The IU Board of Trustees will discuss a proposed university-wide expressive activity policy at a public meeting Monday, according to an IU press release Tuesday.
It will take place at 1 p.m. in the Showalter House’s Peterson Room.
The trustees will also meet in two executive sessions, which are not open to the public, 9 a.m. Thursday and 12:15 p.m. Monday — immediately preceding the public meeting.
Under Indiana’s Open Door Law, executive sessions can only be held for specific reasons. The trustees’ two upcoming sessions will be held to discuss the “assessment, design, and implementation of school safety and security measures, plans, and systems.”
IU General Counsel Anthony Prather began circulating a draft of the expressive activity policy for comment from members of the IU community in late June. IU Student Government President Cooper Tinsley and IU-Bloomington Staff Council President Alison Sinadinos asked for feedback on the draft through surveys sent to students and staff, respectively. The policy, which listed an effective date of Aug. 1, would supersede any other expressive activity policies.
IUSG wrote in an Instagram story July 17 it does not endorse the policy, based on the survey results, discussion with student governance groups and the results of a Student Body Congress vote.
“We now await the trustees’ meeting in late July, hoping they will consider our collective feedback and adjust the policy to support, rather than restrict, our rights to free expression,” part of the post read.
The policy discussion comes after Indiana State and IU Police arrested 57 protesters in April at the pro-Palestine encampment in Dunn Meadow. All were charged with at least criminal trespass for violating a ban on temporary structures, like tents, in Dunn Meadow enacted a day before the encampment began.
Prosecutors later dropped the criminal trespass charges.
According to Monday’s meeting agenda, the board will also discuss ACA-33, the Academic Appointee Responsibilities and Conduct policy.
During the trustee meeting in June, then-trustee Jeremy Morris said the University Faculty Council voted on changes to the policy, but he said the board wants to ensure shared governance between them and the council.
In December 2023, IU Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs Carrie Docherty suspended professor Abdulkader Sinno for allegedly misrepresenting an event for the Palestine Solidarity Committee as an academic event, rather than for a student organization, on a room reservation request form.
IU faculty said in January that Docherty violated ACA-33, which states “A campus faculty governance organization may have a policy that includes the involvement of a faculty advisory body in the decision to impose severe sanctions.” IU-Bloomington has a Faculty Misconduct Review Committee that hears complaints against faculty then makes a recommendation on a course of action, though administrators have the final say.
The IU Faculty Board of Review later found Docherty violated IU policy by not referring the matter to the FMRC first.
ACA-33 will be presented to the board by trustee Catherine Langham, the new vice chair of the Academic Affairs and University Policies Committee; IU-Bloomington Provost and Executive Vice President Rahul Shrivastav; and new Bloomington Faculty Council President Danielle DeSawal.
Board chair Quinn Buckner will also swear in Jill Maurer Burnett, who was elected to the board in June.
Absent from the agenda are discussions of appointments to the new IUB chancellor and university-wide faculty fellow positions approved by the board in June. IU President Pamela Whitten wrote in June she would work with the Faculty Council to form a search committee in the days after the meeting to find a chancellor. She wrote the search for the faculty fellow would begin “immediately.”
