Indiana governor sued by state ACLU over university board control

Dive Brief:

• The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana is suing the state’s governor, Mike Braun, over a new law giving him full control over the selection of Indiana University’s trustee board.
• Last month, Republican lawmakers added several last-minute changes to Indiana’s budget bill that expanded the state’s control over its public colleges. Braun signed the budget into law Tuesday.
• One provision empowers the governor to appoint all nine members of Indiana University’s board, eliminating the institution’s longstanding tradition of alumni trustee elections. That change illegally targets Indiana University and violates the state’s constitution, ACLU of Indiana’s lawsuit argues.

Dive Insight:

Indiana University has held alumni trustee elections since 1891, with the process codified into state law. Board members oversee everything from admissions standards to presidential appointments to faculty promotions and tenure. 

Prior to the change in law this month, three trustees on the university’s nine-person were elected by alumni. The governor appointed the rest.

ACLU of Indiana is suing Braun on behalf of a candidate who was vying for a board position this summer, Justin Vasel.

“This challenge addresses a law that strikes at the heart of democratic governance at Indiana’s flagship university,” Vasel said in a statement Wednesday. “This unconstitutional legislation threatens IU’s 134-year-old tradition of alumni representation while an election for those very positions is already underway.”

Before the change in law, the university’s over 790,000 graduates were eligible to cast a ballot, according to the university’s alumni association, making the voter pool larger than the populations of Wyoming, Vermont or Alaska.

Six members of the university’s alumni association had announced their candidacy for trustee, and the month-long election was set to begin in June. Had it gone on as scheduled, the winner would have joined the board July 1.

Now, Braun has the power to appoint who he wishes, so long as five trustees are university alumni and five are Indiana residents. The governor also received the power to remove any previously elected members at his discretion. 

Braun defended the change during an April 30 press conference, citing low alumni voter turnout in the trustee elections, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

“It wasn’t representative. It enabled a clique of a few people to actually determine three board members. And I don’t think that is real representation,” the governor told reporters.

The university’s next trustee meeting is set to take place June 12.

The lawsuit castigated lawmakers for not following the normal legislative process when approving the change, instead relying on last-minute amendments.

“No hearings were held concerning the proposal,” it said. “Instead the change was inserted at the eleventh hour deep within a lengthy budget bill that otherwise would have nothing to do with the election of members of the boards of trustees of Indiana’s higher education institutions.”

Vasel and the ACLU of Indiana also questioned the constitutionality of the budget’s targeting of Indiana University’s board selection.

The process for appointing trustees varies among the state’s other public universities. But the alumni of each institution have the ability to vote on or nominate graduates to the board, the lawsuit said. The change Braun signed into law takes that ability away from Indiana University alone.

“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,” Ken Falk, legal director of ACLU of Indiana, said in a Tuesday statement.

Indiana Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s mansion, have attempted to control other aspects of Indiana University.

Earlier this year, the state comptroller and two lawmakers joined an event where an advocacy group questioned if the university was illegally routing state funds to the Kinsey Institute, a sexuality and gender research center housed on its Bloomington campus.

Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith joined the opposition of the institute and said he and Braun are committed to ensuring Indiana University “is not using taxpayer dollars to fund something that is rooted in this wickedness,” according to WFYI.

Beckwith also threatened the university and its editorially independent student newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, over the publication’s coverage of President Donald Trump. 

The lieutenant governor derided a November cover story that showcased quotes critical of the president made by former Trump officials, though Beckwith misattributed the quotes as from the paper’s staff. He went on to call the story “WOKE propaganda at its finest.”

“This type of elitist leftist propaganda needs to stop or we will be happy to stop it for them,” Beckwith said in a social media post.