did you guys know indiana has an anonymous state hotline to denounce liberals on education?
https://archive.is/zsMJ6Five days later, Ms. Swierc was fired from her job as the director of health and advocacy at Ball State, one of more than 145 people around the country who’ve lost their jobs for posting negatively about Mr. Kirk. Mr. Rokita, the attorney general, noted the firing approvingly.
The rash of firings, which are raising questions about the limits of free speech, has been supercharged in Indiana, where top officials have been channeling public anger about posts that criticize Mr. Kirk into a kind of internet hotline, where submissions — that can include someone’s name, social-media posts and employer’s contact information — are displayed publicly on a government website.
The portal, called Eyes on Education, was started early last year as a way for parents of school children to submit examples of “inappropriate materials.” The concept spread to public universities later that year, after the passage of a law intended to take on liberal bias in higher education. Ball State University has its own portal, EthicsPoint, where students can anonymously report professors for biased behavior.
Ms. Swierc’s was the first submission in the Charlie Kirk section of Eyes on Education. As of Saturday, 32 others in education were listed as targets for firing. Mr. Rokita declined to be interviewed for this article.
University faculty in Indiana were already on edge after last year’s law exposed them to anonymous complaints. They have started to accompany one another to meetings with human resources, in a sort of buddy system. Ms. Vitale went with Ms. Swierc to hers. But while she knew people were nervous, she was unprepared for what came next. When she and her colleagues began to circulate a petition opposing the firing, many were too afraid to put their names on it. Some gave only their first names. Others said they’d agree only if others in their department did.
The fear is a measure of how much pressure higher education is under in Indiana. Another set of changes, which drew little notice because it was tucked into this year’s budget bill, eliminates programs that draw fewer than 15 graduates in a major. One colleague, a chair of a department that is close to the 15-student threshold, messaged Ms. Vitale to say that he was concerned that signing would lead to retaliation, and his first responsibility was to his faculty and their livelihoods.
A colleague in a different state who serves with Ms. Vitale in the leadership of the Radical Philosophy Association took their name off its website, as did several people in the A.A.U.P. at Ball State because they were worried about doxxing by outside groups. Ms. Vitale said she was fine with keeping her name public, but in the end all of their names came down.
As of Sunday, the petition against her firing had 83 signatures, out of about 3,000 full-time faculty and staff.
In interviews, faculty members said they opposed the firing, even if they didn’t want to be on the record saying it. But the reaction among the broader public was mixed. The Ball State announcement, which was viewed millions of times on X, got 25,000 likes.