Indiana College Professors to Lose Tenure If They Fail to Foster Intellectual Diversity, Free Inquiry

A new law will tie tenure at Indiana’s public colleges and universities to whether professors can promote intellectual diversity, free inquiry, and free expression within their classrooms. The law received Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s signature on Wednesday after passing the Republican-dominated state Legislature. It is designed to shift the focus of higher education’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts from creating a workforce of diverse races, genders, and sexualities to seeking a diversity of ideas and perspectives. Under the law, which takes effect this July, faculty members at Indiana’s seven public colleges may be denied tenure if they are deemed unlikely to foster a culture of free inquiry or expose their students to “multiple, divergent, and varied scholarly perspectives on an extensive range of public policy issues.”...