‘A complete takeover’: Indiana lawmakers pass last-minute college governance overhaul

   Dive Brief:

• Indiana lawmakers last week passed a budget plan with last-minute changes that are poised to dramatically reshape how the state’s public colleges are governed.
• Under amendments added by state Republicans in the final hours of the 2025 session, the budget would enact post-tenure reviews for faculty, defang faculty governance organizations and give Republican Gov. Mike Braun full control over the Indiana University board of trustees.
• The two-year budget — which also cut funding for the state’s public colleges by 5% — passed the House in a 66-27 vote before clearing the Senate 39-11 in the early hours of Friday, both largely along party lines. The legislation now heads to Braun, who is expected to sign it into law.

Dive Insight:

If enacted, the budget provisions would order public Indiana colleges to regularly review their degree programs and either cut those that fall beneath a certain enrollment threshold or get state approval to continue the offerings. Colleges could also be required to cut degrees that fail to meet the state’s standards for “quality, viability, and productivity”.

Every five years, tenured faculty would have to meet “productivity” quotas related to their teaching and research workloads. Failure to do so could result in their termination. The colleges’ faculty senates and governance groups would also be relegated to “advisory only” roles.

The bill calls out Indiana University specifically and seeks to change the balance of power in its governance structure.

Under the current system, three members of Indiana University’s nine-person board of trustees are elected by alumni. The rest are appointed by the governor.

The bill, however, would put the entire board selection process under Braun’s control. At least five trustees would have to be university alumni and five would have to be Indiana residents. But members of the alumni association would no longer have a vote, and no university employee would be permitted to serve as a trustee.

Braun would also be able to “remove and replace” any trustee at any time — meaning he would not have to wait for the end of current trustees’ three-year term to use his new power.

In a Monday statement, Indiana University said it will be “working over the coming weeks to understand the full impact of state legislation and ensure compliance with new laws.” A university spokesperson did not provide additional comment Tuesday. 

Mark Land, vice president for communications and marketing at Union College in New York and an alumnus of Indiana University, on Monday described himself as “a current, and it seems a soon-to-be-former, candidate for alumni trustee.”

“I’m disappointed and frustrated that the state could so cavalierly render moot my time and effort in service of a university that helped change my life,” he wrote in an April 28 op-ed for the Indy Star. “More importantly, as an alumnus, current higher education executive and native Hoosier, I’m deeply concerned by the unnecessary overreach of the state government and what it means for the long-term health of a great university.”

It is not uncommon for state and federal lawmakers to pass their proposals by attaching them to key bills like a budget. These amendments, called riders, often have little or nothing to do with the primary legislation and are unlikely to pass on their own.

But Indiana Republicans’ choice to advance their higher education agenda using this route is noteworthy, as the party controls both chambers of the Legislature and the governorship. Lawmakers also made the additions via a committee report submitted Wednesday, the day before both chambers were set to vote on the budget.

Republican Rep. Jeff Thompson, author of the House’s budget bill, said the amendments fell within the state’s duty to make sure taxpayer funds are being spent efficiently.

But Democratic Rep. Matt Pierce called the process a “sneak attack” calculated to avoid public input.

“Why did members of this body not have the courage to admit to the public what they planned to do?” he said on Thursday.

Russ Skiba, professor emeritus at Indiana University, told the Indy Star that the process represents “a complete takeover of universities by the governor and state legislature.”

“It’s hard to imagine anything that could possibly be more nontransparent, opaque,” Skiba said. 

Indiana lawmakers also passed a bill this week seeking to limit diversity efforts at public colleges and institutions and allow individuals to sue over alleged violations. Following pushback from free speech advocates, the legislation was toned down from what the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana called a “wholesale attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.” 

The governor — who banned diversity efforts at state agencies within hours of taking office — is expected to sign the bill.