Dive Brief:
- Two Indiana lawmakers and the state’s comptroller are listed to speak at an event next week calling on the General Assembly to defund Indiana University over its ties to the Kinsey Institute, a sexuality and gender research center housed on the institution’s Bloomington campus.
- An education advocacy group plans to hold the event — a press conference — on Jan. 15, according to a social media post. The group, Purple for Parents United’s Indiana chapter, alleged in the post that Indiana University has violated a state law barring the institution from using state funds to support the Kinsey Institute.
- The calls to defund Indiana University escalate the fight over the institution’s relationship with the Kinsey Institute, a battle that has previously prompted concerns that state lawmakers were impeding on the institution’s academic freedom.
Dive Insight:
In May 2023, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a budget bill that prohibits Indiana University from using state appropriations to directly or indirectly support the Kinsey Institute.
When the budget passed the General Assembly, Indiana University President Pamela Whitten said in a statement that officials would conduct a legal review to ensure the institution complied. However, Whitten expressed concerns about how the law would impact academic freedom.
“The university is concerned that a provision singling out a specific research institute sets a troubling precedent with implications that could limit the ability of public colleges and universities to pursue research and scholarship that benefits people and improves lives,” Whitten said.
After the 2023 budget passed, Indiana University’s trustees considered a plan to create a nonprofit to separately manage some of the Kinsey Institute’s functions. They ultimately scrapped that plan in March 2024, instead deciding to retain the university’s affiliation with the institute while ensuring no state appropriations flowed to it.
Soon afterward, however, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita and Comptroller Elise Nieshalla began sending letters to Indiana University questioning whether officials were following the law.
And in a social media post this week, Purple for Parents United’s Indiana chapter — which bills itself as protecting children from “harmful agendas” — listed Nieshalla as a speaker for the press conference calling for Indiana University to be defunded. It also lists Republican state Reps. Lorissa Sweet and Craig Haggard as speakers.
In an emailed statement Thursday, Nieshalla confirmed she will attend the press conference, where she plans to relay “actions taken to date to seek confirmation that Indiana University has severed all taxpayer funds from its support of the Kinsey Institute.”
In response to whether she supports calls to defund the university, Nieshalla's statement said she is focused on “transparency of taxpayer dollars” and ensuring the university is complying with state law.
The two state lawmakers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
In July 2024, a year after the prohibition took effect, Nieshalla and Rokita sent a letter to Indiana University’s top leadership, saying they could not “find evidence of any serious effort by university leadership to comply with the law.”
They asked the leaders to confirm no tax dollars supported the Kinsey Institute and to detail the research center’s funding sources.
University officials replied a month later, saying they were unaware of any noncompliance with the law. They said the Kinsey Institute received money from gifts and investment income, research and grant funds, auxiliary income such as content license royalties, and out-of-state tuition dollars.
But in an October letter, Nieshalla and Rokita raised further concerns, including potential issues with the Kinsey Institute being housed within a building on Indiana University’s Bloomington campus. They argued that the law prohibits the university from using state property to support the institute.
The next month, the university fired back, contending that the law does not require Indiana University to move the Kinsey Institute off campus. The university charges the Kinsey Institute rent, which the research center pays through funds donated to the Indiana University Foundation, the letter said.
A university spokesperson did not answer emailed questions Thursday, instead referring Higher Ed Dive to the letters between university officials and the state leaders.
State Rep. Matt Pierce, a Democrat whose district includes Indiana University, told Higher Ed Dive on Thursday that the institution has been following the law and described calls to defund it as “nonsensical.”
“All that accomplishes is to raise tuition, because if the university loses state funding, then they have to raise tuition to make up the difference,” Pierce said. “These people are advocating to raise the cost of higher education for all their constituents.
Pierce said the 2023 law hasn’t impacted the Kinsey Institute’s mission but rather created an “accounting chore” for the university.
“That might be why they’re raising these issues again,” Pierce said. “They haven’t achieved their goal, which is to shut the institute down.”
