The Addison C. Harris Lecture: Intellectual Diversity Mandates and the Freedom to Teach

This Essay provides the first examination of the Indiana Senate Bill 202, which was adopted into law in the spring of 2024. The new law imposes an “intellectual diversity” mandate on public university classroom teaching in the state. The law is novel in its approach but is part of a larger movement to intercede in what is taught in university classrooms. The intellectual diversity mandate raises difficult and unexamined conceptual, normative, and practical problems that will now demand attention from university officials in Indiana and that might soon confront university administrators in other states across the country if the Indiana model proves politically attractive.

Although an intellectual diversity mandate might not be as dangerous to the free exploration of ideas in academia as the more common “divisive concepts” bans that prohibit the promotion of politically disfavored ideas in public university classrooms, it nonetheless marks an extraordinary political intrusion into the freedom of university professors to teach in accord with their own professional judgment. As such, it poses a significant threat to traditional principles of academic freedom. That threat is exacerbated by the uncertainty created by the novelty and undertheorized quality of an intellectual diversity mandate. This Essay lays bare the normative problems for academic freedom with such a mandate.

It also examines the conceptual and practical challenges with such a mandate, demonstrating why the mandate is likely to lower the quality of university education while failing to accomplish its intended policy aims. It also considers how such a mandate might be implemented and what approaches to implementation might mitigate the risks associated with such a requirement.