Gov. Mike Braun announced this month that three new Indiana University (IU) alumni are replacing three previous members from the university’s Board of Trustees (BOT) whose tenures abruptly ended with a one-sentence letter from Braun. The new trustees are First Amendment lawyer James Bopp Jr., attorney and businessman Brian Eagle, and former ESPN anchor Sage Steele.
When The Federalist asked why Braun replaced the previous members and reappointed Chairman W. Quinn Buckner, a spokesman for Braun mirrored his X post, saying the governor is “confident” that the new trustees “will help guide IU back in the right direction as a premier flagship university in our state.”
The governor’s new appointments come as Republicans increasingly lose distrust in higher education, with 50 percent having “little or no confidence” compared to 11 percent in 2015, according to a 2024 Gallup poll. Thirty-two percent of all Americans say they have “little or no confidence” in higher education. Bopp told The Federalist that he has noticed Indiana University has a strong “degree of intolerance and outright hatred for people with different views.”
A lot of the distrust comes from the “perception that colleges and trustees have political agendas,” Armand Alacbay, a vice president at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), told The Federalist.
U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly churned out students who know little about their history, heritage, culture, duties, and rights, while college tuition has increased by a factor of ten in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1978. Republican voters’ frustration about the politicization and low quality of U.S. higher education fueled massive electoral victories for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as he prioritized replacing trustees and cleaning curricular house at state universities.
IU Among Nation’s Worst for Free Speech
In 2024, Indiana’s previous governor, Eric Holcomb, signed S.B. 202, which created “disciplinary action” for any state faculty member who hinders “free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity.” The Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression ranked IU 243 out of 251 in its 2025 Free Speech Rankings, giving the institution a score of 24.67 out of 100 for campus free speech (just eight slots away from where Harvard is ranked at last).
“There’s a segment in the community [at IU] who are just absolutely intolerant that there would even be a conservative voice at the university,” Bopp told The Federalist.
Many students made negative comments on the Indiana Daily Student newspaper’s Instagram post featuring a story about Bopp. “He sounds like a perfectly fascist voice to support the guv’ner and [IU’s president],” said Brian Forist, a professor who teaches parks, recreation, and the outdoors at Indiana University, according to his Instagram and IU News.
“What is the scandal about a conservative Republican governor appointing conservatives to a position?” Bopp said.
University trustees are key to the institution’s health, Alacbay said, so long as they monitor their institution’s activities closely. The purpose of a board of trustees is “to protect the mission of the institution, and that is the pursuit of truth and a dissemination of knowledge. It’s education, full stop,” he said.
Governor Controls a Board Majority
Under previous IU BOT bylaws, Indiana’s governor appointed six IU trustees, while alumni elected another three. But a budget passed in April modified the bylaws to allow Indiana’s governor to appoint all nine members of the board, with five of them needing to be alumni.
The current BOT does not have any elected trustees “for the first time in more than a century,” according to the Indiana Daily Student. The trustees who were replaced, Vivian Winston, Donna Spears, and Jill Burnett, were the last remaining elected officials.
Eagle told The Federalist that Braun appointed him, in part, “to be a business voice.” The lawyer hopes to contribute by “ensur[ing] that we are being excellent stewards of Indiana University’s Tradition of Excellence.”
Two of the three trustees Braun removed voted against limiting pro-Palestinian student protests on campus in 2024. Vivian Winston and Donna Spears voted “no” on an “Expressive Activity Policy” to limit overnight camping during protests and prohibit protesting from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., according to the Indiana Daily Student.
Kyle Seibert, who is still on the board, also voted “no” to the protest limits. Spears did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment. Following a lawsuit against the board, a judge blocked the policy on May 29, citing supposed First Amendment violations.
57 Arrests at Pro-Palestinian Protests
During pro-Palestinian protests at IU in 2024, 57 people, including some faculty, were arrested, according to The New York Times. The Times also reported that the university responded quickly to the protests with snipers on university roofs.
“Hatred is running rampant and these schools are doing nothing about it!” Sage Steele, another BOT member appointed by Braun, said in an X post on June 12, referencing ongoing antisemitic activity at well-known universities.
Steele has long dealt with pushback for her conservative opinions. As an ESPN anchor, she received backlash for expressing her opinions about Covid-19 mandates, questioning former President Barack Obama’s choice to identify as black, and telling “women in sports media … to take responsibility for how they present themselves,” Fox News reported in 2023.
After resolving a lawsuit with ESPN, she left the company.
Steele did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.