Professors and other faculty at Indiana University in Bloomington are demanding protections from the school in regard to the state’s new intellectual diversity law.

This school year will be the first term in which the law will be in effect. The law states that college professors in Indiana must adhere to intellectual diversity practices in their coursework. In like manner a school cannot fire or dismiss a faculty member in a retaliatory manner based on the opinions of or political leanings they may personally have or in their research. Furthermore it prevents that same retaliation on students from faculty.

In order to ensure compliance with the law universities are now required to have tenure reviews of each faculty member every five years.

Faculty members at IU are demanding that IU leadership not include complaints from students about teaching and research on diversity, equity, and inclusion topics as part of its adherence to the law. They say the law’s intent on expanding academic freedom does the opposite.

“The erosion of academic freedom at public universities ushers in the institutional destruction of free inquiry,” said one IU faculty member at a rally on the Bloomington campus on Monday.

“How will we deal with issues of anti-Black racism, holocaust, patriarchy, and more,” asked another faculty member. “If we are being consistently asked to entertain all viewpoints, does that mean that we allow Holocaust deniers to express their viewpoints in our classrooms? Does that mean we bring in debunked scholarship?”

The law does explicitly state that the law requires faculty members to expose students to a “variety of scholarly works that are applicable to the topic at hand.”

The law has already had one challenge in federal court, but the case was dismissed due to a few legal technicalities. The judge noted in her ruling the decision was based solely on timing and had nothing to do with the merits of any complaints.