norm?

It's in the front.

I can't count the number of bills that give a role to the attorney general or some other investigative agency.

Some of the bills that are coming over from the Senate have all kinds of roles for the attorney general, all kinds of investigations to be done.

If you thought to have done something that's a DUI, then you can be appealed and appealed and re appealed.

The attorney general has a role.

So now we're going to investigate that place.

That's what we're giving the universities.

How many investigations would you like.

And that includes the governors.

We all know what happened.

And actually you know what didn't happen at IU.

There were no big riots, no buildings were seized.

Nobody was killed or wounded.

We know what happened.

So the idea of having the Commission for Higher Education, which has no background in investigating anything and assign it the task of investigating the university, is not going to lead to comfort, not going to lead to free speech, not going to lead to students being happy.

And so, you know, I just think we're we're just beginning this.

It's a in my view, it's a sort of a watered down version of McCarthyism.

Okay.

Aimed at the universities.

any reaction to watered down McCarthyism before we move on to some other matters.

there's a right way and a wrong way to do this.

I disagree with Representative Delaney as well, in some respects.

And so, there's, as I said, there's a right way and a wrong way.

What our mission is, is to make sure students have, that they're challenged and they come out the other side, ready and prepared to perform, for which they've been, educated for.

That's as Senator Good said, our mantra is to make sure that they come out the other side prepared and ready to work.

All right.

let me just ask this.

Are we going to avoid some of the hiring freezes and huge cuts that other institutions including.

I'll go back to that non Ivy League school that you went to.

as you describe it, that I think among those that imposed a hiring freeze because of significant cuts in federal funding I think that risk comes from outside the state.

Yeah, it is because federal funding, if they decide to cut off funds generally or specifically, you made the list of 60, in my view, prestige institutions which, are being attacked as perhaps being anti-Semitic.

By the way, I consider that a used to be called a blood libel.

That's a false accusation attacking a whole university or 60 universities for this.

Come on.

You know, I mean, I went to one of those.

I went to two of those universities, okay?

One of them was two thirds Jewish in the population.

Let me assure you, it was not and is not anti-Semitic.

So those charges are very, very dangerous.

But bottom line, in terms of money, Washington is going to decide if they cut off grants.

If they do, that'll shut down programs.

Shutting the Kinsey Institute to look like which we did, you know, threatening it will look like child's play.

Well, that's been threatened by that state level.

That would be child's play compared to the kind of money I think I use it, the 400 to $600 million in federal grants.

And that's ignoring the medical school part, just the the university proper.

That was medical school by enrollment in the country.

I now believe.

Every university has decided the way it can make up for funding that it has not gotten from the state is through federal grants.

And President Witten, when she arrived, really stressed this.

She said, the faculty, we want to get you focused on getting the largest, biggest grants you can because when you bring in a university that helps fund graduate students, laboratories and programs.

And so we really want to focus on that.

And so if someone is going to put a black mark on IU or in the university or just shut off the the grant funding because they think it's not an important budget priority, that' bad impact on the university.

And here I said we weren't going to get bogged down in fiscal policy.

But you're right.

That is an external force, something that Senator Ross, you said I thought was a good jumping off point.

You talked about preparing students for the workforce and several bills, and we won't get into specific numbers because we'll all get confused that way.

But let's say you and your colleague sitting next to you, are either author, a coauthor of several that are, if I had to boil them down, they're about aligning higher education curricula, and teaching and programs with the state's economic and workforce needs.

Talk about that.

Sure.

Well, for for a long time, there's been, something called the flame methodology that that takes into consideration the up and coming, jobs that are, whether it's inside the four walls of Indiana or outside.

Let's just use AI as one of the one of those things today in the technology field.

So making sure that we're we're not continuing to do what we've always done.

We're always looking off into the future and trying to address those things.

and that's one of the mantras we've looked at in the K-12 space.

we're, we're essentially operating at, probably in 1960s, diploma structure.

And so I applaud we set the thing, in place in legislation a couple years ago to look at the diploma structure and, identify those who are headed off into the workforce and make sure that they're prepared to enter into the workforce and those who are headed to college.

And so, again, kind of realigning everything and taking some bold steps, actually, to, to change the way that we've done things.

And I think Indiana, in a lot of ways, in education right now is at the top of the list.

Now, a shout out to the two, from the very ground level, from the teachers all the way up to, the state House.

And that's, science of reading.

we jumped from number 19 to number six in the United States in fourth grade reading and as well in eighth grade.

Now, I'm not going to I'm not going to say that the United States is doing extremely well, but but Indiana made an incredible jump, and it's just beginning, to make sure that our kids begin at the very level again.

Back to that vertical we talked about, prepared to, go off into higher ed and be successful.

And a lot of this notion of, in fact, you call it, I think, in one of your bills, return on investment somewhere, you want to actually do, this study, and then you want universities and the agencies involved to publicize this.

So make it very much of a dashboard or user friendly so students can say, oh, this is the credential I would need for this.

This is the likely salary.

This is the likely debt.

Why is that so important?

What did you say, Senator?

Well, it seems to me that Indiana, where we stand right now is, one of the most consequential states in the union around national and economic security advancements, life sciences, human, animal, plant sciences, microelectronics, quantum computing, which leads to greater advances in artificial intelligence.

Indiana right now is punching way above our weight in these different places.

We need to do a better job to align the workforce pipeline, to enter those incredible fields of advanced economic output, as well as a host of other statewide priorities and I would echo Senator Roberts, I think the great wisdom of Governor Bron's decision of creating a vertical that far better aligns the Commission for Higher Education with the Department of Education so that, there's a continuum of, of, credential earning, Hoosiers, that, our future, our current and future workforce demands, that, we're going to we're going to need that talent.

To have those stackable certifications, too, which is another part of some of the legislation.

And I'll give you a quick, quick.

Shout out, in Representative Pierce's, district, the Bloomington Ivy tech has a semiconductor certificate.

An individual can go to that Ivy tech, not even knowing what a semiconductor is and can learn and earn that stackable, certificate.

Yet that could lead to an associate's degree in and beyond.

Matt Pierce, for those of us who graduated with political science degrees or journalism degrees, or poetry history, philosophy, do you worry that they're not going to fare well in some sort of return on investment scenario?

And if so, what does it mean for those students who might change the world through their poetry or their philosophy?

Well, I do think that obviously it makes sense to focus curriculum to make sure we're meeting the workforce needs.

That obviously is a component in university, but I think that sometimes the legislature gets so narrowly focused on kind of the workforce, requirements of today, who knows what tomorrow will be.

And I think we overlook the fact that a student gaining a four year degree at a university there, no matter what their major is, what they're studying, they're learning critical thinking, they're being exposed to a broad array of ideas.

I know IU stresses they like people to study abroad for a period of time so they can understand this, you know, global competition we're in and all of that.

And so I think that a degree in any field makes a person a better employee because they're better at critical thinking, and they have a broad range of knowledge than they had when they started.

And I think that's valuable.

I think sometimes we get focused in it's like, if you're not getting a Stem degree of some type or you're not in a hard science, that maybe your degree is not worth it.

And so I think there is a danger of of things in the humanities being undervalued.

How about that at Delaney to the liberal arts need to circle the wagons.

well, I think they're being largely ignored.

I think I think we're totally off topic.

I think we're into data.

We're data crazy.

We're going to have dashboards for everything.

We all know doctors make more than ditch diggers.

We don't need spend millions of dollars doing this kind of data analysis.

There's national studies.

There's employment agencies.

I see ads on TV telling me what I should do for a living.

So I think we're spending a lot of time on that stuff, and we're not looking at what our real weaknesses are.

So here's two examples.

We don't have enough law schools.

We have a shortage of lawyers, especially lawyers who are willing to be prosecutors, public defenders who are not going to make a huge living.

We have a shortage of these people.

We've begun some steps to help with prosecutors and public defenders.

We need a law school in northwest Indiana.

We lost one when Valparaiso Law School closed down.

That's something we could contribute to the universities.

We need to take a positive approach.

How can we help you?

I've been on education in ways and means on and off for 16 years.

Never seen a single person from the faculty of the education departments, the teacher training departments not seen one of them almost never heard a reference.

We don't have enough teachers.

Why are we focusing on data about what jobs are good when we need more people in those schools?

What can we do?

We need to have the universities come to us and say, help me and then we need to give them the help.

Jeff.

Right?

Yes, sir.

you know, I, I agree to some degree, we certainly should look at the jobs of tomorrow and, and even the wages, I mean, to help someone make a informed decision even at a young age.

the only caveat that I'll give is, I do struggle somewhat, making sure that someone has abilities, innate abilities, in my opinion, that are that they're part of who they are.

my administrative and so I function there.

Well, and so in helping to inform people.

But I want them to do what, what really they will thrive at because it's part of who they are.

Who who are they created to be?

I like to say it that way.

but but data, I disagree somewhat.

Data is incredibly important.

We can put it out there, but that doesn't make someone go in that direction.

They need to really follow who they are and end up getting into that place.

And so that that to me is the most important thing.

We may be winding down, but one other, your bill that you authored and you were coauthored.

So I guess I just read the chair, would in fact, make sure that there isn't overlap.

I presume that's, shorthand so that the Commission on Higher Education would review any new program, any new campus, any new school, and then go back at least once every ten years.

A why is that important?

And also, you had in that same legislation had proposed ensuring that at least 50% of freshman, students would be from Indiana.

You backed away from that.

But now there's a reporting mechanism.

Yeah.

Real quick, what are you trying to achieve with that legislature?

Sure.

Well, first and foremost, creating that additional alignment between the K through 12 to the various, post-secondary opportunities, there, each young Hoosier has, she and he or he have been given, God given, aptitudes and interests.

And how can we as early as possible, help that individual identify and then create a pathway for success.

So that's the first and foremost what that bill does.

Secondly, there are currently, around 3400 academic programs that, the taxpayers of Indiana are supporting.

And I don't think it's asking too much, for the Commission for Higher Education and a proactive way to work with the institutions to say, hey, this is being offered here and there, you know, does it should it be offered at a particular institution?

The answer very well, could be yes.

So let's work together to grow the enrollments for those programs.

I think this is a way that will spur that.

And then finally, this just takes a deeper dive and, better understanding about where our students coming.

I love it that Indiana is a magnet for students from out of state.

I want to try to keep them.

but I want to also make sure that we're not closing doors for, Hoosier in-state students.

That's word now, for sure.

If if I'm guessing 50% were imposed formally, which is not, and then this legislation now Purdue, which has about 40, what, 41, 42% typically or at least in recent years, in-state population.

And they've charged it's a surcharge for out-of-state and they've had a tuition freeze for 13 years.

I'm guessing tuition freeze would be out the window.

It might be.

But, you know, Purdue's proven brilliant at figuring out what student mix they want.

They keep getting more Hoosier students, even though the percentage may not be going up.

So what do we say to that?

Look, I think what's going on beneath the surface here is a tremendous shift.

They talk about the vertical, which means the new structure, which is putting a much bigger role as secretary of Education.

I see, and I'm rejoicing this, that the state Board of Education is being shrunk inch by inch.

I would abolish it, but it's losing authority.

The Commissioner for Higher Education is losing some authority because the Secretary of Education will run it.

But what bothers me the most is the legislature is taking a far bigger role in our universities than it needs.

That is not, in my view, our competence.

We need to send them some buildings and send them some money for tuition and say sayonara at Pierce.

I'm lying again.

Now you get to let five seconds.

I use new coach.

Thumbs up, thumbs down.

We can only hope.

Looks good.

All right.

Fine.

Spoken like a true, politician.

All right, there we go.

Thank you.

All for being here again.

My guests have been Republican Senator Jeff Raatz of Richmond, Democratic Representative Ed DeLaney of Indianapolis, Republican Senator Greg Goode of Terre Haute, and Democratic Representative Matt Pierce of Bloomington.

On the next Indiana lawmakers.

Can the state find the money needed to maintain its roads and bridges in a manner befitting the crossroads of America?

That's it for this edition of Indiana Lawmakers.

Until next week.

Take care.

Indiana Lawmakers is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.