The Bloomington Faculty Council passed a resolution urging IU to remove the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, along with its Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies, from the university’s list of approved employers with the ability to post on the IU Events calendar.
The resolution comes after the university received criticism for having virtual career expos and webinars hosted by CBP on the university event calendar. The events were also posted on Handshake, a third-party platform IU uses to connect students to available jobs and other professional events.
“Indiana University students have access to all job and internship opportunities posted on Handshake,” IU spokesperson Mark Bode previously told the Indiana Daily Student in an email. "While Handshake events are listed on the IU events calendar, virtual events of this nature are hosted and controlled by employers, not Indiana University.”
Anthropology professor Sarah Phillips presented the resolution to the council. She began her statement by referencing the CBP Feb. 18 event description, which begins with “Help Defend the Homeland.”
“This is not subtle,” Phillips said. “This is disturbing and this is a xenophobic subheading that pretty much sets the stage here and explains partially the concerns that I'm expressing and that many of my colleagues are expressing.”
When Phillips began addressing the council, around 30 audience members not part of the BFC stood up holding signs, most of which read “NO ICE.”
“It's disturbing that while IU is not hosting this virtual career expo by Customs and Border Protection, it is providing a platform for Department of Homeland Security to recruit students to these agencies,” Phillips said.
She mentioned that Minnesota’s federal chief judge found that ICE violated at least 96 court orders in 74 cases during January.
Phillips shared print copies of the resolution with all in the room, including those not on the council. The official resolution called on IU to remove DHS, ICE and CBP from its approved employers list until “all court cases involving potential violations of civil rights and alleged illegal and unconstitutional activity” by the agencies is resolved.
Some BFC members shared concerns about the precedent of blocking certain employers from listing opportunities without giving students the chance to evaluate employers themselves.
“Students are not required to attend these events,” associate professor Seth Freedman said. “They can choose to disengage, can choose to approach. Maybe a more appropriate role for us as faculty would be to encourage our students to critically assess the implications of potential employment choices available to them rather than restrict those choices.”
As partial reasoning for the resolution, Phillips referenced a petition created by an IU Northwest student when the DHS events first came to public attention during her address. Freedman said he was unaware of the petition prior to the council meeting.
When the resolution was put to a vote, the council voted anonymously on paper ballots. BFC President Bill Ramos said it was the first time BFC voted that way, because the council’s executive board decided the group would trial it. The reasoning, he said, was to let members feel free to “express their true voice and that of the constituents” without being concerned about how their vote could be perceived by their peers.
Forty-two members voted for the resolution. Six others abstained and 10 voted against it.
Though the resolution passed, the university will not be required to follow it and any other future resolutions passed because of a state law passed earlier in 2025, which shifted faculty councils to an advisory only role.
