Purdue University responds to tenure reform bill passing the Indiana House

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Shortly after the Indiana House of Representatives passed the controversial tenure reform bill, Senate Bill 202, Purdue University released a statement to all of its campus reaffirming the university’s commitment to academic freedom for all faculty and students and continued faculty tenure at Purdue.

The bill passed Tuesday along party lines with 67 in favor, and 30 opposed. It will return to the Indiana Senate. The last stop is the governor’s office, if the Senate approves changes made in the House.

SB 202, which was introduced by Sen. Spencer Deery (R-Lafayette), would reform the tenure process in Indiana to ensure public universities adopt a philosophy of promoting free speech and “intellectual diversity,” which was defined as “multiple, divergent and varied scholarly perspectives on an extensive range of public policy issues.”

The bill gives universities’ boards of trustees the ability to evaluate faculty members' effectiveness at fostering an environment for “free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity.”

Boards of trustees will be able to define what intellectual diversity means at their campus, as well as within individual disciplines. The bill also directs universities to create a procedure allowing both students and employees to submit complaints against a faculty member or person who they believe isn't meeting the college's standard for intellectual diversity.

It will give the board the ability to determine whether faculty are eligible for tenure or promotion depending on their performance in promoting intellectual diversity every five years.

Purdue’s Response to SB 202

The core of Purdue's statement emphasized the university's long-standing commitment to cultivating a campus where freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry have been prominent philosophies practiced at Purdue. The statement argues many of the provisions in the bill do not impact Purdue due to the campus' preexisting commitment.

"Furthermore, many of the provisions do not impact what Purdue has been doing already, e.g., the institution being a home for critics but not a critic itself, incorporating free speech programs into student orientation, not requiring personal statements of support for political ideologies, and protecting the right of individuals to criticize the government or the university," reads Purdue University's statement.

The university noted academic freedom is a core value at Purdue University and said the college will continue to follow the Chicago principles, the idea that intellectual debate may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral or wrong-headed."Unlike many other institutions that headed down convenient yet slippery slopes in recent years and months, this university has not been in, and will not get into, the business of censoring controversial speech, chilling unfashionable viewpoints, canceling campus events, suspending faculty or fellows, or issuing endless institutional public statements on social-political issues," reads Purdue University's statement, which could be referring to Indiana University's recent suspension of Abdulkader Sinno , a professor who helped a Palestinian rights student group host an event on campus.

"We will continue our use of long-established channels to receive and assess student feedback, and will continue to operate our campus as neither a “surveillance state” nor an “echo chamber” but as a bastion of individual freedom to doubt, debate and dissent."

In its statement, Purdue also emphasized faculty tenure will be a continued practice at Purdue University, and highlighted public university tenure will codified in state law if Gov. Eric Holcomb signs the bill into law.

Tenure is defined as, "a status of continuous employment granted to a faculty member of an institution in which the faculty member may not be dismissed except for good cause or in accordance with one or more of the following: the policies and procedures adopted by the institution. An employment agreement entered into between the institution and faculty member."

"The Board of Trustees, as has always been the case, will continue to cast the final vote on tenure cases. Periodic review after tenure, also not new here, will continue with a low-overhead process. It will be proposed to the Board of Trustees that post-tenure review at Purdue West Lafayette be formally delegated by the Board of Trustees to the university’s chief academic officer and the Academic Deans Council," reads Purdue University's statement.

"With this delegation, and as has long been true in granting tenure at Purdue, only very rarely will a review be directly assessed by the Board of Trustees. Faculty, across all ranks and tracks, are the backbone of the university, and Purdue will continue to grow our support for faculty success."

The statement sent out by Purdue University represented the positions of Michael Berghoff, chairman of the Purdue University Board of Trustees, Mung Chiang, president of Purdue University and Patrick Wolfe, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity the bill that passed through the Indiana General Assembly.

Purdue University Senate response to Purdue's statement

Earlier this month, the Purdue University Senate, which comprises faculty, students and staff, passed a resolution denouncing the bill and calling for Purdue University to make a statement in opposition, which the university never did.

However, Brian Leung the chair of Purdue University Senate noted in an email to his senate colleagues he found some reassurance from the statement released by Purdue University leadership after SB 202 was passed in the House.

"I will embrace their reassurances below and strike a note of cautious hope," Leung said.

In his email, Leung noted he would like to see the board of trustees create a written policy that assures "Purdue University will not open the door to a free-for-all-factory of grievance that will grind down instructor and student productivity by process."

"Now, it is a fact that the chairperson of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Berghoff, President Chiang, and Provost Wolfe, find this moment important enough to write something deeper than a mere dispatch regarding the passage of SB 202. I detect earnestness, and I choose to view their statement as an explicit invitation that the University Senate will be consulted early on and throughout, as policy and procedure are developed in response to SB 202," Leung said.

Noe Padilla is a reporter for the Journal & Courier. Email him at Npadilla@jconline.com and follow him on X at 1NoePadilla.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Purdue University responds to Senate Bill 202 passing Indiana House