Jim Banks: Stand with Pamela Whitten against IU's radical, immature faculty

State officials should stand with Hoosier taxpayers and Indiana University President Pamela Whitten as she takes on the radical and partisan faculty tarnishing the reputation of one of our state’s premier public research institutes.

Last Thursday and Saturday, Indiana State Police and campus police cleared an encampment of pro-Hamas protesters squatting on IU’s Dunn Meadow. On both occasions, IU administrators and the ISP told the protesters they were violating university policy and trespassing laws. Those who chose to ignore their warnings were arrested.

The roughly 60 arrested agitators include IU professors. According to the ISP, the trespassers were chanting hateful slogans like, “We are Hamas,” and, “Death to all Jewish people.”

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In response to Whitten enforcing the law, IU faculty renewed their calls for her ouster. Several rallied outside of her office building, IU’s Media School released an open letter calling for her resignation, and a similar petition received at least 500 signatures.

Thanks to the evening news, many Hoosiers have become familiar with the rampant campus antisemitism and radical anti-Israel movements at Ivy League schools like Harvard and Columbia, but they probably didn’t expect to see it at IU.

I wasn’t surprised at all. Because of my work in Congress and because I’m an IU alumnus, I closely followed the lead up to this embarrassment. Anyone who did, would’ve seen it coming too.

The problem is that IU professors work in an echo chamber. They have more in common with Ivy leaguers like disgraced former Harvard President Claudine Gay than they do with the Hoosier families who pay their salaries and rely on them to educate their children.

Partisanship at IU is a longstanding issue. In the 2008 election, IU employees donated to Barack Obama at a 20-1 rate over John McCain. That’s why IU professors and associations have been so critical of a recently enacted statehouse bill, SEA 202, that promotes intellectual diversity at IU. The bill was written by state Sen. Spencer Deery, a former Purdue faculty member. That university, which has had no unlawful protests or antisemitic chants, didn’t oppose his bill.

This April, 90% percent of IU faculty voted no confidence in Whitten. The IU faculty petition that convened the vote argues Whitten should resign, in part, for her “failure to effectively stand against” the intellectual diversity law.

Many public commentators criticize college students for childishness and for demanding safe spaces. Fair, but at IU, it’s the faculty more than the students who have been exposed as immature. This week, in an email riddled with typos and faulty grammar, an IU instructor allegedly canceled a final exam in “solidarity with the Gaza encampment.”

One of the demands by the faculty members loitering in the illegal encampment is that IU “divest” from the Naval Surface Warfare Center. NSWC Crane, the largest military installation in Indiana, employs thousands of Hoosiers and its partnership with IU provides unique research and internship opportunities. Crane benefits students and our national security, and many IU professors just want to tear it down.

Like many adolescents, IU’s faculty protesters think they should have their cake and eat it too. They want credit from other fellow leftists for their civil disobedience against what they describe as an oppressive, colonialist IU regime. That’s fine — but they also think they, and their political allies, should be immune from prosecution when they break the law. It’s a completely unreasonable conclusion that could only be drawn by people who’ve spent their life in an ivory tower shielded from the consequences of their own actions.

How should Indiana restore sanity to its largest public university?

In the near term, state officials should support Whitten. Bloomington’s Democrat City Council sent a letter calling on Whitten to drop all charges and lift the campus ban on the arrested protesters.

So, where are the Republicans? Indiana is a Republican state, and our Republican governor and Republican legislators should be praising Whitten for her courage, and they should make it clear that if the unlawful protesters at Dunn Meadow refuse to disburse, the state will mobilize as many ISP officers and, if necessary, national guardsmen, as public order require.

In the long term, Indiana can learn from other red states that have taken on politically hostile, activist public universities. Indiana’s next governor should follow the lead of Gov. Ron DeSantis in Florida and Gov. Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, both of whom made board appointments based on candidates’ commitment to free speech, objectivity, and free inquiry, which is a far better metric than a person’s campaign contribution history.

Right now, out-of-touch ideologues are trying to take control of one of our states’ most valuable public assets. It’s time to remind them that IU belongs to Indiana.

U.S. Rep. Jim Banks represents Indiana's 3rd District and is running for U.S. Senate.