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

IUB-AAUP

The IU Bloomington Chapter of the AAUP advocates for faculty and graduate students and advances academic freedom and shared governance. AAUP exists to stand up for your rights as faculty.

Our local chapter is only as strong as its membership.

recent news & updates

Contact us: iubaaup@iu.edu

Current Issues & Concerns

There is no shortage of issues that have arisen in recent years to threaten our university community. On this page, we highlight a number of them that we are focusing our attention on in a given academic year. You’ll find a brief summary of the concern, along with some resources to help contextualize them.

Key Areas

Overviews & Summaries
A curated selection of resources that help contextualize or are relevant to multiple areas of concern, as outlined below.

Academic Freedom
“Advancing and protecting academic freedom” is the core mission of both the national AAUP and the Bloomington chapter. Our ability to teach and research on areas of our expertise is increasingly subject to administrative overreach, legislative interference, and surveillance by outside groups.

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Shared Governance & Due Process
The strong tradition of shared governance at IUB has been decimated under the Whitten administration. The administration has routinely ignored campus and university policies, as well as rulings by the Bloomington Faculty council and its subcommittees. The AAUP chapter remains the only campus-wide representation of faculty that is able to act independently of administrators.

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Free Speech
Bloomington has a decades-long tradition of free speech. Yet the Whitten administration has acted to limit speech in ways that are both unconstitutional and violent.

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Status of Tenure & Job Security
Tenure protection is the fundamental guarantor of academic freedom. Recent legislation, as well as new Board of Trustees policies that were implemented without any faculty input, threaten the job security of both tenured/tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty.

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Voluntary Degree Mergers/Closures
Without faculty input, the university has proposed the elimination or merger of hundreds of degree programs, setting the stage for the eventual elimination of departments and faculty positions. This is part of a broader pattern of political interference into matters of curriculum and research.

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Erasure of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI)
IU has a longstanding tradition of strong support for civil rights, diversity, equity, fairness, inclusion and non-discrimination–prior to the current national attacks on DEI, the Whitten Administration proudly touted their efforts and commitment to diversifying both faculty and students. On May 22, however, the Administration began a sweeping erasure–with no mandates from federal or state law or guidance–of diversity, equity, and inclusion: Closing offices, firing directors and dozens of staff, and erasing all traces of diversity, equity and inclusion from IU websites.

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2025

Jessica Adams Case

In October 2025, School of Social Work lecturer Jessica Adams was abruptly removed from her graduate-level class “Diversity, Human Rights and Social Justice” after a student complaint about a lesson on white supremacy. The complaint was first sent not to university administrators, but to the office of Republican U.S. Senator Jim Banks, who then contacted IU’s dean. When School of Social Work Dean Kalea Benner met with Adams about the issue, she gathered evidence during what Adams believed was an informal discussion, then inexplicably made herself the primary complainant in an SEA 202 case against Adams. Before any formal investigation was conducted to assess the validity of the allegations, administrators removed Adams from her teaching duties and prohibited her from contacting her students, who were left without their instructor for over a month with no clear communication about their course. Adams was denied the right to counsel, the right to participate in evidence gathering, and access to the identity of the complainant—fundamental due process violations that represent a dangerous precedent for using Indiana’s “intellectual diversity” law to stifle exactly the kind of intellectual engagement it was purportedly designed to protect. The material in question was the “Pyramid of White Supremacy,” a widely-used educational tool developed by the Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence and employed by organizations including the National Equity Project and the National Education Association. The case has drawn condemnation from the Indiana Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, representing over 13,000 licensed social workers statewide, who noted that Adams “was teaching an approved curriculum as part of an accredited social work program” and addressing core social work professional values.

Formal Statements

Media Coverage

Local News Coverage:

National Coverage:

Professional Response:

Other

Student Petition:

Censorship & Disinvestment in IDS

In October 2025, the Indiana Daily Student became the latest target of administrative censorship when the Media School issued an extraordinary demand: that the 158-year-old, award-winning student newspaper remove all traditional news content from its print editions and publish only university-approved “special edition” features about campus events like homecoming. When Director of Student Media Jim Rodenbush refused to comply with what he called “literally against the law” censorship on October 9, administrators fired him five days later and immediately eliminated the newspaper’s print edition entirely. The move came just weeks after the IDS had published stories about the Palestine Solidarity Committee suspension and IU’s ranking as the third-worst public university in the nation for free speech. Despite the paper generating $11,000 in profit from three fall print editions and having over $400,000 in donor funds—including a $250,000 contribution from billionaire alumnus Mark Cuban—administrators had systematically blocked access to these resources while claiming financial necessity. The censorship sparked national outrage, with the Student Press Law Center, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press all condemning IU’s actions as a blatant First Amendment violation. Alumni responded by pulling over $1 million in donations and planned gifts, with Cuban publicly stating “Not happy. Censorship isn’t the way.”

Formal Statements

Media Coverage

IDS Student Editorial Coverage:

National Coverage:

Alumni Response:

Press Freedom Organizations:

Local Media Coverage:

2024

“Expressive Activity” Policy

Dunn Meadow

In April 2024, Dunn Meadow became the focal point intense conflict when the university administration made a sudden, overnight change to a long-standing policy regarding assembly and the use of structures. This change, which prohibited tents and other structures without prior approval, was enacted by an ad hoc committee just before a planned pro-Palestinian encampment. The following day, as protestors assembled and erected tents in defiance of the new rule, a heavy police presence, including Indiana State Police in riot gear, violently descended on the meadow. The situation escalated across the following days with the confirmed presence of snipers on the roof of the Indiana Memorial Union overlooking the protest site, leading to the arrest of dozens of students and faculty members and sparking widespread outrage over the administration’s handling of the demonstration

Formal Statements
  • Statement Concerning Police Action at Dunn Meadow (Apr 26, 2024)
    AAUP Indiana University Bloomington Chapter’s statement responding to police action at Dunn Meadow. Executive Committee of the IU-Bloomington American Association of University Professors

Media Coverage

Open letters and testimonials

Other

Cancellation of Samia Halaby Exhibition

In late 2023, Indiana University abruptly dismantled the long-planned retrospective of distinguished alumna and Palestinian artist Samia Halaby. The administration shrouded its decision in vague “safety and security concerns,” a justification that was widely interpreted as a thin pretext for political censorship. This cancellation, coming just weeks before the exhibition’s opening at the Eskenazi Museum of Art, was broadly understood as a direct response to Halaby’s vocal pro-Palestinian advocacy on social media, effectively silencing a prominent voice and raising pointed questions about the institution’s commitment to artistic freedom when faced with contentious political speech.

The fallout on the Bloomington campus was immediate, metastasizing from a curatorial dispute into a full-blown crisis of governance across the early months of 2024. The decision drew sharp condemnation from free-speech advocates and triggered a historic vote of no confidence in the university’s president and provost by its own faculty. The event created a palpable chilling effect across campus, tarnishing the university’s reputation as a bastion of open inquiry. Ultimately, the cancellation of Halaby’s exhibition became a defining controversy, illustrating a deep conflict between administrative risk aversion and the foundational principles of academic and artistic expression.

Statements & Letters

Media Coverage

Other Media

  • Samia Halaby Uncanceled  (Feb 17, 2024). A flyer to the ‘Samia Halaby Uncanceled’ event held at the Buskirk-Chumley. 
  • Whitten Reinstate Samia Halaby Retrospective Toolkit (Jan 01, 2024). Toolkit and materials on reinstating Samia Halaby’s exhibtion.
  • Artist Talk: Samia Halaby (Feb 11, 2021). Renowned abstract painter and IU alumna Samia Halaby discusses the development of her practice during her time in Bloomington, as well as her computer art and its relationship to her painting.  Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University 

Original Documents

  • Letter from Samia Halaby to President Whitten (Jan 08, 2024). Samia Halaby’s letter to President Whitten requesting a response to previous correspondance and an explanation of the exhibit’s cancelation. 
  • Letter from Samia Halaby to President Whitten (Dec 27, 2023). Samia Halaby’s letter to President Whitten asking that the abrupt cancellation of her exhibit be reconsidered. 
  • Letter from David Brenneman to Samia Halaby Cancelling Exhibition (Dec 20, 2023). Dear Samia Halaby, As discussed, I write to formally notify you that the Eskenazi Museum of Art will not host its planned exhibition of your work, initially scheduled to begin February 10, 2024. The Museum will honor its obligation to return works of art safely to lenders or to forward them on to the Broad Museum of Art at Michigan State University. Sincerely, David A. Brenneman
Suspension of Abdulkader Sinno

In early spring of 2024, the IU administration suspended tenured political science professor Abdulkader Sinno, an action that was immediately perceived as retaliatory and an infringement on academic freedom. The official justification for the suspension centered on alleged procedural violations related to booking a room for an event featuring a pro-Palestinian speaker. However, this administrative rationale was viewed with deep skepticism by many faculty and students, who saw it as a transparently punitive measure for Sinno’s role as the faculty advisor for the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a group at the forefront of campus activism.

The suspension was not an isolated incident but rather a focal point in the escalating conflict between a vocal segment of the faculty and an administration seen as increasingly authoritarian. Critics argued that punishing a tenured professor for minor bureaucratic infractions—errors the university itself later struggled to clearly define—was a disproportionate response designed to chill dissent and sideline a prominent critic of both university policy and Israeli military action. The action against Sinno, much like the cancellation of the Halaby exhibition, deepened the crisis of governance on the Bloomington campus, further alienating faculty and cementing a perception of an administration willing to weaponize university policy to suppress disfavored political viewpoints.

Statements & Letters

Media Coverage

2023

SB 202 & Political Incursions on Academic Freedom

A significant legislative threat emerged in the form of Indiana Senate Bill 202 in 2023, which sought to fundamentally weaken tenure protections and subject university governance to greater political oversight. This legislative effort was a direct consequence of external pressures, notably exemplified by a November 2023 letter from Congressman Jim Banks demanding the university curtail campus protests for Palestinian liberation. The administration’s perceived acquiescence to these demands fueled a narrative of an institution increasingly willing to sacrifice its autonomy and core academic principles in the face of political incursions.

Statements & Letters

Media Coverage

Other Media

Attacks on Kinsey Institute

In a move widely condemned as a politically motivated attack on scientific inquiry, the Indiana General Assembly voted in April 2023 to strip all state funding from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. This legislative action targeted a historic, world-renowned research center that pioneered the academic study of human sexuality. By severing financial ties, state lawmakers were seen as bowing to ideological pressure, directly intervening to cripple a prominent institution whose work has often challenged conservative social norms. The defunding was not merely a budgetary decision but a symbolic act, representing a significant incursion of politics into the academic sphere and a pointed rejection of the institute’s landmark contributions to its field.

Statements & Letters

Media Coverage

2022

Denial of Graduate Student Union (IGWC)

In a clear demonstration of the widening gulf between the administration and its campus community, Indiana University’s leadership steadfastly refused to recognize the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition (IGWC) as the official union for graduate students. This decision has been particularly galling to union supporters because it directly defies the expressed will of the university’s own faculty, who voted overwhelmingly in favor of recognizing the graduate union. The administration’s intractable stance is seen by critics not merely as a labor dispute but as an act of bad faith, deliberately ignoring a powerful campus consensus and reinforcing a top-down governance style that dismisses the collective voice of its students and faculty alike.

Actions

Media Coverage

Other Resources

One of the best and most comprehensive archives of local issues is the IUB Organizing Hub, a hub for news, media, petitions, and events around injustice on the campus of Indiana University Bloomington.