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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowRepublican state leaders are once again putting Indiana University and its Kinsey Institute under pressure to ensure compliance with a 2023 state law barring state dollars from being used by the sex research organization.
The Indiana chapter of Purple for Parents, a conservative nonprofit that seeks to “protect children from harmful agendas” is advocating for the State Legislature to defund the university, alleging it is violating state law. Several government leaders are aligned in concerns about transparency but say they are not actively pushing for withholding funds.
The group held a press conference Wednesday morning at Zion Unity Baptist Church with a panel of state speakers including Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, Comptroller Elise Nieshalla and Reps. Lorissa Sweet (R-Wabash) and Craig Haggard (R-Mooresville).
Beckwith, who said he was speaking from the heart rather than a prepared statement, said the institute is “rooted in this wickedness.” The executive branch, he said, will ensure the university is following the law with full transparency.
“I talked to our current governor, Mike Braun, time and time again on these types of issues,” Beckwith said at the event, which was live-streamed on the organization’s Facebook page. “He does not want to see this stuff in our schools any more than any one of us sitting here today wants to see it. … You’ve got an executive branch that’s standing with you in this fight.”
Braun will announce his budget priorities Thursday in front of the State Budget Committee.
State lawmakers are currently drafting the 2026-27 biennial budget, which includes allotments for higher education institutions. The House will vote on the budget closer to the midway point, and the Senate will vote near the end of the Legislative Session in late April.
Prior to the 2023 ban, the Kinsey Institute did not directly receive dollars from the state-funded portion of the university budget and was largely supported by grants, contracts and donors, IBJ previously reported.
President Pamela Whitten was questioned Tuesday afternoon in front of the House Ways and Means Committee about IU’s overall budgetary requests. Rep. J.D. Prescott, R-Union City, said he’s wary of giving any money to the university if it’s not following the law.
Whitten referenced correspondence with the state—which the university later provided to IBJ—about its attempts to confirm its compliance. An external auditor’s report that found compliance is published online.
“We’ll need help from someone telling us specifically what we need to do if we’re not correctly complying with the law at this point,” Whitten said, “because the work we’ve done and even the external audit that we got is telling us that we are.”
Sweet proposed banning funding from the Kinsey Institute by an amendment to the state budget in February 2023. Her argument against the institute was based on disputed allegations about the research methods of institute founder Dr. Alfred Kinsey (who died in 1956) and the nature of current research and scholarship.
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