IU-B's faculty holding a vote of no confidence against Whitten. What does that mean?

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the events in 2005.

This Tuesday, Bloomington Indiana University faculty members will meet in-person at the IU Auditorium to vote on a historic motion to express “no confidence” in IU President Pamela Whitten, Provost Rahul Shrivastav and Carrie Docherty, vice provost for faculty and academic affairs.

The motion, presented by Bloomington Faculty Council president Colin Johnson, is perhaps the most historic, formal show of dissent to date from members of the Bloomington faculty against an administration that’s been marked by controversies about shared governance and faculty distrust.

In a petition submitted March 27, signatories in the BFC said the current IU administration was “encroaching on both academic freedom and shared governance.” The petition cited Docherty’s suspension of professor Abdulkader Sinno (which was found to violate Bloomington faculty policy), IU’s cancellation of Palestinian artist Samia Halaby’s exhibition at the Eskenazi Museum of Art, the administration’s recent attempts to sever the Kinsey Institute into a nonprofit (which IU later reversed) and the ongoing fight for union recognition from the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition (IGWC) as key examples of the administration’s violation of shared governance.

Still, it remains unclear if the vote, which wields no official bureaucratic power, will have any impact on Whitten, Shrivastav or Docherty’s ability to serve and lead the IU administration.

What is a vote of no confidence from the IU Bloomington faculty?

A vote of no confidence is a motion from the IU Bloomington Faculty Council — which is then voted on by the Bloomington faculty at large — to formally express dissent in the leadership of an IU administrator/administrators.

A motion to hold the vote is introduced by the BFC president and must receive a minimum of 50 votes in order to convene a special meeting of the faculty. The petition for the vote of no confidence introduced by Johnson garnered more than 200 signatures.

Why did the faculty council initiate a vote of no confidence?

In their petition for the vote of no confidence, the BFC cited the Whitten administration’s suspension of Sinno, Halaby’s exhibition cancellation and the handling of the Kinsey Institute controversy as key motivations for the vote.

Since its inception the Whitten administration has been marked by faculty and student mistrust. From an unusual appointment process to a slew of recent academic freedom disputes related to the Israel-Hamas conflict, the Whitten administration has become one of the most controversial IU administrations in recent memory.

Fueling this mistrust from faculty and students is also a perceived flippancy from the administration toward public dissent and principles of shared governance.

“It seems like this administration does what it wants, and ignores what everyone else thinks it should do,” said David Garner, communications chair of the IGWC.

Docherty dismissed claims that she violated faculty policy by suspending Sinno without a faculty hearing, and Kinsey Institute members say the administration repeatedly left them out of their proposal to sever the institute from IU to abide by state law.

Steve Sanders, an IU professor of law, said the vote of no confidence is defined by this shared governance issue.

“It goes to the nature of how the university is governed,” Sanders said. “Is it a shared process between the administration and faculty, or is it a top-down process?”

Abdulkader Sinno, the faculty adviser to the Palestine Solidarity committee who was suspended last semester, said the administration’s controversies related to governance show the administration is unfit to lead a Research 1 university.

“They want to turn Indiana University into a top-down institution where they force their own vision,” Sinno said. “They don’t understand that in a research university like ours, faculty play a major role, students play a major role, stakeholders play a major role. They don’t see that.”

How will the vote of no confidence work?

Bloomington faculty will meet at the IU Auditorium at 2:30 p.m. April 16 to vote on the motion. The meeting is not open to the public; only voting faculty, as defined in the Bloomington faculty constitution, may attend and vote.

If 800 or more faculty members show up and vote, either in favor or against, the resulting vote will be considered the faculty’s will. The vote will count only if at least 800 faculty are present in person.

If less than 800 faculty members are at the auditorium, the vote will be sent to faculty electronically. A simple majority is all that's needed either way. Bloomington has more than 2,000 full-time faculty members.

Will a vote of no confidence have any impact?

A vote of no confidence from the Bloomington faculty has no direct administrative impact on the Whitten administration’s ability to serve in their roles, but faculty votes of no confidence are often consequential in higher academia. A survey of 150 faculty no-confidence votes since 1989 found approximately half of the targeted presidents resigned within a year.

In 2005, IU's faculty convened a meeting that resulted in a vote to ask the Board of Trustees to review the university's 17th President Adam Herbert over concerns of his leadership and IU’s search for a chancellor. Herbert then declined to renew his contract in 2006, and resigned once a new president was selected in 2007.

Sanders said while no-confidence votes are somewhat common in academia, it's unique for a campus as large as Bloomington to hold such a vote.

“It’s relatively rare for a Research 1 university, a university in our category, to have a vote of no confidence, so I think it will definitely get attention,” Sanders said.

The University of Michigan faculty passed a no-confidence vote for their president in 2020, largely over concerns about his handling over reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was removed a few months later by the board of regents for a separate incident of an affair with a subordinate.

The IGWC and 12 graduate worker organizations also have lodged no-confidence votes against Whitten, and the IGWC is currently exploring a strike against the university on April 17 — IU Day. Garner said he believes these expressions of dissent could lead to changes in the administration.

“When we’ve fought in the past, we’ve made victories,” Garner said. “It’s my hope that a vote of no confidence might change the administration’s tune about the union, or potentially a new administration that would be more favorable to union recognition."

Sinno believes that if the administration doesn’t respond to the vote, the campus will make their dissent known.

“I can assure you that if the vote passes, and no one leaves, the campus will make them feel it,” Sinno said.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana University's president faces a no-confidence vote from faculty