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The ACLU of Indiana filed a new lawsuit over SEA 202, a law requiring professors to be disciplined for not fostering “a culture of free inquiry, free expression and intellectual diversity,” citing policies recently enacted at Purdue University and Indiana University.
The complaints, filed on Friday in the United States District Court for Southern Indiana, argue SEA 202 and the new university policies violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
A previous lawsuit filed against the universities was dismissed without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. At the time the complaints were filed, neither IU nor Purdue had yet publicized their policies that align with SEA 202.
Now, both universities have updated their policies to adhere to the law’s mandates.
Purdue’s updated policy reads, in part:
The University also endeavors to employ faculty, lecturers and teaching assistants who expose students to scholarly works from a variety of political or ideological frameworks within and applicable to the given academic discipline while refraining from subjecting students to views and opinions concerning matters not related to the discipline or assigned course of instruction. Faculty being reviewed for tenure and/or promotion are evaluated on criteria meant to assess their likeliness to contribute to the above goals in addition to the criteria outlined in the policy on Academic Tenure and Promotion (I.B.2).
The university adopted a separate policy that allows students, faculty and staff to file a complaint when they believe a faculty member or other employee is not fostering a culture of free expression or intellectual diversity.
IU’s policy amends several of its existing policies, including its faculty tenure policy (ACA-37), faculty promotion policy (ACA-38) and its academic appointee responsibilities and conduct policy (ACA-33).
The professors named in both complaints were all awarded tenure at least a decade ago.
Plaintiffs said they are concerned about SEA 202 and the new policies because they don’t know what it means to “foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression and intellectual diversity” and therefore don’t know how to avoid failing at fostering those cultures.
“The plaintiffs have no idea what this means and cannot discern what they are required to do or refrain from doing to avoid running afoul of the Act or these policies,” the complaints read. “As a result they are therefore now changing the content and pedagogies of their courses, as well as their out-of-class interactions with students, or alternatively risking violation of the policies and the Act in order to maintain their academic freedom and integrity.”
Plaintiff Steven Alan Carr, a professor at Purdue Fort Wayne and director of the university’s Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, doesn’t believe he should be forced to teach such “divergent” scholarly perspectives, like the idea that the Holocaust didn’t exist. But he believes the language of the statute requires him to do so.
Plaintiffs are requesting the court enter a preliminary, and later permanent, injunction to halt the statute from being mandated.
The cases are Steven Alan Carr, David G. Schuster v. Trustees of Purdue University, 1:24-cv-01578 and David McDonald, James Scheurich v. Trustees of Indiana University, 1:24-cv-01575.
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