Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) – Association of University Professors (AAUP)

2/2/2026

IUB-AAUP stands with over 11,000 signatories in support of the petition, initiated by students at Indiana University Northwest, that we “keep ICE out of our campuses.” Indiana University has recently platformed (through its public-facing calendars and career infrastructure) Department of Homeland Security recruitment activity—including a series of U.S. Customs and Border Protection virtual recruitment events that appear on IU’s events listings and in Handshake. Even when these events are formally employer-hosted, their appearance on IU-branded platforms is not neutral: it publicly legitimizes agencies that have acted unlawfully and terrorized communities around the country, and it signals to students and our community that an enforcement apparatus associated with detention, surveillance, defiance of multiple court orders, and violence (including the killing of civilians) is welcome here. 

Our goal as educators is to provide a safe environment for our students, and working with an agency that has developed a profile of lawless abuse of power is not part of our mission. The university is not legally required, nor ethically compelled, to provide a recruitment platform to attract Indiana University students into agencies with a documented record of violence, civil rights concerns, constitutional violations, and ongoing litigation. Placing this recruitment event on the IU calendar is a clear ethical and moral choice, and an implicit endorsement of the organization’s unconstitutional behavior.  For faculty, staff, and students, this also raises core AAUP concerns: the integrity of the university’s mission, the conditions under which students can learn and participate without intimidation, and the governance question of who decides what kinds of organizations the university will endorse, amplify, and facilitate through official infrastructure.

For these reasons, we strongly endorse the pending BFC resolution (shared in full, below), introduced by an AAUP member, demanding that the University remove ICE, CBP, and the Department of Homeland Security from the list of approved employers allowed to post on the IU Events Calendar until all court cases involving potential violations of civil rights and alleged illegal and unconstitutional activity by these agencies are fully resolved. 

We call on the administration to act immediately to remove the links to all CPB recruiting events from IU websites. Furthermore, we call on the administration to act in accordance with the BFC resolution and to apply clear, mission-based standards to who receives recruitment access through IU channels. Our students deserve a campus—physical and virtual—free from the normalization of agencies who abuse their power and bring violence into our communities.

IUB-AAUP Executive Committee
iubaaup.org

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) was founded in 1915 to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good. It does so largely by advocating on behalf of the best interests of universities and the faculty whose expertise and efforts are at the foundation of higher education teaching, research, and service. The IUB chapter was founded in 1919 and has often taken part in important decisions made at critical junctures of IU history. Now hundreds of faculty members strong, the IU Bloomington chapter is the fastest growing chapter in the US and the largest in Indiana. To join the chapter, visit: www.aaup.org/join

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Below we offer the full text of the resolution that will be presented at the February 10th BFC meeting:

The IUB BFC expresses our concerns over the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recruitment events to be hosted online by IU in February 2026. We are appalled that our university allowed these events to be included on the IU Events Calendar, especially after the events that have unfolded in Minneapolis over the past month. 

The nation is still mourning the tragic loss of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse at the Minneapolis VA Health Care system and Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three. Both were shot and killed by federal immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis in January. These aggressive militarized actions of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and border patrol agents are unconscionable. 

These actions, and subsequent statements by federal officials, signal a continuing disregard for  rights enshrined in the constitution, causing widespread outrage and concern throughout the  country. Following the Minneapolis shootings, former CBP Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino said 2nd Amendment protections “don’t count,” remarks so extreme they drew condemnation even from the National Rifle Association, which labeled the comments “dangerous and wrong” and warned against demonizing law-abiding citizens. 

Federal courts have repeatedly found ICE to have violated Fourth Amendment protections by  wrongfully detaining U.S. citizens and using faulty data and without judicial warrants, as in  Gonzalez v. ICE. As faculty committed to constitutional principles and student well-being, we  cannot ignore this documented pattern of conduct when asked to provide these agencies a  recruitment platform. 

We anticipate the argument that “Indiana University cannot refuse participation by a valid  government agency like CBP / ICE.” That argument fails. Universities routinely apply neutral, mission-based criteria in deciding which employers may recruit, excluding organizations with  unsafe labor practices, unresolved civil rights or Title IX violations, or failures to meet background-check requirements.  

The university is not legally required, nor ethically compelled, to provide a recruitment platform to attract Indiana University students into agencies with a documented record of violence, civil rights concerns, constitutional violations and ongoing litigation.  

The BFC resolves that Indiana University shall remove ICE, CBP, and the Department of Homeland Security from the list of approved employers allowed to post on the IU Events Calendar until all court cases involving potential violations of civil rights and alleged illegal and unconstitutional activity by these agencies are fully resolved.”