To the Trustees of Indiana University,

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Since being named Indiana University's 19th president after a notably fraught, dysfunctional search, Pamela Whitten and her leadership team have seized every opportunity to damage IU. The university’s reputation, academic integrity, finances, and capacity to provide students with a respected, world-class education have all been meaningfully eroded.

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To name a few of the most egregious examples, the Whitten administration has:

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1.) refused good-faith negotiations with the graduate student union, upon whose labor the university relies to function;

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2.) suspended, disciplined, abandoned, and reportedly intimidated faculty who critique or disagree with President Whitten;

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3.) deployed armed state police (including a sniper on the roof of the Indiana Memorial Union) in response to campus protests, prompting a First Amendment lawsuit from the ACLU;

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4.) received a historic censure from the IU Bloomington and IU South Bend faculty via an overwhelming majority vote of “no confidence,” which was seconded by faculty in the IUB College of Arts and Sciences, Kelley School of Business, and seven other IUB Schools;

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5.) denied accusations that President Whitten plagiarized sections of her doctoral dissertation, then refused to release the results of an independent investigation;

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6.) rejected IU’s 134-year tradition of shared governance by stifling Trustee communications with faculty and staff, and welcoming Indiana Governor Mike Braun’s takeover of your governing body;

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7.) accepted without opposition the Indiana Commission on Higher Education’s decision to eliminate nearly 200 degree programs;

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8.) staged a failed attempt to censor the Indiana Daily Student by firing the director of Student Media and threatening to discontinue printing the paper in violation of their 1969 charter;

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9.) approved substantive raises and bonuses for high-level administrators and spent historic figures on athletics amid major budget cuts and messily approving tiny wage increases for IU employees that do not even keep pace with inflation; and

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10.) allowed President Whitten to connect her own career to that of IU football coach Curt Cignetti by including her tenure as a buyout condition in his 8-year contract.

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This unbroken chain of failures, scandals, and ludicrous mismanagement demonstrates that the current administration poses a grave risk to Indiana University and, by extension, to its broader global community of collaborators, alumni, and supporters.

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We refuse to support leadership that willfully ignores the values that have held the university in good stead for more than a century, chief among them free speech, academic freedom, and shared governance.

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We likewise refuse to stand by as IU’s capacity to contribute to the arts, culture, sciences, economic growth, and general public welfare in Indiana and beyond is repeatedly undermined.

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For these reasons, we call upon the Board of Trustees to immediately remove President Whitten and her leadership team from office, and to secure new leadership that will protect rather than undermine the values that have made IU an institution of global renown.

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In short, we ask you to help us regain our pride in being Hoosiers.
 

Signed,