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Taking action without providing a meaningful explanation seems to be standard policy when it comes to Indiana’s public universities these days.
Transparency has been sorely lacking so many times at so many levels that even high-powered night vision goggles couldn’t see through all the muck.
The latest example is Purdue University’s abrupt decision to stop assisting in the distribution of the student newspaper, The Exponent, and insisting that it stop using the “Purdue” name in its URL.
Purdue said it is making the moves because The Exponent is an independent, private business enterprise and news agency and that the use of university resources to distribute its newspaper is inconsistent with the school’s policy on “institutional neutrality,” updated in June.
The school also said it doesn’t want the “Purdue” name tied to The Exponent because the newspaper shouldn’t “associate its own speech with the university.”
But the big unanswered question is why break ties with the student publication now after decades of cooperation? And why make the move so swiftly and without warning?
The university isn’t saying exactly, directing all media questions to a written statement on the university’s website.
As reporter Dave Bangert notes in his Based in Lafayette, Indiana newsletter, Purdue’s silence has left people to speculate that the school wants to distance itself from The Exponent’s coverage of campus issues at a time of increasing state and federal threats on university funding, DEI policies and campus protests.
For instance, The Exponent recently scrubbed the name and images of students involved in the 2024 protests over the war in Gaza from its archives, saying it didn’t want to play into White House plans to crack down on campus protests.
The student newspaper also has been aggressive in its coverage of university leadership, prominently displaying the police mug shot of Purdue chief legal officer Steve Schultz after he was arrested in December for operating a vehicle while intoxicated. He later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor OWI charge.
While Purdue keeps its silence about The Exponent, it certainly isn’t alone in its lack of forthrightness.
Indiana University’s leadership refuses to say whether it cooperated in or called for the Legislature’s dark-of-night move this spring to strip IU alumni of their ability to elect three members to IU’s board of trustees.
Gov. Mike Braun took the opportunity to quickly replace all three alumni-elected trustees with appointees more to his politically conservative liking.
Last fall, Indiana State University remained mum about its role in moving an annual LGBTQ+ pride festival off campus, allegedly without consulting organizers. A related lawsuit resulted in a settlement in which the festival remained off campus, but the university agreed to be a non-financial sponsor.
All of these developments show a lack of candor and openness that is completely unacceptable at public, taxpayer-
funded institutions.
At a time when academic freedom and freedom of expression are at risk on college campuses across the nation, the best antidote would seem to be honest disclosures about what exactly is causing university policy to change.
As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant. But at Indiana’s colleges, we’re getting institutional cowardice and darkness.•
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Greg Weaver is editor of The Indiana Lawyer. Reach him at [email protected]
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