Indiana University’s Crisis: Racism, Authoritarianism, and the Battle for Academic Freedom (Petition Included)

Philip Amerson [00:00:02]:
Greetings, everyone. This is Philip Emerson again on the To Be and Do podcast. And today I want to share with you something I think may offer a bit of help as we go through times. Some people have talked about this time as being one where they have trouble catching their footing or knowing how to deal with the kind of vertigo, social and emotional vertigo, that's going on as there are cultural changes and really as we're dealing with authoritarianism in the United States. So what I'm going to do in this reflection is speak to you in three parts. And they're connected, although they may not appear to be. And so it may help you, as I have been helped, to see some of the deeper, wider ways, some of the disjunction in our lives right now are connected. So I want to begin with what's happening at Indiana University, and you can read about it.

Philip Amerson [00:01:15]:
I live in Bloomington and my family members have gone to iu. I've been invested in, in this good university for many years. It's a remarkable school and has had the gift of many great leaders. And of course, one of the best known to those who know anything about Indiana University is Herman B. Wells. He was the president and chancellor here for many years. And Herman, really, more than anyone else, is the one that made this university a great national and international school. Some of us are troubled because we believe that a great legacy that Dr.

Philip Amerson [00:01:59]:
Wells left is being challenged right now. And I want to speak a little bit about that. Here are four things that have happened in the last couple of years that are just remarkably tragic. It was just announced a few weeks ago that hundreds of course offerings and degrees are going to be eliminated. Now it's being done out of budget concerns. And that's understandable, but it's not understandable the way it was done. And probably to those who have been around administration as I have been, you would think you would want to talk with alums and the faculty and others to get some sense of how to best improve the function. That's called shared governance, where the students and the faculty and the alums have some input.

Philip Amerson [00:03:02]:
They can't make all the decisions, but decisions about reducing the courses, eliminating many important programs, programs in languages and in philosophy, religious studies, literature. A number of other areas have been reduced. That was announced rather abruptly. The second part, and it's related to the first, is at the very last day of the Indiana Legislature, there was a Trojan horse, a bootlegged gift from the governor and the Republicans in the Indiana Legislature. By the way, if you want to know how important it is to have a functioning two party system. Just look at the situation. And in Indiana in recent years, Republicans outnumbered Democrats 4 to 1 in the state senate. And on the last day there was bootlegged in a whole new budget.

Philip Amerson [00:04:17]:
Among the budget, a whole new set of items related to universities. And among these items is a continuing attack on dei, diversity, equity and inclusion. Now, DEI was never perfect and the way it was implemented sometimes had problems, but nonetheless it was an important and well meaning way to make certain that students from underrepresented groups had some security, some safety, some sense of being belonging at a university as large and potentially diverse as Indiana University. So that's the second thing. The bill that was smuggled in at the last minute that dramatically changed not only the way the function, the university functions, but most importantly, it completely eliminated trustee elections to the board of trustees for Indiana University. Something that has been there for scores of years, I don't know how long, maybe 100 or more years. And now the governor gets to name all the, all the trustees. And of course, it's done out of ideological reasons and out of the governor's particular view of what education should be.

Philip Amerson [00:05:54]:
And his view is not that of liberal arts, of a broad based way of seeing the world. Instead, it was what can you take that will immediately guarantee you have a job? Now, tucked away under all of this is the power of the business school, the Kelley School and the o' Neill School of Public and Environmental affairs used to be known as spia. A great number of students, as a matter of fact, I'm told up to half the tuition of the university comes from just these two schools. So what we're seeing is a wonderful comprehensive university where you could come and take many languages, for instance, you could come and study ethics, psychology, geology. But that is now all going to be determined by what the governor wants through his appointments to the board and what the administration of the school wants. All of that, as bad as it is, leads to the third thing. And the third thing is a very authoritarian style and a style among the administration of the university that is increasingly detached from this community, from Bloomington. Those of us that attend events here and are longtime Bloomingtonians, remember when it was common for the provost and the chancellor and the vice presidents and the president and others to show up at social events that rarely happens.

Philip Amerson [00:07:41]:
And so the old town and gown connection, as vibrant as it was, is now gone. I still remember when I came to Bloomington as a pastor. It wasn't long before there was a knock on our door and there was Ellen Ehrlich. She was the spouse of the president, Tom Ehrlich, at the time. And she said, welcome to Bloomington. I brought you some brownies. Great. And then she said, and I hope you'll be one of the lead donors for the United Way campaign.

Philip Amerson [00:08:14]:
How wonderful. A university leadership that cared about the community where the university is located, that's completely lost. And today we're facing enormous challenges around housing, where housing is increasingly set aside for university students and there is therefore not enough housing for anyone. But low income or people who work in nine to five jobs have great difficulty finding housing. So those are the three things, but the fourth one is the most tragic in my mind, and that is what's happened in terms of racial equity at the school. I don't think it's too much for me to say Indiana University has fallen into a racist behavior. There's a racial retrenchment back toward believing that what is white is normative. I couldn't believe it as it was unfolding.

Philip Amerson [00:09:26]:
Things like scholarships that are designed for students from minority groups now are on pause, on hold, and they're not being awarded this year. And the donors of the scholarships are being asked to change it and not focus so much on a minority group. Now, of course, most of the scholarships, by far, many of the programs are already there for majority white population. But there's this phony notion that anything that goes to an ethnic minority student is taking away, whether it's enrollment or a scholarship or some program, it's somehow wounding the majority white population. So there's a petition. You can get to it on this website, and I'm asking people to sign it. And here it is. I'm going to read it for you.

Philip Amerson [00:10:34]:
Indiana University is in the midst of troubling acts of racist retrenchment. It's resulted in the elimination of resources for students from underrepresented groups, as well as its undercut support for faculty and staff from these groups. These actions challenge IU's remarkable historic legacy as a place where all are welcome. Here are just five places where you can see up close the racism at play. One I've already talked about. The awarding of scholarships is now on pause. If it's designated for minority group. It's a misreading, I think, of what the Supreme Court has.

Philip Amerson [00:11:22]:
Has ruled about, about fair enrollment practices. If a student is already enrolled, no matter what the practice, why shouldn't there be scholarships to support them if they're Lithuanian or Egyptian or whatever the donor has designated to be desired? So that's one. The second is the websites. Campus materials have been scrubbed of any words or phrases that might identify them with a program of diversity or even seeking racial understanding. The third thing is I noticed this as I was walking on campus over the winter and spring. Posters around campus. There were many of them that simply read build a community where all belong. They disappeared, of course.

Philip Amerson [00:12:20]:
The poster had pictures of diverse people and we wouldn't want to show that talk about racism now if they were replaced by something. Okay, I could see that. But no, no, no, we, we just had to get this notion of everybody being welcomed out of the front line places in the school. Fourth and this is the one that just is stunning to me. Names of programs or offices that provide support for minority students are being removed. There's one building that housed many of these programs. It was called the office of the Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Inclusion.

Philip Amerson [00:13:07]:
The sign board has just been painted over. There's nothing there now. Programs for white students. You can still go and find those. I'm suspecting that the Latin, the Mexican program, the Hispanic program, programs for Asian students. I'm wondering what will happen there as the racism plays out. Those of you that know IU programs housed in this building that's now. UNIDENTIFIED Include groups.

Philip Amerson [00:13:38]:
Scholars program, the FASC mentoring program, the 21st century scholars program and the Hudson Holland Scholars Program. It's identity theft. The university thinks they can just pretend to satisfy some zealots, that there's no problem in just hiding. These programs are actually where we're headed is those programs will be renamed. So we wouldn't want to have anybody like Jim Holland identified. He was a remarkable African American scholar, an incredible human being. And one of the reasons I started this petition is Jim Holland deserves better. He could have taught anywhere in the world.

Philip Amerson [00:14:25]:
He was a world class scholar. Students who studied with him knew what a great man he was. And many. I've talked to physicians who've said I would never have considered myself able to be a physician if Jim Holland, an African American professor in biology, hadn't been encouraging students of every background, of every. Every race. The people who talk to me are mainly folks who are Caucasian talking about what a great man Jim Holland was. And we can't give him the respect now after he's gone to say what a great man. And we want to have a program named after African American scholars.

Philip Amerson [00:15:10]:
And the fifth thing, which is probably the deepest and most troubling is that academic freedom at the university is under threat. It's not being protected by this administration Faculty now, because of legislation from the state, must have their course materials reviewed and any lecture can be challenged. A student can say, what you did was offensive to me. You shouldn't be sharing these ideas about systemic racism or cultural imperialism. It's time for that to stop. And so there will be a link here with this that will take you to a petition asking the university to change. So that's just the first thing, racism. But let me tell you where it's tied into some other things.

Philip Amerson [00:16:10]:
The attack on our university, on all the universities, is embedded in something the Heritage foundation called Project Esther. And Project Esther sounds benign enough. It's talking about Esther in the Bible, a great queen who saved the people, who gave them freedom. Project Esther comes from the Heritage Foundation. They're the same good people who brought US Project 2025. And those of you that are wondering why all this disruption, why the changes, why the cutbacks? Well, Project 2025 is being implemented today. The Esther Project, or Project Esther, presumes to speak for the Jewish people against all the evils of Palestinian voices. And the Palestinians are all lumped together in groups that are named.

Philip Amerson [00:17:34]:
Actually, they're invented by the. By Project Esther. And they're a way to pretend that you're fighting against antisemitism when what you're really doing is imposing two things. Your own theological assumptions about the world, about Israel, about. About how there should be only one state and it was ordained by God. And on and on it goes. And I'll come back to that in a minute. And the second thing is, it is the assumption that we are now going to be a Christian nation.

Philip Amerson [00:18:26]:
And so deeply embedded in this is the belief that Christian nationalism is where we should be headed. So I want to end with just a couple of things. If you want to pull the string beneath a lot of the discontent, a lot of the vertigo, social and cultural vertigo, go to the Heritage Foundation. I missed it, frankly. I heard about Project 2025, but I didn't believe the dynamic would be as extreme as it is. I didn't believe that Mike Huckabee would be named the ambassador to Israel and that he believes that Israel should have all the territory it desires. Certainly he believes a two state solution should not be given at this time. And I think if you pushed him, he would say, well, the Bible says Israel are God's chosen people.

Philip Amerson [00:19:35]:
And so if they want to take a little of Lebanon and some of Syria and who knows, maybe grab a little bit of Jordan, that that would be okay. Because. Because this virulent Ignorant kind of Christian nationalism is informing how national decisions are made. Now, I said ignorant. Let me give you an example. I was at a Methodist annual conference. Now the Methodists are called moderates or liberals mostly. And I'll never forget I'm sitting there and the proposal is made at the Indiana annual Conference that we support the move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

Philip Amerson [00:20:25]:
And it was clear it was going to win an overwhelming vote. And people in the room, some of them, my good friends, were simply ignorant of what that meant. Or more importantly, let me say, I would say to my friends, are you aware that many Palestinians are Christians? Are you aware that some of the earliest Christians, well, Christians that go back all the way to the early church to Jesus, were Palestinian? It was their families and the ignorance with which a lot of this has been crafted, turning Palestinians into the enemy. Look, do I believe that there should be a Jewish state? As challenging as it is for Israel to have been formed? Yes, I do. But the agreement always was from the beginning that it would be a two state solution. But now Christian nationalists have decided that they'll tell us through the Heritage foundation and through Project Esther and other sources how we should live. So I'm going to come to a conclusion here with this. There's a sermon that's already on the website.

Philip Amerson [00:22:05]:
It's entitled the Chairs upon which We Sit. And it's a sermon I preached a couple of weeks ago that deals with Christian nationalism. And we're also going to give you the link to a wonderful opportunity for those of you that can can join it at Candler School of Theology. It's the theology school at Emory University. It's where I attended my graduate work and went back to teach at Candler for a while. There's a wonderful. If I could identify the four very best persons who are working in the area of Christian nationalism right now, it would be the persons that are going to be speaking at this conference and if I can find, I think the dates are the September 24th and 25th. And the speakers there include Christian Demous, who wrote the book Jesus and John Wayne.

Philip Amerson [00:23:16]:
They include Tim Alberta, who wrote a wonderful book, the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. And they include Matthew Taylor, who wrote the Violent Will Take it by Force. All of these are studies in what's been happening to our nation. Are you aware that the Christian nationalists have an office in the White House, that Paula White is a spiritual advisor? Are you aware that many of those who participated in the attack on our Nation's capital on January 6 are a part of this group, there's something called the New Apostolic Reformation. Nar and I won't go into it here, but there's an enormous undercurrent and frankly it is theology that is very dangerous and completely out of line with our constitutional democracy. James Madison intended for there to be a separation of church and state. The very First Amendment deals with that. The separations.

Philip Amerson [00:24:40]:
We do not need to have any one faith tradition controlling the future. What the Christian nationalists believe are that they're going to control everything. They believe in Dominionism. They believe that their people are going to be on top of all the seven Mountains, all the great elements cultural and educational and religious, that there should be a Christian on top of it all, each one of those. And so they're not at all shy to say we believe in an oligarchy. This is not the America that was intended. This is not the America that has become great by welcoming persons who are different. This is not the America ironically that would have welcomed the Jews during and after the Second World War or should be welcoming Muslim and others and Hindu and others.

Philip Amerson [00:25:44]:
We're intended to be a nation where new and vibrant voices are welcomed. But no one has a religious right to say this is my country and everyone else will be controlled by me and I will have the power to exclude. So if you're wondering why we have concentration camp, they call it Alligator Alcatraz in Florida. It's because some folks think they're in control and they need to lock up anybody that doesn't look like them or think like them. Is it a, is it a surprise that Indiana University is practicing racism? Well, not for these folks. We have a Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith, who claims to be one of those oligarchical leaders, you know that the new Apostolic Reformation, he's one of those prophets. That's what we need. We, we need people who are going to out of their little views of what the Bible says.

Philip Amerson [00:26:59]:
Interestingly enough, very little of what is proposed in Project Esther or the 2025 project is based on the words of Jesus. Very little of it comes from the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. As a matter of fact, Esther Project is so wrong headed that it actually refers to Queen Esther in the Torah. She wasn't in the Torah. But a quick and ugly writing of the way we want to control the future turned Esther into a way to, to do away with university education. What's designed by these folks, Heritage foundation and others, is to completely control what educational institutions can teach. The goal is to undercut traditional Christianity and our university systems that if they are too tolerant, if they're not willing to be led by Dominionist Christians. So some people I hear these days say, well, you know, there's such vertigo.

Philip Amerson [00:28:31]:
These must be the end times. It's a time of emotional and spiritual and institutional upset. But I beg to differ and I want to end on a positive note. Even amid all of this, some people have said that we are where we are because Barack Obama was elected president and this is just a reaction to having had an African president. I think there's some truth in that. But in order for that to be true, there's something prior. And the prior thing is this nation has been marinated in racism for centuries, back to the beginning, back to slavery. And we really never were able to, to be a truly welcoming and inclusive society.

Philip Amerson [00:29:38]:
We do better sometimes and worse other times. But here's my word of hope. What's going on is being driven by fear. And at the end of the day, fear will finally, finally wear itself out. It will no longer be the coin of the realm. What happens with fear based theology and ideology is the need to control and to be perfect. And so right now we're already seeing some people want to hear all the news they can about whether the list of names of those who were involved in pedophilia will be released. And others say, oh no, no, no, it's time to move on.

Philip Amerson [00:30:28]:
And some will say, some will say that we should be supporting Israel in certain ways. And so others will say, well, that's not pure enough. You're never pure enough. With the Christian nationalists. They will always want to prove that they're a little more ideologically pure. And it's rooted at bottom in racism, in economic control. We haven't talked much about all the money that's here. And in an inability to have honest, open dialogue, universities to be universities, must be places where honest, open dialogue can occur.

Philip Amerson [00:31:24]:
Universities to be great universities, must be places where money is shared among all disciplines and among people of any background. State universities should not be controlled by a small group in the State House. There's too much at stake. And finally the church will be the church. And some people may think that they've got the theological answers right now. All of us will be better off when there's genuine dialogue and education and renewal that comes from the fact that, you know, God didn't stop speaking when Jesus was here. God didn't stop speaking at the time of Abraham or Moses or Esther or Lydia. God didn't stop speaking with Jonathan Edwards or with Billy Graham.

Philip Amerson [00:32:38]:
John didn't know God didn't stop speaking with any of those mega church pastors that now think they're going to control the future. I believe in a church that's bigger than the United States of America. I believe in a church that will continue to be unfolding as God offers new insights and new opportunities to learn. So that's a long, rambling rave, and I'm not sure what, if anything, is helpful to you, but write me and ask questions, and I'm happy beyond the resources that will be on this website to answer you. God bless. And my prayer is that you will see that there is a broad, broader reality that folks that think they are controlling what is truth through the project, Esther, or through some political party or through a set of social media or through certain television programs may be in for a surprise. God's always out ahead of us.