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The ACLU of Indiana has filed an appeal to the U.S. District Court in Southern Indiana to challenge the dismissal of an Indiana University professor’s lawsuit over the constitutionality of the state’s “intellectual diversity” law, which requires professors to teach scholarly works that represent a variety of ideologies.
The appeal was filed on Aug. 7 on behalf of plaintiff David McDonald and other tenured faculty at Indiana University and Purdue University. Defendants in the case include the trustees at both universities. The state of Indiana, represented by the Office of the Attorney General, is an intervenor.
Stevie Pactor, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Indiana, said the law forces professors to engage in self-censorship to avoid disciplinary action.
“We believe this is a clear violation of the free speech protections of the First Amendment and the guarantee of due process in the Fourteenth Amendment,” Pactor said in a news release, “and we will continue to fight to protect academic freedom in Indiana.”
The defendants in this case are represented by John Maley and Dylan Pittman with Barnes & Thornburg LLP. The attorneys did not immediately respond to The Indiana Lawyer’s request for comment. The Office of the Attorney General also did not respond.
The original lawsuit, filed last September, challenged the enforcement of Senate Enrolled Act 202, the law that requires professors at state universities to “foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity” through the materials they teach in their classes.
The complaint argued that the law is vague as to what material faculty is expected to teach, raising concerns that the unclear language of the law could open coursework requirements to include potentially dangerous viewpoints.
The lawsuit was dismissed in late July because the plaintiffs failed to show that the law or its enforcement had injured them in any way, according to U.S. District Judge Richard Young.
An initial lawsuit was filed last May, but it was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because the law was not yet in effect. The law went into effect in July 2024.
The case is David McDonald et al v. Trustees of Indiana University et al, 1:24-cv-1575-RLY-CSW.
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