Open Letter from Indiana University Bloomington Faculty re: Campus Protests and Arrests

Comments

#601

Assistant Librarian, Indiana University Libraries
Adjunct Assistant Professor, School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering

Sarah Carter (BLOOMINGTON, 2024-04-29)

#602

Associate Librarian

Ted Polley (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#603

We can be better

Doug Rusch (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#604

I am appalled, shocked, afraid, and infuriated by the administration's decision to invite automatic rifles, marksmen, riot shields, batons, bearcats, and tear gas to IU's campus to confront peaceful protesters in Dunn Meadow. I have been involved with Indiana University as an undergrad, graduate student, and faculty member for close to 25 years. In all this time, I have never witnessed an event so horrific on campus. As a Bloomington resident for just as long, I have seen the impact of these violent events ripple through our community, putting everyone on edge. The IU administration should be ashamed for terrorizing its students, faculty, alumni, and the Bloomington community.

Robin Reeves (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#607

Professor, O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs

Todd Royer (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#608

Professor, Musicology Department, Jacobs School of Music; Director, Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies

From BL-ACA-I18 (with respect to the use of the Assembly Ground in Dunn Meadow), Section 1: “the mere fact that some find a demonstration distasteful is no more reason to ban it than to ban an idea the listener finds distasteful. We [the Trustees in 1969] have reviewed the history of demonstrations in the Assembly Ground. Many of us as individuals disagree with the points of view which have been expressed there. Many of us who agree with the substantive views expressed in individual demonstrations have found the form of their expression sometimes distasteful, or worse. Taken as a whole, however, this history shows us a lively and vigorous commitment to the exploration of matters of public concern: the vigor of that commitment is to us one of the measures of greatness in a university.”

Halina Goldberg (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#618

I’m signing because in the four years I have been at IU under Whitten’s administration, I have watched the university become an increasingly oppressive space, focused not on creative thought or diverse ideas (the university goals I was hired under) but on systematically policing students staff and faculty. The actions at Dunn meadow are a reflection of the consistent decisions of Whitten’s administration, aimed at disempowering and paralyzing opposition to their goals of increasing militarization of IU.

Keitlyn Alcantara (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#629

Assistant scientist, Chemistry

Katie Edmonds (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#635

Because I am a veteran and a citizen who believes in the constitution.

David Rutkowski (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#637

Recent events demonstrate a shocking and shameful failure of leadership as well as ignorance of the history of militarized response to student protest movements.

Alexander McCormick (Santa Fe, 2024-04-29)

#641

I agree with the statement.

Fernando Orejuela (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#645

I am appalled at the disregard for student and faculty rights and the rule of law.

Vicky Meretsky (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#646

Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies

David Haberman (BLOOMINGTON, 2024-04-29)

#648

Senior Lecturer, Kelley School of Business, IUB

Sarah Sherry (Bloomington, IN, 2024-04-29)

#651

Assistant Professor, Geography, Indiana University

Annie Shattuck (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#658

Whitten has proved herself incompetent as well as dangerous. The same can be said of the provost. They have failed to meet the basic requirements of the job: to promote excellence in teaching and research. At every return, they have made the pursuit of these essential tasks harder, not easier. Things are worse, not better. They should resign.

Constance Furey (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#661

In my 40-plus years at IU, I never saw a violation of the campus such as I witnessed on Thursday. We need more effective leadership now, more in tune with IU's traditions of open discussion and patience with political protest.

John McDowell (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#662

Adjunct Faculty, Russian and East European Institute
Research Associate, Anthropology
Indiana University Bloomington

Jessica Storey-Nagy (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#663

I am appalled by the autocratic, threatening, and violent methods of the IU administration

Sander Gliboff (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#664

The administration poses an immediate and existential risk to the students, faculty, and the institution, and hence have no place on campus.

Prateek Sharma (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#668

Associate Professor of History, IUB. By deploying state police with machine guns and snipers, President Whitten and Rahul Shrivastav consciously escalated and militarized a situation that could and should have stayed peaceful. The violence on our campus that this university administration has created is horrific.

Julia Roos (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#672

Our students and colleagues with nothing more than tents, a drum set, and their voices were unjustly removed, arrested, and cast off by our administration’s invited militarized force of state police officers. These actions on Thursdays alone are irredeemably toxic, eroding free expression and relations with our students.

The threat construction and securitization of peaceful expression has gone too far, chilling this institution to its core. I see no other paths to a resolution but removal, and community healing with an administration change.

Brian DeLong (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#675

The moral blindness represented by the President and Provost of Indiana University are disqualifications from office.

De Witt Douglas Kilgore (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#682

Associate Professor

Temirlan Moldogaziev (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#687

Chair, Department of Art History

Julie Van Voorhis (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#694

Students should be encouraged to exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech, not faced with police brutality.

Susan Seizer (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#703

Department of Chemistry

Caroline Jarrold (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#706

There has been a pattern of censorship by this administration that is sometimes related to students organizing against the war in Gaza, and also sometimes misconstrued as related, for instance, the cancelation of Samia Halaby exhibit. I view recent actions outlined in the letter as a violation of the first amendment rights of faculty and students. That case must be argued in court and probably will be. The President and Provost have needlessly made the university liable to lawsuit by affected parties. This should also be enumerated in the reasons for their resignation.

Eric Mayer-García (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#715

Associate Professor, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering

John Walsh (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#718

The crackdown on free speech and assembly, and the subsequent whitewashing by the administration, reminds one of tactics used by Germany’s NSDAP in the 1930s. Please, let’s learn from history!

Suzanne Menzel (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#727

Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences: Back in 1969, the Trustees of Indiana University designated Dunn Meadow as the Indiana University Assembly Ground. Their intention was for students, faculty, and staff to be able to non-violently express their opinions without needing to worry about violence against them. I stand by their original vision, and feel that it is being threatened by the current administration's actions.

Robert Goldstone (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#736

I support free expression and the right to peacefully assemble

Teresa White (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#737

Lecturer, Program in Animal Behavior

Adam Fudickar (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#746

Peaceful protests against wars are an important tradition on college campuses, and have often gradually led public opinion to coalesce against insane government practices. Unfortunately, the frightened response of IU administrators, and of university administrators across the country, to the current round of anti-genocide protests is reminiscent of the disastrous policies that led to campus deaths in 1970 protests against the Vietnam War. A caring administrator would seek to understand the goals of the protesters and negotiate with them, long before calling in police. The current IU administrators seem more concerned with the responses of state legislators than with those of IU students and faculty. They misunderstand their roles at a university, the source of the recent faculty vote of no confidence.

Steven Vigdor (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#747

The university must be a place where freedom of expression is encouraged. The police involvement in this instance is reprehensible.

Gretchen Butera (Gosport, 2024-04-29)

#757

Assistant Professor of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance

Eleanor Owicki (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#758

I share the concerns stated in this letter

Frank Lester (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#759

I'm tired of watching the slow death of a great public university at the hands of carpet-bagging incompetents who are clearly in way over their heads.

Paul Losensky (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#762

Associate Professor, The Media School

Ryan Powell (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#765

I am stunned and dismayed by the actions of our public university.

Brian ODonnell (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#767

I support the free speech rights of the Dunn Meadow protesters, and I am deeply disturbed by the heavy-handed actions of the IU President and the Provost.

Gary Pike (Indianapolis, 2024-04-29)

#768

Richard S. Melvin Professor of Law, Indiana University (Bloomington)

Timothy Waters (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#772

In over 40 years on the IUB faculty I have never worried more about the future of this great institution. For the first time in IU’s history, our leaders at the top are dismantling cherished principles of shared governance and intellectual freedom, choosing to bow to external forces determined to weaken an institution seen by some on the outside as a threat. We are called upon to protect the foundations that make IU great - freedom of thought and expression of ideas. The faculty must raise our collective voice in opposition to the current administration and demand fidelity to the principles we hold dear. The time is NOW.

Jeffrey White (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#786

Senior Lecturer
Dept. of Spanish and Portguese

Juan Manuel Soto (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#790

The current administration of Indiana University has compounded incompetence with intransigence. The president and closely associated members of her team have squandered the trust granted them at the beginning of their tenure and it no longer seems possible for them to rebuild it. I regret to conclude that at this point it is unlikely they will ever be able to lead effectively. Having failed over the last years to come to grips with their responsibilities in a productive way, the administration is now out of its depth, and its flailing reactions do great harm to a university that is one of our state's crown jewels.

Jacob Emery (Bloomington, IN, 2024-04-29)

#793

I am signing because I am a human being.....

Adjunct Lecturer - History of Punk Rock

Paul Mahern (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#794

Senior Lecturer. Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design. An Eskenazi faculty member was arrested while peacefully supporting free speech. I cannot tolerate a culture of fear and mistrust of our students and faculty, created by the current administration.

Mary Embry (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#795

I have been very upset with the way in which IU protestors have been handled by police.

Erna Alant (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#798

Students have the right to free expression and free association. I want to be able to tell students that I have done everything I could to
support them. Same goes for my colleagues - IUB personnel, staff, faculty.

Sofiya Asher (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)

#800

East Asian Languages and Cultures, retired

Bob Eno (Bloomington, 2024-04-29)