Indiana
College faculty overwhelmingly opposed to bill seeking to end “viewpoint discrimination” – Indiana Capital Chronicle
Faculty from higher education institutions across Indiana descended on the Statehouse Wednesday to speak out against a contentious bill that would increase lawmaker oversight of state colleges and universities and push speech in the classroom toward “intellectual diversity.”
Sen. Spencer Deery, R-West Lafayette, has called his Senate Bill 202 a “reform” effort intended to reverse “declining views” of higher education.
But dozens of opponents argued the proposed changes could harm students and professors, or would overly burden public institutions.
Testimony was heard on the bill in the House Education Committee on Wednesday. Committee chairman Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, said a vote on the measure is expected next week.
“At the end of the day, there is an elephant in the room that we need to address, and that’s the increasing number of students who just don’t feel like higher ed is a place for them,” Deery said, He pointed to a 2023 Gallup survey which found the percent of Republicans “with confidence in higher education” declined from 56% in 2015 to 19% in 2023.
“Addressing this issue will both improve the quantity of Hoosiers that we can get enrolled in higher education,” Deery continued. “I also believe it will improve the quality of education they receive, because we all benefit — no matter your political beliefs — from being challenged and exposed to new scholarly ideas.”
Faculty, students and other campus representatives from Ball State University, Indiana University, Indiana State University, Ivy Tech Community College, Purdue University, University of Southern Indiana and Vincennes University disagreed, however. They argued the bill “would severely constrain academic freedom” and threaten schools’ ability to recruit and retain top faculty.
“SB 202 will put the state at odds with specialty accreditors and risk programs’ specialized accreditation, resulting in even greater shortages fundamental to the needs of Indiana citizens,” said Lindsey Everman, a professor at Indiana State University. “I encourage and welcome intellectual and ideological diversity in my classroom and throughout my scholarship. I work to educate students to also welcome diversity in the way they think.”
“Effective practitioners have to embrace diversity of thought, and it is a misconception that one cannot both believe in diversity, equity and inclusion, and also offer an opportunity for free expression of faith and political ideology,” she continued. “A college classroom is meant for this kind of dialogue. And everyone — faculty and students together — grow in their critical thinking from this kind of exchange. Instead of encouraging free expression, as the bill hopes to do, the ambiguity of SB 202 will only stifle those activities that encourage critical thinking.”
Preventing faculty from imposing their views
Deery and other Republican lawmakers contend that conservative students and faculty members are increasingly ostracized at progressively liberal college and university settings — or at least perceive such shunning.
As an attempted remedy, Deery’s bill would change up institution boards of trustees by removing appointment power from alumni councils and pass it off to House and Senate Republican majority leaders — “with advice” from Democrat minority leaders. It would require boards’ existing diversity committees to consider “intellectual diversity” alongside cultural diversity in employment policies and faculty complaints.
The legislation would additionally require the committees to make recommendations promoting recruitment and retention of “underrepresented” students rather than the “minority students” specified in current law.
Conservative-friendly higher education legislation clears Senate
The measure re-shapes tenure and promotion policies, too.
Boards of trustees would be required to prevent a faculty member from getting tenure or a promotion if the board thinks the member is “unlikely to foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression and intellectual diversity” and unlikely to offer students scholarly works from a range of “political or ideological frameworks.” Boards would also dock members considered likely to bring up personal political views unrelated to their specific field or class.
Boards would get wide latitude in making those policies. The bill says decisions would be based on past performance “or other determination by the board.”
The bill also mandates that boards conduct reviews of tenured professors every five years based on the above, as well as if faculty members “adequately” carry out academic duties and more. A fiscal analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency notes IU’s flagship campus at Bloomington alone has over 1,000 tenured faculty, meaning its board would have to conduct 200-plus reviews annually.
“One of the fundamental things that ought to happen to you as a young person in college is to be challenged by thoughts you’re not familiar with — thought you’re not comfortable with, thought you don’t agree with,” Democrat Rep. Ed DeLaney told Deery during committee discussion, adding that his bill “will cut that down.”
“You’re requiring the professors — for example, in sociology or political science — to give a range of opinions and to be neutral,” DeLaney continued. “In effect, you are neutering your faculty. That’s what you’re trying to do.”
Deery opposed that description of his proposal and maintained that he wants to protect tenured faculty by codifying things the board can’t consider in reviews, like expressing dissent or engaging in research and public commentary, as well as criticizing institutional leadership and engaging in political activity outside teaching or mentoring duties.
In effect, you are neutering your faculty. That’s what you’re trying to do.
– Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis
Still, institutions would be required to adopt policies establishing disciplinary actions — termination, demotion, salary cuts and more — for tenured faculty members who fail those reviews.
Deery said the bill does not “mandate that any particular content be taught,” nor does it require students be exposed to “every scholarly idea” or “pseudoscience.”
“If you believe that it’s unreasonable for faculty to answer, occasionally, how they expose students to competing scholarly views, or if you believe that doing so will somehow ‘threaten’ the stature of your university, or the economic and cultural vitality of our state, or weaken the intellectual rigor of your students … then you and I have a very different definition of what it actually means to be higher in higher education,” Deery said.
“If you believe that we should not include in our definition of diversity the importance of competing ideas, along with the traditional goals of creating equal opportunity for all, then you and I also have a very different view on what diversity is, and I stand by that policy difference.”
University faculty speak out
A joint statement released Monday by the Purdue-West Lafayette and Indiana University-Bloomington chapters of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) said adoption of the Senate bill “would severely damage the ability” of the two public research universities “to recruit and retain outstanding faculty, erasing the State of Indiana’s uniquely prominent national profile in higher education.”
“In its attempt to ensure that all students and faculty at state universities feel confident they can express their political and intellectual views freely — an aspiration the AAUP shares — SB 202 mandates a system of surveillance and political scrutiny that will instead stifle the free flow of ideas,” the statement said. “It requires that hiring, tenure, and promotion become subject to reviews that judge faculty based on political criteria, and that post-tenure employment be contingent on further periodic reviews. These measures would severely constrain academic freedom at our university.”
Story continues below.
240212 IU-Purdue SB 202 joint statement
That sentiment was echoed by multiple other faculty members from public universities across Indiana who testified against the bill on Wednesday.
Mary Dankoski, who has served as faculty at IU’s medical school for 24 years, said Senate Bill 202 “is unprecedented” and will have “an enormous impact.”
“It is a deterrent to prospective faculty from considering making Indiana their home and the place to grow their careers,” Dankoski said.
Dan Smith, a professor and dean emeritus at IU’s Kelley School of Business, noted that students in all classes already complete faculty evaluation surveys and appear content with their teachers.
“One of those questions has to do with whether the faculty member for that course creates an environment in that classroom that is conducive to engagement from all students,” Smith said. “When you look at the battery of responses, and you add them all up — the Kelley School has 10,000 students, 400 faculty — last year, the average on this composite index was a six-point-three out of seven on a seven-point scale. That’s comparable to how happy and satisfied you are with your Apple iPhone.”
College faculty emphasized, too, that within campus environments now, students have the ability to think critically and for themselves — and they actively do so.
“I think that the misconception that higher education may be indoctrinating students would be better evidenced if we had a room full of liberals as legislators,” said Everman, from ISU. “We’re not as effective as you think we are at changing the minds of our students. And that is because we are able to have a dialogue in a classroom and that the system evaluates our ability to do that.”
Capital Chronicle reporter Leslie Bonilla Muñiz contributed reporting.
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Indiana
Are microschools a solution to falling public school enrollment? One Indiana district thinks so
GREENFIELD, Ind. — Seventh grader Taitym Lynch plans most of her school day herself, mapping out a schedule each morning on her school laptop. She typically starts with math when her brain is sharpest, logging into an online platform her school uses for math lessons. Next she often tackles science with her “class guide,” a teaching assistant who walks her though topics like animal food chains. Lynch chooses to have lunch around noon, and finds time to take breaks in the woods that surround her school, Nature’s Gift.
Lynch, 13, came to Nature’s Gift this fall after years in a traditional public school. She kept trying to adapt, but her anxiety made it difficult. “Honestly, I had problems with school,” Lynch said. “I didn’t feel like going every day.” She also had a brief stint in virtual school.
So far, Lynch is happy at Nature’s Gift. She feels comfortable asking questions of teachers and likes the small size. There are just 64 kids in grades kindergarten through 12th, taught by three licensed teachers and several class guides who provide extra support.
Lynch is the sort of student George Philhower had in mind when he helped start Nature’s Gift — one of a small but growing number of public “microschools” across the country.
Philhower is the superintendent of Eastern Hancock Community Schools, a rural district of 1,200 students about 30 miles east of Indianapolis. He’d worried for years about the district’s financial health as more families whose kids didn’t thrive in public school considered homeschooling.
Around the same time, the concept of microschooling was gaining traction nationally. Microschools offer multiage learning environments that focus on personalized, often less-regulated instruction. Popularity grew during the pandemic when families sought learning alternatives in online, hybrid and pod options; an estimated 750,000 to 2 million students now attend the schools.
The schools are typically privately run, but Philhower saw a role for them in his small district. Last year, he won approval from the state’s charter school board to establish the Indiana Microschool Collaborative, which he says will incubate a network of microschools statewide. They will operate as charter schools, meaning they are public but have more flexibility in terms of curricula and other operations than traditional public schools.
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Nature’s Gift, the first such school, received so many applications for its original 50 spots that it twice added additional seats and still has a waiting list. Philhower hopes that by 2030, the network will add at least 10 more schools and enroll some 6,000 students statewide. Word is spreading: He said he’s received inquiries about the model from school district leaders and education organizations from elsewhere in the state and beyond.
“The interest has been higher than we ever imagined,” Philhower said.
While some government and education leaders praise the public microschool model as an innovative way to allow more personalized approaches to learning, it’s far too soon to know the extent to which they can succeed in effectively educating students or stemming falling enrollment. Some experts also worry that the innovation that has defined microschools may be lost as the model expands.
“American education is populated with fads and failed reforms and that type of thing, things that don’t work out, and it’s hard to start a school and sustain it,” said Christopher Lubienski, director of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy at Indiana University. Still, he said the collaborative model in Indiana could give the schools a strong shot at succeeding.
Don Soifer, CEO of the National Microschooling Center, an industry nonprofit that works to grow the microschool movement, estimates that only about 5 percent of the country’s microschools are public charter schools. But his organization hears from public school superintendents in states with school choice who are curious about the model, he said. “They’re losing some of their best teachers and families to microschools, and they want to get out in front of that.”
According to a 2025 analysis of more than 800 microschools his group conducted, more than 40 percent of students previously attended district-operated schools or were homeschooled before enrolling in a microschool.
Indiana’s public schools, meanwhile, have been losing enrollment since 2008. Just over 1 million students attend them, while about 70,000 students receive school vouchers for private schools through the state’s voucher program, started in 2011. An estimated 8 percent homeschool, above the national average.
Scott Bess, a board member for the Indiana Microschool Collaborative, said he thinks Philhower has found a middle ground for some rural families who chose to homeschool only because they didn’t have other non-public options such as nearby private schools. “It’s going to feel like a small private school, but it’s public,” Bess said.
Philhower said he understands that some people might question why a public school superintendent is embracing and growing charter schools, but that’s what his community asked of him. “School choice isn’t going anywhere, especially in Indiana,” he said.
Zach Dobson / The Hechinger Report
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Indeed, the state’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, is an advocate of choice and microschools, and promoted them during a July visit to the state from Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Indiana is going to offer microschool options to parents so “they can educate their kids in a way that they think makes sense,” he has said.
At Nature’s Gift — located at a 12-acre youth camp surrounded by woods that includes four barn-red cabins and a main building leased by the school — learning is personalized, with many of the middle and high schoolers managing parts of their daily schedule. Students advance by displaying ability or showing interest in a subject, not by grade level, testing or age alone.
Most students also participate in hybrid learning and are homeschooled half the time.
Erin Wolski, lead educator of Nature’s Gift, helps with classes for elementary through high school students, while running day-to-day operations. At any given time, she might be leading group math work, hopping on a walkie-talkie to answer a teacher’s question or taking kids on a nature hike.
Before joining Nature’s Gift, Wolski spent more than 16 years in traditional public schools, most recently in the Eastern Hancock district, her alma mater. In early 2025, she approached Philhower about wanting a change, and he told her about his plans for Nature’s Gift. Together, they started the school. Most of its budget revenue comes from state per-pupil spending and some state grants, like one for qualifying charter schools that funds up to $1,400 per student.
Another Nature’s Gift teacher, Christina Grandstaff, also taught in traditional public schools for years. She said she prefers how responsive Nature’s Gift can be to individual students’ needs. “We’re still doing all the things that you need to do for public school, but we have the flexibility,” she said. “We’re outside more, or we can learn outside, or we have kids that move from that group up to this level.”
The school has a very different relationship with parents than traditional public schools.
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Danielle Maroska enrolled her daughter, Kinzie, in Nature’s Gift after homeschooling her for years. She initially chose homeschooling in part to accommodate Kinzie’s athletic schedule: The 11-year-old is a gymnast who spends 16 hours a week practicing.
“Covid really opened the doors for homeschooling to be enough,” Maroska said. “Most of her gymnast friends are homeschooled, so we went that route, and we did that for a couple years.”
But Kinzie began to miss having a sense of community. This fall, she began attending Nature’s Gift full days on Mondays and half days the rest of the week. Her mother homeschools her those afternoons when she’s not at the gym. Maroska describes herself as a “co-captain” in her daughter’s education, with Wolski being the captain.
Since attending Nature’s Gift, Maroska said she’s noticed her daughter’s approach to learning change. She used to hate reading, Maroska said, but now she regularly curls up with a book, even ahead of pickup time in early December.
“I feel like this is kind of how college is, in a sense,” Maroska said. “It’s making them take initiative to guide their own learning.”
Still, Maroska said Nature’s Gift isn’t right for all kids. Her two sons, in the second and eighth grades, are thriving at a traditional public school in Eastern Hancock, she said, and she would never pull them from that school unless something changed.
By contrast, mother Jen Shipley said she was initially skeptical of Nature’s Gift, never having seriously considered public education for her homeschooled 9-year-old. But like Maroska, she appreciates the flexibility and close relationships with teachers. Her daughter, Elliana, attends the school roughly three days a week and is homeschooled the other two.
“We feel like partners in her education, versus I’m just handing her over and I just have to deal,” Shipley said.
A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with The Hechinger Report’s free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.
As a public charter school, Nature’s Gift must take state tests, unlike private microschools that do not. So far, the results have been mixed. On state benchmark tests in November, the majority of students, 70 percent, scored below proficient in math while only 10 students, or 30 percent, scored below proficient in English and language arts, according to Wolski.
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She said it’s too soon to use student test scores to evaluate the school since it’s been open less than a year. She noted too that her students were educated in a variety of settings before joining the school.
Only one-third of microschools affiliated with the National Microschooling Center take state tests, according to the Las Vegas-based nonprofit, so data on their performance overall is limited.
Some microschool researchers worry that as public microschools are increasingly evaluated based on state tests, they could become more beholden to that accountability framework and some of what makes them innovative could disappear. “If that high-stakes accountability piece is there, it is inevitable that schools will have to change their operations to lean more towards performing on those metrics,” said Lauren Covelli, an associate policy researcher at Rand, a research organization, who studies microschools.
She added: “With so many school choice options in Indiana, specifically, if families don’t want their child to be taking a standardized test, it’s probably not the choice for them.”
For families and educators who have chosen Nature’s Gift, the future seems encouraging. “This is sustainable, because so many parents are seeking something different,” said Wolski, the teacher and co-founder. “They have more access to things now than they ever did before.”
As 3 p.m. neared on a recent weekday, Grandstaff wrapped up a lesson and sent some students to the main building for pickup, then checked on a student who was studying at his laptop outside in the 20-degree weather. “He prefers it,” the teacher said.
Wolski said she doesn’t want to be part of undoing what’s happening in traditional schools but, rather, building more options into the public school system. “Families want different things,” she said. “Kids want different things.”
Nature’s Gift still has a long way to go, she said, but she is motivated to keep building it.
“Parents are happy. Kids are happy,” Wolski said. “So we’re going to keep going.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at preston@hechingerreport.org.
This story about microschools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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Indiana
Chicago Ridge man accused of stealing vehicles with tow truck, selling them for scrap metal: police
CHICAGO (WLS) — A tow truck driver has been accused of selling vehicles he stole.
Illinois State Police arrested 36-year-old Saeed E. Mustafa of Chicago Ridge on Friday.
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Investigators say he used his tow truck to steal vehicles, before selling them for scrap metal.
One of the thefts took place on Feb. 12 on the Bishop Ford Freeway, Illinois State Police said.
SEE ALSO: 1 in custody after shots fired at 2 CPD squad cars on South Side: Chicago police
Several had been stolen out of Chicago and Indiana, according to police.
Mustafa has been charged with conspiracy to receive/possess/sell a stolen motor vehicle.
He is being held, pending his first court appearance.
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Indiana
Indiana’s Curt Cignetti cashes in on title run with 8-year extension worth $13.2 million per year
Indiana coach Curt Cignetti is cashing in on his first national championship run — even more than initially expected.
Athletic department officials announced Monday that the two-time national coach of the year has signed a memorandum of understanding on an eight-year contract extension, paying him an annual average of $13.2 million — or an increase of about $1.6 million per year from what school officials said Cignetti would earn when he first agreed to the extension in October.
School officials released the document Cignetti signed Feb. 4.
He joins Georgia coach Kirby Smart and LSU coach Lane Kiffin as the only active Football Bowl Subdivision coaches to receive paychecks of $13 million or more. The payouts could be even higher if Cignetti earns bonuses for winning Big Ten or national coach of the year honors in addition to playoff appearances and conference titles. The 64-year-old Cignetti already has said he hopes to retire at Indiana.
The new deal calls for a base salary of $500,000 per year through the 2033 season and a $1 million retention bonus on Nov. 30 of each year, starting this fall. The remaining portion of the $105.6 million will be collected from outside, promotional and marketing income.
Cignetti initially agreed to an eight-year extension worth $92.8 million — an annual average of $11.6 million — but university officials agreed to modify the deal as the Hoosiers remained undefeated and pursued the first football national championship in school history.
It’s the third time Cignetti has received a raise since he took over the losingest program in FBS history in November 2024. All he’s done since arriving is produce the two best seasons in school history while becoming one of college football’s fan favorites for his quick quips and unique facial expressions. Players have embraced him, too, telling many of their favorite Cignetti tales.
Just ask tight end Riley Nowakowski, who recounted his favorite Cignetti story during the recent NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.
“I think (Alberto Mendoza) was in the game, and he pulled like four runs in a row,” Nowakowski said, referring to last season’s victory over Illinois. “He kept pulling it, kept pulling it, kept pulling it, and then after the fourth time, it was a terrible read. So in the middle of the game, (Cignetti) tells our coach, ‘Get (Alberto) over here.’ Bert’s like, ‘What, it’s the middle of a game, what are you doing?’ And (Cignetti) goes, ‘We’re not paying you to run the ball, hand the ball off, right? We’re up like 70 points, but he’s pissed off, yelling at Bert, and (Cignetti) just turned back at me and gave me one of his little smiles, and he was just like, ’You like that now?’”
Cignetti wasted no time delivering on his promise to win after leading James Madison to the most successful transition from the Football Championship Subdivision to the FBS.
The son of Hall of Fame coach Frank Cignetti and a former Alabama assistant led Indiana to a school record 11 wins and its first College Football Playoff appearance in his first season with the Hoosiers.
Last season, he outdid that mark by producing the first 16-0 mark in major college football since the 1890s. The Hoosiers also won their first outright Big Ten crown since 1945, beat Miami on its home field to claim the national title and shed the label of having the most all-time losses in FBS history.
Mendoza’s older brother, Fernando, also became the first Indiana player to win the Heisman Trophy and is expected to be the No. 1 overall pick in April’s NFL draft.
The reward: A record nine players, including Mendoza and Nowakowski, attended the recent combine in Indianapolis while Cignetti got another pay raise and school officials continued to invest heavily in keeping the coach’s staff together.
Offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and defensive coordinator Bryant Haines each agreed to three-year contract extensions worth about $3 million per year in December, making them two of the highest-paid assistants in the FBS. Haines won this year’s Broyles Award, which goes to the nation’s top assistant coach.
Indiana will begin next season with the longest winning streak (16) and longest home winning streak (15) in the FBS. Cignetti has never lost a home game with the Hoosiers, who open defense of their league and national titles at home against North Texas on Sept. 5.
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