The Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition hosted a rally of about 30 people Tuesday afternoon outside a Bloomington Faculty Council meeting to demand IU become a sanctuary campus in response to Indiana Senate Bill 76.
At the rally, people held signs reading “PROTECT our COLLEAGUES,” “SANCTUARY CAMPUS NOW” and “An INJURY to one is an INJURY TO ALL.” IGWC members also held a 3-foot tall papier-mâché “white dove of peace” and handed out flyers stating their demands.
Their demands included opposing SB 76, making cooperation with ICE a code of conduct violation, and removing from campus and destroying data from surveillance technologies like Flock cameras.
SB 76, which is on the governor’s desk, mandates schools, hospitals, local governments and police and sheriff’s departments to cooperate with ICE on immigration enforcement.
Communications Officer Eli Beaton of the graduate workers union said the bill raises anxiety among international students.
“The educational mission of the university is sort of like set aside for a lot of international students and workers because of this sort of persistent, like, back-of-the-head anxiety,” Beaton said. “There are people who have been nervous to visit their families over the summer because they weren't sure they were going to be able to enter the country again.”
According to SB 76, the state can withhold funding from schools that do not cooperate with ICE. Due to the stipulation, Beaton said establishing a sanctuary campus that doesn’t allow ICE on campus is off the table.
Instead, Beaton said a sanctuary campus would consist of making a series of policy changes to ensure IU is in communication with its international students and establishing pathways to keep them safe in the event that ICE comes on campus. He said it also includes creating safe spaces on campus and maybe instituting an alert system to keep people informed about immigration enforcement activity on campus.
“IU has seemingly done virtually nothing to oppose this bill and I think that indicates sort of like this sense of abandonment,” Beaton said.
The university did not respond to a request for comment.
The Faculty Council has two student members. Beaton said the rally allowed more graduate students to be visible in a space with the chancellor, the interim provost and the president of the Faculty Council.
“We have to find other ways to make our voices heard,” Beaton said. “Whether that's sort of like public demonstrations or like, historically, that has involved us sort of withholding labor, but that's something we obviously don't want to do.”
There are more than 4,000 international students at IU-Bloomington, according to a release from the IGWC. Beaton said prioritizing the university’s educational mission means standing up for these students so they can focus on learning.
Beaton said if SB 76 is passed and IU does not decide to implement sanctuary measures, international students’ anxiety will intensify and new international students might not want to come to the university.
“I really struggle to imagine how IU can be competitive, given this type of persistent anxiety,” Beaton said. “I wouldn't blame anyone for not coming here. And that seems like a huge, huge loss to like the culture and educational goals here.”
