Indiana University alumnus Jim Fielding announced in a LinkedIn post Wednesday that he has declined a fourth term as an IU Foundation Board member due to not being able to champion the university any longer.
“For the first time in my adult life, I cannot in good conscience continue to lend my name, my time, and my philanthropy to an institution whose direction I am no longer able to publicly defend,” Fielding wrote.
Fielding was on the board for nine years. When he joined, the board was committed to governance, working with Foundation leadership and IU administration; he believed conversations and debates were productive. But Fielding said the board evolved into an environment that was not welcoming to questions.
“The culture feels very different and I feel that we're expected to just rubber stamp decisions that were made without our involvement,” Fielding said.
Along with his post, Fielding wrote an essay explaining his decision. He wrote that meetings involved discussions about what was happening to higher education which included guidance from the Department of Education, federal executive orders and state legislation. These discussions led to the same answer each time.
“Fly below the radar. Do not rock the boat. Wait it out,” Fielding wrote.
He wrote that he was told to be “be on the team or not be in the room.”
“That is not a governance philosophy. That is a loyalty test,” he wrote. “A board exists to ask hard questions of an administration. A board that is asked to stop asking is not a board anymore.”
When Fielding raised concerns through channels, those channels narrowed, he wrote.
He said he would leave meetings feeling unmotivated and would ask himself why he was continuing to serve as a volunteer.
“At the institutional level, I cannot reconcile what I have seen on free speech, on the dismantling of diversity and inclusion infrastructure, and on the protection of marginalized students, faculty, and staff,” Fielding wrote. “The administration’s posture has been to absorb federal and state pressure quietly rather than push back publicly.”
Fielding cited issues such as the elimination of alumni trustees and DEI initiatives as actions which disturb him.
For example, Fielding discusses in his essay when former alumni-elected trustees Vivian Winston, Jill Maurer Burnett and Donna Spears were removed by Governor Mike Braun in May 2025 due to changes in state legislation.
He also wrote that donors to the Queer Philanthropy Circle were told that emergency scholarship funds for LGBTQ+ students could not be designated in that way anymore because it could appear as preferential and risk national grant funding.
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“The people who pay the price for that posture are the students, the faculty, and the staff whose lives the institution is supposed to protect,” he wrote.
Fielding said board service was a way for him to give back to the institution that enabled his success.
“I love the work that we do for the students, and the faculty, and the staff, and for a long time that fuel kept me going, but basically, my battery is drained, is probably the easiest way to say it,” Fielding said.
Though Fielding has received positive comments about his LinkedIn post, he said he is sad that some of them came from IU alumni, faculty, staff and students who believe they are not able to speak out themselves.
“Sometimes when you have feelings like this, you think you're the only one…and then you realize, oh, there (are) more people that felt that than I realized,” he said.
Fielding said he would be happy to serve on the board again if he could add value and make an impact but currently does not think that is possible.
He said that he was open and honest to the board about why he is not renewing his fourth term and it wasn’t a contentious situation.
Fielding noted that he will continue being a donor, a founding member of the Queer Philanthropy Circle, attend alumni events and other committee meetings.
“The IU Foundation is grateful for James Fielding’s service and support of Indiana University,” wrote Barbara Brosher, senior director of communications, wrote in an email. “The Foundation exists to support IU and help advance its mission by expanding scholarship opportunities, fueling research and strengthening communities across Indiana and beyond.”
