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Axios
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Axios
ACLU sues Braun over IU board of trustees change
Changes to the Indiana University Board of Trustees slipped into the state budget bill in the final days of the legislative session are being challenged in court. Why it matters: The election for the open alumni seat on the board is set to begin next month. A lawsuit filed this week in Monroe County by the ACLU of Indiana and one of the candidates seeks an injunction to prevent the law, which would negate the election, from going into effect. Catch up quick: Language added to last-minute budget deal gives Gov. Mike Braun total control over the nine-member board that governs the IU system body, overseeing its financial and legal affairs, administration and nearly 90,000 students. Previously, the governor appointed six of the nine members (including one student representative) and the other three seats were filled by alumni, elected by alumni. The budget language eliminates the elected seats, allowing Braun to appoint the entirety of the board, and gives Braun the power to replace any current elected board members. Driving the news: The lawsuit alleges that the change violates the prohibition on "special legislation" in the Indiana Constitution, which bans laws that single out an individual case, person, company or industry for special treatment. "Every other four-year public university in the state has a process for allowing alumni to select at least some members of the board of trustees, and there is no justification for denying that ability to the alumni of IU," ACLU of Indiana legal director Ken Falk said in a news release. While IU is alone in holding an election, other schools allow for input through alumni councils and associations. The other side: Lawmakers defended the move by saying that participation in the election was low and Braun said he wants a board "that's going to produce better results." What they're saying: "Alumni elected by alumni would, in effect, be replaced by the highest bidders seeking to gain favor for appointment," said a letter from more than two dozen past chairs of the Board of Managers of the IU Alumni Association. "Governors may appoint trustees because of their political beliefs, but alumni do not," the letter said. "That seems a valuable balance to ensure no party nor system of conservative or liberal views governs for any reason other than what is best for students, faculty, and the university." Between the lines: Conservatives have been targeting higher education for years but those efforts have ramped up since President Trump took office in January and began making sweeping changes to the country's system of colleges and universities. Indiana lawmakers didn't only target IU with their last-minute additions to the budget bill. Other provisions erode tenure and remove decision-making authority from faculty at all of the state's public colleges and universities. Delaney Howard, a rising senior at IU Bloomington studying biology and history, is worried about what the changes — federal and state — will mean for academic freedom. She's part of a new student group, Advocates for Science at IU. "We've been focusing on the research cuts that have been coming federally," she said. "And now, with the recent changes the governor has put in place … there's a lot of concern, specifically within research groups, about what's going to be allowed to go forward. Is there going to be free speech? Is there going to be free research?" What we're watching: The IU Dean of Libraries, which administers the alumni election, sent an email to candidates Wednesday morning telling them there would not be an election because of the law change.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Quiet budget addition would give Braun full control over Indiana University Board of Trustees
Provisions quietly added to a final draft of the next state budget would give Gov. Mike Braun control over who sits on the Indiana University Board of Trustees. (Getty Images) Provisions quietly added to a presumed final draft of the next state budget would give Gov. Mike Braun full control over the membership of Indiana University's Board of Trustees. The nine-member board serves as the governing body for the state's largest postsecondary institution, overseeing major decisions related to policy, finances and leadership appointments. That includes budget approvals, setting tuition rates, green-lighting new academic programs and deciding on campus projects. Most members are already appointed by the governor, but three are elected by university alumni. If passed and signed into law, the budget would give Braun the power to make changes to the board's makeup as early as July 1. 'I think it's being done because the current process (has) not maybe yielded the proper results on the entirety of how you want that important part of our state to be run — from curriculum to cost to the whole way one of our flagship universities has been operating. I want to get a board there that is going to be a little more rounded, that's going to produce better results,' Braun said Thursday. 'I think that we're going to have a different configuration,' he continued. 'That doesn't mean that an alumni won't be on it as one of the picks that you have to constitute the board. It would just mean that it's not required for those three spots.' House and Senate Republicans unveiled their 215-plus page budget compromise Wednesday afternoon. Amendments buried on pages 181 and 182 aren't related to spending, however. Instead, the new language stipulates that all nine members are to be appointed by the governor. Another section gives the governor authority to, 'at any time,' remove and replace a board member who was previously elected by the IU alumni. If the governor swaps a member out, the new appointee serves until the expiration of the term of the replaced member. Otherwise, any of the existing members elected by IU alumni are allowed to serve out the rest of their term. The bill sunsets those provisions on Jan. 1, 2028, near the end of Braun's current term. I want to get a board there that is going to be a little more rounded, that's going to produce better results. – Indiana Gov. Mike Braun Other new rules require that at least five of the members appointed to the board must be alumni, and five must be residents of Indiana. The provisions did not appear in previous versions of the state budget. Mark Bode, an IU spokesperson, told the Indiana Capitol Chronicle on Thursday that the university 'is currently reviewing the potential impacts of the proposed state budget' but did not comment further or specifically about the board of trustees provision. The IU Board of Trustees and IU Alumni Association did not immediately respond to separate requests for comment. Indiana's Commission for Higher Education (CHE) declined to comment. Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, said Thursday that 'the concept of having elections where alumni choose is good, practically speaking,' but emphasized that 'only a fraction' of the university's 750,000 were voting. 'So, that's absolutely not working the way I think people originally … hoped that it would,' he told the Capital Chronicle. 'The governor has lots of appointments on the IU board and many other boards, and it just made sense to move back to that space.' Under current law, Indiana's governor appoints five members to IU's board and picks one student representative with the help of a student-led committee. Three other members must be IU graduates and are elected by other alumni. At present, all serve three-year terms, except the student member whose term lasts just two years. New budget language shortens student terms to one year and sets a three-term limit on appointed board members. No other university boards were altered by the latest budget language. How trustees are selected at other Hoosier colleges and universities varies somewhat — but like IU, others have also traditionally allowed alumni to have a say on one or more members. At Purdue University, for example, three of the 10 board members are elected by the school's alumni association, one of whom must be a graduate of the College of Agriculture. The governor appoints the remaining seven members, including a student trustee. At Ball State University, an alumni council nominates two people to its nine-member board. The same goes for Indiana State University's alumni council, which also gets two nominees to the school's nine-person board. Indiana AG, Comptroller want proof of no funds supporting IU's Kinsey Institute There's no alumni input for Ivy Tech Community College's board, though, which is made up entirely of gubernatorial appointees. All 10 Vincennes University trustees — one of which is a student member — are also appointed by the governor: one of whom must be a resident of Knox County, and one must be an alumnus. The governor similarly chooses all 10 trustees at the University of Southern Indiana, but an alumni 'screening committee' helps pick one of the members. In a Thursday afternoon callout, Monroe County Democrats called the budget provisions 'absolutely outrageous.' 'This power grab doesn't stop there — it attacks tenure, undermines faculty recruitment, and threatens the core of academic freedom,' the county party said in an email release, which pleaded for Hoosiers to call on their legislators in the final hours of the session and demand for trustee language to be deleted from the budget. 'This isn't just bad policy — it's authoritarian, anti-democratic, and not right,' the email added. 'This isn't just an IU issue. It's a warning shot to every public university in Indiana.' It's the second time that IU has been 'singled out by the Republican Supermajority,' Democrats noted. In 2023, Republicans opted to strip all state funding from IU's Kinsey Institute, which studies sex, gender and reproduction. Its founder, Alfred Kinsey, produced ground-breaking research on sexuality, including the Kinsey Scale. Members of the GOP supermajority argued that the institute's human sexuality research was not in line with the state's values, and further pointed to reports that Kinsey solicited information from a convicted pedophile for an orgasm study. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Axios
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Lawmakers give Braun total control over IU Board of Trustees
Language slipped into the last-minute budget deal gives Gov. Mike Braun total control over the Indiana University Board of Trustees. Why it matters: The nine-member board is the IU system's governing body, overseeing its financial and legal affairs, administration and nearly 90,000 students. Driving the news: Republican lawmakers dropped a 215-page two-year spending plan Wednesday evening that the General Assembly is expected to vote on Thursday. On pages 181 and 182, there is seemingly non-budget language that remakes IU's governing body. How it works: Right now, Indiana's governor appoints five members of the nine-person board and selects one student representative, with the help of a student-led committee. The three other members are IU alumni, elected by IU alumni. All serve three-year terms, except the student member who serves two years. The latest: The language in the budget bill eliminates the elected members, instead allowing the governor to appoint all nine members. It also gives Braun the power to "remove and replace" any of the elected members at any time, meaning he could remake the board as soon as the legislation takes effect. It shortens student terms from two years to one and puts a three-term limit on board members. Five of the board members are required to be IU alumni and five must be Indiana residents under the new language. The big picture: Board makeup at Indiana's other public higher education institutions varies, but most have some kind of alumni input. The Ball State University alumni council nominates two people to its nine-member board. The alumni council of Indiana State University gets two nominees to its nine-person board. Three of Purdue University's 10 trustees are selected by the alumni association. Ivy Tech Community College's board is made up entirely of gubernatorial appointees, with no alumni input. What they're saying:"I think alumni and IU stakeholders need to have a say in who is running the institution," said John McGlothlin, an alum currently running for a seat on the board. "It's that simple." McGlothlin unsuccessfully ran last year. He said he was motivated to run after seeing how the university handled pro-Palestinian protests and what he called other free speech issues and finding the response "unacceptable." McGlothlin said he's been inspired by Vivian Winston, the board member he is now running to replace after she announced she won't seek a second term. She was one of the few people "raising complaints, raising concerns and asking questions about what IU administrators were doing," he said. "I wanted more voices on the board like hers." Threat level: Higher education institutions have been the target of conservatives at the federal and state level for years, but it's been total warfare on all aspects of higher education since President Trump took office for his second term. The other side: The spokespeople for House Republicans, Senate Republicans and Braun did not immediately respond to Axios Indy's request for comment.
