Alice Pawley, a professor of engineering education at Purdue University, said that many faculty members in Indiana were angered by the new restrictions, and that “nobody trusts that this is actually going to be fairly applied.” Many felt discouraged about their job security, believing it would be at the mercy of trustees who are not experts in their fields and would be making decisions on the basis of highly subjective criteria, Dr. Pawley said.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A new law in Indiana requires professors in public universities to foster a culture of “intellectual diversity” or face disciplinary actions, including termination for even those with tenure, the latest in an effort by Republicans to assert more control over what is taught in classrooms.
Hundreds wrote letters or testified at hearings, and faculty senates at multiple institutions had urged the legislature to reject the bill, condemning it as government overreach and a blow to academic free speech.
“The whole point of tenure is to protect academic freedom,” said Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, who described the law as “thought policing.”
“Recent events and blatant antisemitism have placed a spotlight on the hyper-politicalization and monolithic thinking of American higher education institutions, and many are warning that universities have lost their way,” Mr. Deery said after the bill passed in the Senate.
Keith E. Whittington, a politics professor at Princeton University, expressed concern around the vagueness of the law, including the uncertainty around what will be needed to meet the requirements.
In practice, Dr. Whittington said there will be a lot of professors “running scared and trying to figure out not only, ‘How do I construct a class that I think is intellectually coherent and satisfying and educationally useful?’” but also “‘How do I shelter myself from potentially getting fired?’”
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