Music The ACLU sues over a higher education bill.

Jim Banks attends Trump VP auditions plus study committee agendas unveiled and more from the television studios at Wfyi.

It's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending May 17th, 2024.

Indiana Week in Review is made possible by the supporters of Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

The ACLU of Indiana is suing Purdue over a state law passed this year that many academics say dismantles tenure.

WFIUs Ethan Sandweiss reports.

Senate Enrolled Act 202 makes it possible for university trustees to revoke and punish professors if they fail to expose students to material from a variety of political or ideological frameworks.

The plaintiffs are two professors at Purdue University, Fort Wayne.

They say the new requirements violate their First and 14th Amendment.

The law, supporters say, will only require professors to teach material with academic merit.

But professors such as litigant Steve Carr fear its ambiguity would require them to give debunked theories equal time in the classroom.

Do we want public higher education to constantly be looking over our shoulder or shoulders because we fear that someone else's is watching what we teach in the classroom?

ACLU lawyer Stevie Pactor explains why the suit is against the Purdue Board of Trustees.

And the way that that this type of civil civil rights litigation works is that you have to sue the entity that's responsible for enforcing the law.

And here the statute requires that the universities and colleges be the enforcers of the law.

The legislation drew protests from universities across the state.

IU President Pamela Whitten denounced the bill.

Purdue spokesperson Tim Doty declined to comment on the lawsuit.

What impact could this lawsuit have?

It's the first question for our Indiana we can review panel.

Democrat Ann Delaney Republican Chris Mitchum, Jon Schwantes host of Indiana lawmakers and Kayla Dwyer, state government and politics reporter for the Indianapolis Star.

I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting's statehouse bureau chief, Brandon Smith.

Chris Mitchum.

Obviously, there's a very hypothetical question at this point, but if this law is struck down or in any way enjoined, how do you think lawmakers might react to that?

I don't think they'll be surprised.

First of all, you know, typically with the kind of standard for ACLU going forward of all these different lawsuits.

But, I certainly think there would be a response from lawmakers if this, for whatever reason, were to be enjoined simply because the environment in which the bill was passed earlier this year.

I mean, if you look at college campuses, it's only kind of gotten inflamed, right, with all of these different, protests and things like that.

So I certainly think there would be another crack at it if something were to enjoin this particular bill.

But I have a hard time believing it would be struck down simply because I have a hard time personally even finding standing here.

I mean, the the both of the plaintiffs kind of gave specific examples of things that they think they would be forced to teach for the sake of intellectual diversity and things like that.

But if you if you read the bill and we keep mentioning the K through 12 bill from a couple of years ago, that actually said what you can and can't teach this bill doesn't do that.

It doesn't say, you can't teach this.

You can't teach this.

It just tries to mandate that you have a variety different of viewpoints, right.

So, and the bill also kind of puts a lot of the leverage onto the board of trustees of saying, hey, you set the curriculum.

And then if the professor tends to go out of the way of this curriculum, then that's when you can act and things like that.

I was talking to lawmakers, just a couple days ago, and they kind of gave the example of this bill actually protects a professor who would want to go up and maybe and join arms with some of these students at these encampments or something like that, that wasn't in their code or there wasn't a code before.

It was in state law.

Right.

But we text that.

We don't normally have two scholars of law sitting in these seats.

So I want to kind of dig into the the lawsuit question here that he just brought up, which is even before this lawsuit, when the law was passed, there were a lot of questions about how universities, whether or not it would actually do much of anything, and whether universities would enforce it in the way that people certainly feared during the legislative process.

Is this lawsuit a little premature?

I don't I don't think so.

I think this this particular piece of legislation, like many passed by the Indiana General Assembly, is a state that they they want to state that, you know, kids are being brainwashed in college for years, for decades, for hundreds of years, professors have studied their fields, designed their curriculum, taught the students, voted basically on how who gets hired and and who gets fired.

And all of these particular questions.

All of a sudden, the Indiana General Assembly is going to tell them what they need to say and what they can't say, and it comes at you from both directions, you know, academic merit.

What in God's name is academic merit.

Okay.

In Florida, it means having somebody teach that that blacks were actually advantaged by being slaves.

I mean, that's what's so ridiculous about this.

The First Amendment not only protects what professors can say, it protects professors from being compelled to say, okay.

And we've gone through this before with legislation over religious freedom as to whether you have to say the Pledge of Allegiance and those kinds of things.

But this is an example of them trying to restrict the First Amendment.

It's a it's a solution in search of a problem.

I mean, the one thing universities do is teach students to think you disagree with the professor, put your hand up and say, so, okay, everybody does that in college.

And there are and there were processes.

And their processes.

If you think of something is wrong, but the General Assembly needs to stay out of it because they don't know what they're doing and it's going to be unconstitutional to.

The to the question of whether the Indiana General Assembly will, in your words, stay out of it to this point.

This law was passed before what we've seen in the last few weeks on college campuses across the country, including here in Indiana.

With these protests and criticism over the way universities have responded to those.

But we've seen conservative leaders who have been expressed, anger with specifically IU in the past, like Jim Banks now saying and praising their reaction to these protests.

Do you think that has at the statehouse at least sort of calmed down Republican leaders who maybe weren't happy with how universities were conducting themselves?

Oh, I mean, I think I think, first of all, to the original question, we might see this play out in the court for some time and we might not even they often will say like, oh, we're not going to do much because things are in the court.

So, so much of the future reaction next session is going to depend on what the national conversation is, what the status of that court case is.

And so it's almost it's just almost too hard to predict what they're going to do it come January.

Do you want you now will, potentially have universities in the position of defending a law that they don't like here, do you not?

Yeah.

but that's and that doesn't let the university administrations off the hook, I think now.

Well, IU certainly was had denounced this bill early on.

The administration of Purdue had not it was quiet.

Through its very, very.

Quiet.

And, that was noted.

But then you have other ACLU litigation which is moving forward now to, related to campus free speech issues and the and the role of, the campus police in removing protesters or in barring preemptive, ban on protest, or banning people from campus, as has been done.

So there's a lot of blame to go around.

I don't think the universities have acted with great purity.

It hasn't been one of the better chapters.

I don't think.

And and as far as the, the issue of you're right about a statement, but there's not always a knowledge that goes with making a statement.

Back when this went to Senate, bill 2 or 2 was first signed, just out of curiosity, I went and I looked.

I must have had some spare time to see how many members who had voted in the House and Senate for that legislation had any degrees, either at the undergraduate level or graduate level, from one of the seven institutions that would be affected by this.

How many?

It was barely 50%, barely 50%.

So half of the people who supported that bill essentially were relying on hearsay or what they think happens at Indiana and Purdue and Ball State and Indiana State, etc., etc..

Etc.

only thing I add to that is to your point about the other lawsuits.

I think if you had a lawsuit that was potentially criticizing or trying to sue a teacher for going and joining, one of these encampments, that's where you run into trouble, right?

Because that's your own political thing.

But I think what SB 202 is trying to do is saying that whenever you take those beliefs into the classroom and then say, this is why I was doing it, it's fact, and you're not giving any other background as to what the other side is.

And there's been examples of professors doing that in Indiana.

Unfortunately, that's where that empowers the board of trustees to.

Try to say what the right.

What the right side is.

I'm not.

Saying what's right, since you have to do.

So.

Well, you don't I don't think there is.

You don't have to say that black right.

That's an outlier.

There's nothing to say about some issues, I think.

I think even conservative Republicans would say there are some issues where there there is a clear right and they're clear as an answer.

And as soon as you start introducing the other side, or this notion that everything is a matter of of, you know, relevant, equal relevance and you can have flat world, you know, yes.

Flat world, no.

Creationism, not evolution.

My example of today when it comes to the whole Israeli-Palestinian thing right there, there is not a right or wrong answer there.

We all agree that's a gray area Thats right so you debate both.

But what you don't tell professor, what you can say and can't say, but you make sure, no, you.

Don't take it as gospel if you're.

Not somebody who believes one way, discuss or advocate for a different position.

You can have a different you.

Don't do that.

Oh, you have to present it.

That's what the bill says it does.

It says you.

Academic merit two.

Right.

That's what they say.

What's too vague to even enforce?

Well, I'll look forward to those arguments playing out in court over several months, former President Donald Trump likely won't announce his choice of running mate for weeks, but he's been holding auditions and Indiana Congressman Jim Banks recently attended one such event.

The Republican National Committee held its spring meeting at Trump's Florida residence.

Mar-A-Lago and Trump held a private fundraising lunch that was largely viewed as a running mate audition.

It included some of the most widely speculated candidates for the slot, including Governors Kristi Noem and Doug Burghum, senators JD Vance, Tim Scott and Marco Rubio, and Representatives Elise Stefanik and Byron Donalds.

Indiana Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Jim Banks attended the private event, though he told WBOI a few days later there is zero chance he'll be Trump's pick, and said he's focused on being Trump's backup in the U.S. Senate.

Ann Delaney, I know you're a big fan of Jim Banks.

But I think it'd be great if he was.

You know what?

It makes sense.

It would make perfect sense because he'd be off the ballot in Indiana.

That would be great.

I mean, it could be just analogous to what.

He'd be on the ballot in Indiana.

Well, not for Senate, not for Senate.

So he'd be terrific.

But, you know, when you look at the list of people they had at that for potential candidates, and you think to yourself, all of them are Trump clones, I mean, all they need to do is learn to scream and lie and cheat a little bit more.

And they could be Trump.

None of them bring really much of anything to the table.

I mean, the electoral votes in North and South Dakota, for example, Mario Rubio, I wasn't sure he was still with us.

Marco.

Marco Rubio excuse me.

Hey, he's.

Still still with us, still.

A senator from Florida.

He's not shot his dog or his goat.

So there are.

Well, there are so,me Got the advantage.

As far as I know.

Yeah.

They're not they're not I mean, if you serious about those candidates.

Terrific.

It does seem like Jim Banks is a long shot, but you can see why it would make sense.

He's been a strong supporter of Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has backed him in and he.

Brings in races.

Why bring me that?

The same argument could have been made for him picking Mike pence in 2016.

And I don't.

Know.

But Mike pence brought the conservative Christians with him.

That does not something Jim Banks is brewing.

Well, Jim Banks absolutely would bring conservative Christians to your table.

More so.

More so than others.

I mean, he is a darling of the conservative Christian movement, but is the fact that he's from Indiana going to scare Donald Trump off a little bit?

It's like he already used that tactic, right?

You know, it's in and it one kind of in 2016 not so much 2020.

But well.

He didn't actually win.

I think it.

Well he won in 2016.

Oh oh okay.

All of that matter doesn't really matter.

but I think I think the days of especially in this particular environment, the days of finding a candidate that gives you an edge in this one or this state, I mean, it's tough because whoever you pick, you're going to alienate somebody.

I mean, and I don't actually agree with and here of saying that Jim Banks, I think, would actually be a pretty good candidate simply because he doesn't have as many national headlines as these other people do.

So kind of taking somebody that, you know, is going to be in your corner is a staunch conservative, and you can kind of mold his national image.

Right?

Because we hear about him all the time in Indiana.

If you were to ask people here, we think he'd be a global superstar, but he's not.

So I think picking him somebody who again, you know, who's on his side and you can mold would actually be potentially a pretty good choice to that end.

again, it seems unlikely Jim Banks will be the pickle, though.

I'm not I'm never going to predict anything that Donald Trump is going to do.

And it does seem like Donald Trump is going to make this decision, more than anyone else.

but it doesn't seem like banks will be the pick.

But how much does this elevate his profile regardless.

How it helps him, I'm sure, I mean, people want to be seen in, in the party who have a certain viewpoint, want to be seen in and around the glow of Donald Trump.

Look at the people outside court this week that basically served as his his, proxies to things.

Just about every VP candidate that was mentioned has been he.

Has been to New York.

Either New York or these fundraisers.

I mean, the idea there are numerous auditions.

This was this was one, so to that extent, I'm sure it checks a box, you know.

Oh, yeah.

For those who had any doubts, not that they did about Jim Banks and his affinity for Donald Trump.

This certainly tick took care of it.

But, I mean, it's I don't think it makes or breaks his, his career.

I mean, by aligning himself in this way doesn't hurt, but, and he probably would be a fine candidate.

It's just that the Indiana thing might get mean to go back to the.

Well, now, that would be not just two times.

Three times if you if you bring, Quayle and.

if bring Dan Quayle into it.

I want to ask on the larger a VP search for Donald Trump.

Even with Joe Biden picking Kamala Harris, there was still an element of who's Joe Biden going to pick, who's going to help him, whether with a state or certain constituencies.

Right.

Do all of those sorts of standard questions about a running mate fly out the window, because it almost doesn't matter with Donald Trump?

Yeah.

I mean, my first thought in terms of that interest of balance or appealing to other people within the party unification would be Nikki Haley.

But I don't know that Trump is.

That seems unlikely.

Yeah, yeah.

And I don't know that Trump is interested in reconciliation within the party.

I think he's about MAGA.

And that's an important question, though.

I mean, that he brings the moderate Republicans who may be tired of Donald Trump on board, and particularly because, you know, everybody talks about Joe Biden's age.

Donald Trump isn't far behind, and he's rode hard and put away with a lot of time.

So he may not be with us if he does, unfortunately win another term.

And that makes the vice presidential candidate more important.

And it seems to me it shouldn't be a clone of him.

It should be somebody that can talk to the people who feel, basically feel that they're not Republicans anymore because of him.

I would think picking Nikki Haley, there's a chance that you might alienate your base.

But, I mean, with Trump, I feel like if you just bring her on stage and be like, you know, this is my option, you know.

That doesn't matter.

There's almost nothing you can do to just kind.

Of what she do.

Everybody else is on board.

All this time now.

Yeah.

I don't I'm not sure she would.

Time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we post an unscientific online poll question.

And this week's question is would Indiana Congressman Jim Banks be a good choice as Donald Trump's running mate?

A yes or B no?

Last week's question was who will win the race for Indiana governor?

36% of you say Republican Mike Braun.

61% say Democrat Jennifer McCormick and 3% say Libertarian Donald Rainwater.

3% being usually about the percentage libertarians get on the ballot.

Although rainwater was a notable example last time.

If you'd like to take part in the poll, go to wfyi.org Emmy winner and look for the poll.

Indiana lawmakers will explore school absenteeism, artificial intelligence and homeowners associations, among other issues, during this year's legislative study committees.

Study committee agendas are voted on by the four state House caucus leaders, two Republicans and two Democrats.

A topic needs at least three votes to be studied.

The committees have generated far fewer recommendations and proposed legislation in recent years.

House Speaker Todd Houston says he's urging his members to consider what they're trying to accomplish through study committees.

What needs to be done in this format, what can be done just by members.

Do another, you know, work.

So it isn't, frankly, a waste of time, but something of value comes out of it.

One topic not on the study committee agenda is cannabis.

Senate GOP Leader Roderick Bray says lawmakers have delved into the issue the past two years.

It's not to say, however, that there won't be some people looking at that.

Over the summer, study committees, which are open to the public, will begin meeting in the next few months.

Jon Schwantes do study committees, tell us much about future legislative sessions anymore.

Whether it used to I mean, it used to be, and I'm talking ten, 20 years ago, if if there was a study committee, you could basically assume you know, start mocking up the, the Enrolled Act because it was.

In some cases, they literally had mocked up enrolled.

Yes they did.

and and I don't know, that's not the case now, clearly.

I mean, we've seen any number of issues and study committees in the past eight years where it's almost as if, you know, the tree fell in that summer forest and nobody heard it.

and it was ignored completely.

So there's a change now, I don't know if that is because of sort of the the lack of, of uniformity or conformity within the caucuses, because, you know, at a time you could say, well, leadership and it's the four leaders, caucus leaders who decide on these, you know, they they control they they really know where their, their, their caucuses are.

And they're they have a pretty good gut sense of where they want this to end up.

And this is the bill.

Now, at that time, you've had people more in lockstep.

Now you have.

Well, you had to be because it was so much closer.

Right now when you have.

Have supermajority.

Always said, I feel sorry for the leadership of Supermajorities because that's harder to manage than probably anything because you have so many, especially now, you have so many factions within, for instance, the Republican Party in terms of, those are hard to the right and those that are a little bit more moderate.

And, and so it's not as easy to act in unison and, and, so I think that maybe the change but no, I don't I don't know that you can read as much into it now as you would have in the past.

One thing that does seem certain to come up, that they've been studying now, this will be the second year.

Is is the, the, the Salter task force, as they call it, the State and Local Tax Review Task Force, where they're looking to maybe in some ways remake Indiana's tax code.

The notable thing there seemed to be that they've added a lot more granular property tax issues to the agenda this, this summer.

when we asked Rod Bray about it, he said, you know, whether that was, foretelling what was going to come out of that task force.

He kind of hedged a little bit, but he did seem to say that property taxes are what a lot of folks are hearing about, right?

Yeah.

And, you know, when they started that small task force, I think income tax was top of mind.

But we've sort of realized through being on campaign trails and we I mean, lawmakers, of course, over the election year, this past year, voters are mostly talking about property taxes, what they're feeling the most acutely.

But, I think arriving at what the right solution is, it has been a more difficult task than they thought.

so they just decided they need to study that more.

But that definitely seems to be where the talking points are headed.

All right.

Yeah, I think that I also have to discuss the gas tax.

I mean, between electric vehicles and getting much better mileage.

They're going to need to have some debate.

That's a separate task force, which is the road funding.

Which and that may that may that may advance as well.

And it wasn't it wasn't too long ago when personal property taxes was the big talking point of, of, of the legislature.

So they they're putting a lot of stake into that committee in particular.

Just any almost every committee you hear now is, well, we'll we'll talk about that in the interim committee.

That's that's actually one you should probably pitch on.

The auto excise tax, you know, back when you have to you could just set your sights, your bull's eye on, put a bull's eye on about that.

Well, we talked a little bit about Nikki Haley already.

Well, former President Donald Trump easily won Indiana's Republican presidential primary last week.

Nikki Haley garnered about 22% of the vote, despite the fact that she dropped out of the race two months earlier before Hoosiers even started voting.

Political scientist Laura Merrifield Wilson cautions against reading too much into these results.

As could be, at least in part, a result of the crossover voting.

And Democrats who looked at the Democrat ballot and saw the race for Senate, but otherwise no real incentive to necessarily vote in their primary and took the Republican ballot.

Haley did best in Indianapolis and its northern suburbs, areas where Democrats are hoping to capitalize in the fall in races further down the ballot.

For the Democratic Party.

And certainly those Democratic candidates with races in those counties and in the surrounding areas, it does provide maybe a sense of hope and opportunity that this isn't necessarily diehard Trump country.

Wilson says the primary results will have no effect on the presidential race in Indiana, where Trump is almost guaranteed to win easily.

Kayla Dwyer, do you think Haley's 22% will mean anything come November?

I'm skeptical that this is much more than a interesting thing to note, rather than something that will actually affect races down ballot.

I mean, if anything, you might think it would affect, say, state House races in the suburbs because that's where she performed best.

But even then, I mean, we just had a municipal election a couple months ago or six months ago and, Carmel, Fishers Republicans did really well.

so, you know, this is still very much a Trump state.

and also, we don't we don't have any way of knowing how many people at the ballot box just didn't realize she wasn't on the ballot anymore technically, or wasn't in the race anymore.

so, yeah.

You can't rule that out.

Certainly.

in terms of the potential for the down ballot impact in November, particularly in, in Boone and Hamilton County, where she did the best.

And you have some competitive state House races, certainly ones that Democrats are targeting is the biggest bulwark against any impact.

Straight ticket voting.

You press one button and that takes care of the ballot buttons.

Well, whatever you one does, I remember levers, but yes, your point is well taken.

I think you take one action.

Yes, and therefore you.

Punch one charge when you when you.

Don't have chairs.

Thank you.

No.

But it.

Yes, I think that does have a big impact.

And I think if you had removed, you know, straight ticket voting you would have a lot of interesting outcomes.

They wouldn't all be the obvious one, such as, you know, you'd see more Democrats popping up in the suburban counties, perhaps around as victors in Indianapolis.

You'd probably see more Republicans, in other parts of the state that are in.

It's that just be the reverse.

So, you know, that.

But again, is that going to happen?

Should Republicans be concerned at all about how well Nikki Haley did in the in Boone and Hamilton County?

I don't think so, because I think since 2016, we have enough evidence that shows that those people just really don't like Trump.

I think the Republicans still do well enough.

You're going to have your two occasional close races, but I mean, Noblesville, Westfield, you're still seeing Republicans win by 20 points ever even since then.

But, you know, I do think it has an impact or could have an impact on the downhill, on the down ballot races.

And the the other part of that that I think is interesting is I think there are a number of Republicans who would classify themselves as moderate, who have said enough is enough, and it's not going to be the gubernatorial that's going to be the the break here.

They spent almost $100 million on that race, and their turnout was anemic.

Nobody was running to the poll because they were enthused about Mike Braun or any of the other ones.

Sometimes the opposite.

Exactly the opposite.

So that and, you know, like Victoria Spartz, she got the lowest vote percentage vote of any incumbent running in the entire country.

Yeah.

Well, that was a what, nine candidates or something.

She still was the incumbent and she was on TV all the time.

All right.

That's Indiana Week in Review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Ann Delaney Republican Chris Mitchum, John Schwantes of Indiana lawmakers and Kayla Dwyer of the Indy Star.

You can find Indiana Week in Reviews podcasts, and episodes at WFYI.org/IWIR or on the PBS app.

I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting.

Join us next time, because a lot can happen in an Indiana week.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the panelist.

Indiana Week in Review is a wfyi production in association with Indiana's public broadcasting stations.