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A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several Indiana professors against Indiana University and Purdue University over the state’s intellectual diversity law, with a lack of jurisdiction cited as the reason for the case’s dismissal.
The lawsuit was dismissed July 23 in the U.S. District Court in Southern Indiana.
In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Richard Young supported the defendants’ claims that plaintiffs failed to show that the law or its enforcement have injured them in any way.
ACLU staff attorney Stevie Pactor told The Indiana Lawyer that the organization is disappointed in the case’s outcome, but are considering next steps in the next case.
Also, attorneys representing Indiana University and Purdue University in this case did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit was filed last September by the ACLU of Indiana against the trustees at IU and Purdue in response to Senate Enrolled Act 202, the state law that requires state-funded universities to implement “intellectual diversity” programming, and cited policies recently enacted at both universities.
The complaint argued that the law is unclear as to what material faculty is expected to teach and argued SEA 202 and the new university policies violate the First and 14th Amendments of the U. S. Constitution.
Both IU and Purdue updated their policies before the start of the 2024/25 school year.
The law states that faculty are required to teach scholarly works “from a variety of political or ideological frameworks” within their purview of instruction.
The professors raised concerns that the unclear language of the law could open coursework requirements to include potentially dangerous viewpoints.
The ACLU originally filed a lawsuit over the matter last May, but it was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because the law was not yet in effect. The law went into effect last July.
The case is McDonald v. Trustees of Indiana University, Trustees of Purdue University, 1:24-cv-1575.
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