ACLU of Indiana sues Purdue over intellectual diversity law

The ACLU of Indiana filed suit Tuesday against Purdue asserting that a new state law violates the First and Fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Senate Enrolled Act 202, authored by Republican Sen. Spencer Deery, was signed into law by Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb in March. Deery said his aim in drafting the bill was to challenge “the hyper-politicization and monolithic thinking of American higher education institutions.”

The law allows any student or fellow university employee to lodge a complaint against a faculty member at a given university to the school’s board of trustees for lack of “intellectual diversity,” per the law’s verbiage.

But Purdue Fort Wayne professors Steven A. Carr and David G. Schuster, on whose behalf the suit was filed, fear the mechanisms and wording of the law could force them to teach material that pales in academic standing to more rigorous works and theories. Carr said he was nervous about university trustees interpreting what intellectual diversity means.

He further brought forth concerns about trustees’ status as political appointees. Members at Purdue and other public universities are appointed by the Indiana governor.

“I was trying to think of an analog situation,” Carr said. “And I was wondering, what if the law had, for example, called for investigative diversity, and had targeted newspapers and required publishers to enforce diversity? I think people would rightfully be upset about the government interfering in the First Amendment rights of the press.”

ACLU of Indiana staff attorney Stevie Pactor said intellectual diversity has “no established meaning in an academic context,” and so the bill violates faculty’s First Amendment rights to academic freedom out of vagueness but also Fourteenth Amendment protections of privileges, like that of a university professor to teach material they choose.

“It would have been easy for the legislature to draft a statute that said, for example, professors are expected to create a culture where all students feel engaged and welcomed,” Pactor said. “If that really is the purpose of the statute, they could have written that statute, but that's not the statute we have.”

The lawsuit was filed against Purdue, and not the state, because Purdue is tasked with enforcing it given that Carr and Schuster are Purdue faculty, according to Pactor. The attorney did note, however, that she expects the state to be challenged on the law “when the time comes.”

Purdue spokesperson Tim Doty said the university had not been served as of Tuesday afternoon, and he declined to comment on the professors’ allegations.