Indiana Daily Student eEdition - Thursday, June 19, 2025
IDS
IU Provost Rahul Shrivastav rejected a student board’s vote to fund the Indiana Daily Student, according to a letter we received June 5. The IDS applied for funding from mandatory tuition fees last October, a process reviewed every two years by the student-run Committee for Fee Review. That process started after The Media School implemented its new student media plan, which included cutting back on our print edition — a vital part of our operation. We went from printing on a weekly basis to every twoto-three weeks in the spring and not at all this summer. In an attempt to reconcile this financial and educational loss, we looked elsewhere for answers.
We immediately faced hurdles. First, the Office of Student Life told us we needed approval from the dean of The Media School before submitting our application — a policy which is, to our knowledge, not a standard part of the application process. Student Life did not respond to a request for comment.
Upon seeking approval from the dean, we were told we would have to apply in conjunction with IU Student
Hundreds rally at Monroe County Courthouse for "No Kings" protest
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Students voted to fund the IDS. IU still won’t.
Television and WIUX — despite both groups previously applying separately for the same funding. Again, we are unfamiliar with any other organizations facing this requirement.
At the time of our application, we had not yet, and still have not, merged business operations with IUSTV and WIUX, something outlined in The Media School’s student media plan. Student leaders are still largely in the dark as to how and when The Media School plans to implement this merger.
Media School Dean David Tolchinsky said in a follow-up email exchange he was trying to foster holistic thinking among student media leaders in the wake of the student media plan by suggesting a group CFR application.
“Once we got the message that the students weren’t interested in doing so, we didn’t want to stand in their way, so I granted permission,” he wrote in the email.
The dean eventually approved our lone application. But IU still wouldn’t budge.
The CFR was informed in the midst of its deliberation that the initially expected increase in mandatory student fees for IU Blooming-
Braun appoints three to replace elected trustees
All three are IU alumni, and their terms begin effective immediately
By Jonathan Frey jonafrey@iu.edu
For the first time in more than a century, the IU Board of Trustees will have no elected representatives.
Gov. Mike Braun announced in a press release today the appointment of three new trustees — Sage Steele and James Bopp Jr. until 2028 and Brian Eagle until 2027 — and the extension of W. Quinn Buckner's term until 2026.
Braun flexed the power of a policy written into the state budget in April granting him authority to remove and appoint IU trustees at his discretion. The IDS reported earlier June 2 trustee Vivian Winston had been removed from her position effective immediately, with WTIU additionally confirming the sacking of Jill Maurer Burnett. It is now confirmed Burnett, Winston and third elected trustee Donna Spears have all been replaced. They were removed from the Board of Trustees "Current Trustees" section earlier today. Sage Steele is a former ESPN host and commentator who parted ways with the network in 2023 after she was reprimanded for a string of remarks about Barack Obama's racial identity, mandating the COVID-19 vaccine and more. She sued ESPN for allegedly violating her First Amendment rights to free speech.
She has since started her own podcast and YouTube show "The Sage Steele Show." She's also been associated with the Trump campaign, at one point rumored to be vying for Trump's press secretary role. She denied the rumors. James Bopp Jr. is a conservative lawyer formerly part of Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita's team. He was influential in late 20th century anti-
ton students would instead stagnate with a 0% change.
Its final recommendation for the IDS, submitted in late March and accounting for the 0% fee increase, was a $1.11 allocation from each student’s yearly mandatory fees. For students taking more than six credit hours, that's less than 0.15% of the total $761.02 they pay each term. This would have been a boon of roughly $50,000 per year for the next two years, a number trivial to IU but monumental for us.
All CFR recommendations are subject to the provost’s approval, and the provost ultimately decided he would not approve funding for new applicants given the 0% fee increase, according to the June 5 letter. He rejected a unanimous decision by the CFR made with that number in mind.
Shrivastav added the recently approved state budget significantly lowered state appropriations to IU, further constraining the university’s funds over the coming cycle.
The IDS was the only new group to apply for funding and the only group to be denied. We are not aware of any examples in recent memory of the provost re-
jecting CFR recommendations. In a follow-up email to the IDS, Shrivastav did not address whether this was common practice.
In the letter, the CFR informed us it had additionally recommended the vice provost of Student Life allocate us $200,000 from fee reserve funding, something we will pursue.
If the provost’s decision is purely due to an aversion to increasing fee allocation over a cycle where tuition isn’t growing, that is something we understand. We are as aware as anyone that state funding for universities is dwindling.
But it is a concerning trend that we are bucked at every turn when we seek support. And it’s not a trend unique to Bloomington.
The Purdue Exponent announced June 5 that Purdue suddenly refused to facilitate distribution of its print edition on campus, something it had done for more than 50 years. Reporters from The Columbia Spectator were barred by Columbia Public Safety officers from reporting on the scene of a protest in May. Student newspapers across the country face unprecedented barriers to reporting in what should be our sanc-
tuaries.
The IDS has been a pillar of IU, Bloomington and student journalism since 1867. We have maintained our editorial independence throughout our 158 years of existence, even when that involved publishing news or opinions critical of powerful figures — including IU administration.
The same week we received the letter, recent IU graduate and IDS alumnus Nicole Blevins was named a finalist in the Hearst National Journalism Championship, and IU won fourth place overall for writing. We are proud of Nicole and the rest of our staff, but not surprised. We are a consistently awarded and recognized publication.
It’s concerning for administrators to reject the careful consideration of students — who should be the driving force behind any university decision. It’s concerning that a student government-affiliated entity had its unanimous decision rejected before it even reached the Board of Trustees for a vote.
We will continue to try in good faith to reach an agreement with IU. We will continue to assume good intentions from administra-
tors. If this letter is to serve as anything, we hope it will be a wake-up call. To the administration, we ask that you hear us and take us seriously. We are a learning lab and an invaluable educational resource to all who walk through our doors. We create professional-quality work and train professional-quality journalists because we are given the financial and editorial freedom to do so. If IU has an interest in maintaining The Media School’s longstanding sterling reputation, part of that plan must be helping student media to thrive.
To students, parents and the Bloomington community, we ask that you make your voices heard. Regardless of whether you read us or even like us, our existence should not be a debate — no more than any other club or organization.
If you have anything you want to share with us, please reach out to us on social media or at editor@idsnews. com
Frey
abortion campaigns by the Republican party and has campaigned to remove barriers to corporate and union funding of political campaigns.
Brian Eagle is an attorney, wealth consultant, and partner at his firm Eagle and Fein. He is a current member of the Central Indiana Community Foundation’s Cornerstone Advisory Council, a philanthropic organization with the stated values of anti-racism, authentic relationships, inclusivity, leadership, effectiveness and sustainability. All three are IU alumni, and their terms begin effective immediately. It is unclear whether there will be an election for Winston's vacant spot, but it appears unlikely due to each appointment lasting until at least 2027.
"I am confident that these appointees, who are all Indiana University alumni, will serve in the best interest of the university and will help guide IU back in the right direction as a premier flagship university in our state," Braun said in the press release.
Buckner's extension comes despite a newly minted three-term limit, passed in the same April budget hearing that gave Braun unadulterated power of appointment.
IU President Pamela Whitten also authored a statement in an IU News release shortly following the new appointments.
“I look forward to working with our new trustees, who join the board at a pivotal time of positive momentum for IU,” Whitten said in the release. “Each has a deep love for IU and shares our vision for putting students first, advancing groundbreaking research and serving our state.”
The IDS has reached out to the board and the governor's office for comment, and is awaiting a response.
Highlighting business on Juneteenth
To celebrate, pay a visit to some of these Black-owned businesses around town
By Nicole Blevins neblevin@iu.edu
Juneteenth marks the anniversary of the emancipation of enslaved African people in America. It commemorates June 19, 1865, when the last slaves in Galveston were officially freed. Today, it is a nationally recognized federal holiday celebrating Black culture and freedom.
To celebrate in Bloomington, pay a visit to some of these Black-owned businesses around town.
Restaurants
The Cabin: 4015 S. State Road 446 (812) 214-4324
A great place to stop by while camping, located near Lake Monroe, The Cabin serves traditional American dishes in a lively atmosphere. They also host live music events frequently, including an open mic night almost every Thursday, according to their social media pages.
Carson’s BBQ and Catering: (812) 369-4449
Self-proclaimed “the best barbeque in Southern Indiana,” Carson’s BBQ and catering is temporarily closed, but will be at the Ellettsville Farmers Market every Saturday this season, serving lunch 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Chef’s Table Catering: 3860 W. 3rd St. (812) 287-8016
This family-owned business combines savory dishes with baked goods for the ultimate dining experience.
Phat Daddy’s BBQ: 4747 W. State Road 46 (812) 908-2196
The barbeque restaurant’s mission is to serve their community first. All tips are directed toward local donations and charities.
Services
Angela’s Ebony Hair Designs: 155 S. Kingston Dr.
(812) 331-2472
The family-owned business combines “the talents of multiple generations to provide top-notch barber and beauty services.”
Lé Esthetics: 619 N. Morton St. (812) 360-0714
Lé Esthetics offers bridal, beauty and relaxation services located in downtown Bloomington.
Small Businesses
The Cat’s Closet: 223 S. Pete Ellis Dr., Suites 1 and 2 (812) 322-2363
The Cat’s Closet is a half thrift store, half cat lounge for locals to shop and cuddle all in one. All cats are available for adoption from the Greene County Humane Society.
LushPOP Balloons & Décor: A luxury balloon decorating service, LushPOP
ALEX DERYN
Popcorn Kernels With
Hundreds gather for ‘No Kings’ protest
On June 14, Monroe citizens gathered outside the county courthouse to protest against the Trump administration
By Maxine Cain maxcain@iu.edu
Hundreds of people gathered outside the Monroe County Courthouse from 12-3 p.m. June 14, joining more than 1,500 US cities taking part in “No Kings” demonstrations. 50501, the nonprofit group who organized the nationwide protests, said on their website they intended to “reject authoritarianism — and show the world what democracy really looks like.”
At the Bloomington demonstration and demonstrations across the country, people protested the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts, deportation of immigrants without due process and plans to revoke some immigrants’ legal status in the US.
Protesters demonstrated with colorful signs, chants and songs, including performances from local musicians. There was constant honking from drivers passing by in support, often rolling their windows down to show their own signs. Some community members even brought their pets adorned with protest gear.
The protests were organized in response to the $45 million US Army 250th Anniversary Parade in Washington D.C. coinciding with U.S. President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday. Millions of people from urban cities, metropolitan areas and rural communities united for the largest single-day mobilization since Trump returned to office.
A survey by Data for Progress and Common Defense, conducted in April, found that 70% of veterans said they are opposed to the Trump administration “ordering active-duty U.S. military troops to perform a parade in honor of President Trump’s birthday.”
“I am absolutely certain that our forefathers would
not allow this to happen,”
78-year-old Bloomington resident and navy veteran Frank Swinarski said. “The one thing they were very clear about is no one person will make the laws or interpret the laws or enforce the laws.”
“I know so many people who have either gotten sick or died because they did not have health insurance.”
Protester Sofia Fatouros Swiniarski said the president should have focused the funding dedicated to the military parade on Med-
icaid for disabled veterans.
“There are a lot of men and women out there who have contributed greatly and suffered tremendously, and still do,” he said.
Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” proposes to cut financial aid services that many veterans and their families rely on, such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Many Bloomington protesters held signs and chanted phrases opposing this bill.
“My mother needed medicaid, I know so many children that need medicaid. We need to support everyone to have health care,” protester Sofia Fatouros said. “We would have a whole other society if
Meet IU trustee Sage Steele
By Safin Khatri safkhat@iu.edu
On June 2, Governor Mike Braun removed alumni-elected trustees from the IU Board of Trustees and appointed three new trustees including former sports journalist Sage Steele. Steele received a Bachelor of Science in Sports Communication in 1995. While an undergraduate student, she was involved in ROTC and had an internship with IU Athletics.
Following graduation, Steele worked for news organizations in Indiana, Florida and Maryland before being hired by ESPN in 2007. In 2008, she was recognized as a distinguished alumni.
In a speaker series with the former School of Journalism in 2014, Steele said she faced gender and racial discrimination, which turned into motivation for her.
“What I realized was that this was one of many tests along the way, some having to do with race and some that don’t,” she said. “It was preparing me for the future in the television world.”
In 2015, she was the undergraduate commencement speaker.
During her 16-year stint at ESPN, Steele served as a cohost of “SportsCenter,” a host of “NBA Countdown” and covered the NBA Playoffs, NBA Finals and the NBA All-Star Game.
people weren’t desperate. I know so many people who have either gotten sick or died because they did not have health insurance.”
Author and former Bloomington City Council President Charlotte Zietlow gave a speech about her upbringing in Czechoslovakia, and how the signs of authoritarianism she noticed then are now showing up in America.
“I worry when I talk to people. So many of us are just thinking that what’s going on now is not serious, it can’t hurt us. But it is serious. It is serious, and it doesn’t have to happen all at once,” Zietlow said.
Military veteran Anthony Willimas, 60, said this
was the first time he’d protested in his life.
“This is not America. It’s not what the constitution says. It’s not why we’re here. We have to stand up, nobody is going to come to save us — this is on us”, Williams said. “It’s not left versus right, it’s right versus wrong. We need to do the humane thing — that’s what America’s all about.”
The protest was largely peaceful, but the HeraldTimes reported one man was taken into custody by the Bloomington Police Department after making threatening gestures to protesters.
The protest was largely peaceful, but the IDS confirmed one man was taken
into custody by the Bloomington Police Department after making threatening gestures to protesters.
The protest was scheduled to end at 3 p.m., but about half the people on the Courthouse lawn stayed to interact with each other and passersby.
“The protests during the Vietnam War actually prevented Nixon from dropping an atomic bomb on Vietnam. We had no idea at the time that it was having that effect. So today, we don’t know,” Fatouros said. “In the United States there are so many people in small towns and in big towns coming out to protest that we may not know now, or that we may never know.”
Meet trustee James Bopp Jr.
By Safin Khatri safkhat@iu.edu
On June 2, Governor Mike Braun removed alumni-elected trustees from the IU Board of Trustees and appointed three new trustees including attorney James Bopp Jr.
In a press release by his law firm, Bopp said he has dedicated his life to the First Amendment and will ensure “robust and uninhibited debate” is respected for all university community members.
Bopp received a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science from IU Bloomington in 1970. According to Bopp’s press release, he had extensive undergraduate involvement, including serving multiple roles in IUSG, the IU Student Foundation and Kappa Sigma Fraternity.
He later went on to earn a law degee from the University of Florida College of Law in 1973.
After graduating from UF, Bopp served as Deputy Indiana Attorney General. He later went on to private practice, eventually founding The Bopp Law Firm, PC.
the general counsel for the anti-abortion organization National Right to Life Committee. In 2022, Bopp spoke with The New York Times in a podcast about his antiabortion work, including drafting a model abortion law to prepare for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
instructor in the business school from 1977-1978 as well as a Practitionerin-Residence for Maurer Law School in 2014. Bopp also served on the IU Student Trustee Search and Screen Committee in 2005 and 2007.
Bopp said in the release he will work to continue the success developed by members of the IU community.
In 2024, Steele’s name circulated as a potential contender for then-candidate Donald Trump’s White House Press Secretary, a rumor she denied.
On June 2, Steele said on X (formerly Twitter) of her Trustee appointment she was, “Honored! Can’t wait to get to work!”
In 2021, Steele faced controversy for her comments regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and former President Barack Obama, which led to her suspension from ESPN. She sued ESPN claiming a breach of contract and violation of her civil rights. After settling her lawsuit with the network, she departed in 2023. Steele hosts the weekly podcast, “The Sage Steele Show” featuring notable guests such as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
By Jonathan Frey jonafrey@iu.edu
Bopp is a notable attorney, assisting with 14 cases before the US Supreme Court, including the landmark case of Citizens United v. FEC which unbanned corporations and unions from donating to campaigns.
He was a member of the Republican National Convention from 2006-2012, serving as party vice-chairman from 2008-2011.
He is also an anti-abortion campaigner, serving as
Bopp also serves as general counsel for the National Organization for Marriage, a group founded to advocate for California’s Proposition 8, which overturned samesex marriage in the state.
Bopp co-wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the RNC in support of traditional marriage for the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges. He was the lead counsel for eight students who sued IU in 2021 over the vaccine mandate, which the Supreme Court declined to block.
Bopp was formerly an
“I also look forward to partnering with my fellow Trustees who have demonstrated their talents in their careers and their commitment to the success of Indiana University,” he said, “and with the President, administration, faculty and staff of IU who have brought IU to its place as one of the most respected universities in the Nation. We are all dedicated to making IU an excellent educational institution.”
MAXINE CAIN
COURTESY PHOTO Sage Steele, a newly appointed member of IU’s Board of Trustees, is pictured. Steele is one of three trustees appointed June 2 by Gov. Mike Braun.
COURTESY PHOTO
James Bopp Jr., a newly appointed member of IU’s Board of Trustees, is pictured. Bopp is one of three trustees appointed June 2 by Gov. Mike Braun.
Board approves expressive activity policy change
By Nicole Blevins and Jonathan Frey neblevin@iu.edu | jonafrey@iu.edu
The IU Board of Trustees met Thursday for their first meeting with the newly appointed trustees. The board approved amendments to the expressive activity policy, gave IU president Pamela Whitten a $225,000 bonus and approved several other motions.
Swearing-in
Sage Steele, James Bopp Jr. and Brian Eagle — the three trustees appointed by Gov. Mike Braun on June 2 — were sworn in at the beginning of the meeting. Each took an oath of allegiance to IU while placing their hand on Herman B Wells’ famed Bible. Chair W. Quinn Buckner was also sworn in following Braun’s extension of his term.
Personnel including promotion and tenure
Executive Vice President and IU Bloomington Provost Rahul Shrivastav presented a motion to approve personnel items, including new positions, promotions and tenure.
New positions included Luoheng Han, vice provost for undergraduate education at IUB, effective July 1; David Reingold, executive vice president and chancellor at IUB, effective June 2; and Ramesh Venkataraman, dean of the Hutton Honors College at IUB, effective July 1.
The board approved the promotions and tenure report, as well as the new positions.
“Our goal, quite frankly, is to continue to try to make the policy better, to continue to receive feedback from the university community and adopt that feedback when it helps us make the policy better,” Anthony Prather, General Counsel
A new policy change, which wasn’t made public before the meeting, includes conducting performance reviews for tenured faculty. Indiana HB 1001 enacted the Board of Trustees to establish a tenure review process to review productivity in May. The policy goes into effect on July 1.
New degrees Shrivastav also presented seven new degrees — six for IUB and one for IU Indianapolis. The degrees
include a B.S. in business intelligence and data science, B.S. in computer engineering, B.S. in global media, B.S. in media advertising, B.S. in public relations, M.S. in media leadership and business and B.S. in biomedical sciences (IUI).
The board unanimously approved all seven degrees.
Expressive Activity Policy, UA-10
Vice President and General Counsel Anthony Prather presented a motion to approve amendments to the Expressive Activity Policy reflecting feedback from university stakeholders and a court ruling.
The ACLU of Indiana sued IU’s Board of Trustees over the policy, claiming it was overbroad and violated the First Amendment by prohibiting unapproved expressive activity during certain hours. Southern District Court of Indiana Judge Richard Young recently blocked IU from restricting expressive activity between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., and the court ruled it likely violated the First Amendment.
“Our goal, quite frankly, is to continue to try to make the policy better, to continue to receive feedback from the university community and adopt that feedback when it helps us make the policy better,” Prather said.
The motion to revise was approved, and the policy has already been updated on the website. Most notably, they lifted the time restrictions on expressive activity. Requests to use temporary structures must be made seven days in advance, which was previously 10. Additionally, event requests for large groups of 50 to 99 people must be made at least three business days in advance, and event requests for more than 100 must be made at least five business days in advance.
Fiscal Year ‘26 Annual Operating Budget and tuition forum
The committee unanimously approved a $4.5 billion campuswide operating budget — a 3% increase from the FY 2025 base budget — and a tuition freeze for in-state undergraduate students and Indiana Partner students for the next two academic years. The budget increase included a 2% increase for faculty and staff salaries. The budget goes into effect July 1. The board also ap-
proved a 1% increase for out-of-state undergraduate students’ tuition, a 2% increase for all graduate students’ tuition and a 2% increase for program differential costs for graduate and professional students. Program differential costs for undergraduate students and all mandatory fees will have no cost increases. The tuition freeze was approved to make IU more accessible and affordable. The freeze also complies with Braun and the Indiana Commission for Higher Education’s state recommendation.
IU Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jason Dudich said adjustments were proposed to accommodate a $60 million reduction in state funding for the next two fiscal years.
Project, design and lease approvals
The board unanimously approved three new projects for buildings, leases, and renovations.
The projects include IU Indianapolis’ Launch Accelerator for Bioscience, estimated to be completed in 2027; Wright Quad’s renovation, estimated to be completed in 2025; and lease and renovations for
IU in Washington D.C., including residence halls and classrooms, estimated to be completed in 2026.
Indemnification
General counsel Prather recommended the board indemnify the late former IU team physician Bradford Bomba Sr., who was accused of inappropriate behavior by several former IU student athletes, and Benjamin Hunter — a defendant in the lawsuit against IU for the expressive activity policy.
The board approved both recommendations.
Code of conduct
The board entered deliberation for a new trustee code of conduct, something the board hadn’t adopted since its inception in 1820.
A motion to approve the new code was turned on its head when Bopp motioned to send it to committee for review before voting.
He took issue with the code not having been made public or independently reviewed prior to its deliberation.
“We waited 200 years,” Bopp said. “What’s two more months?”
He also raised issues with the content of the
code itself. Langham asked if he took issue with the factuality of the code or its wording.
“Both,” he said.
He cited one example from the code that concerned him, calling it “an absurdity:”
“All trustees shall comply and conduct themselves in accordance with the spirit and letter of all local laws and regulations.”
Bopp expressed confusion over the term “spirit” in the policy, saying its vagueness could potentially cause the board trouble in the future.
After significant deliberation, the board voted in agreement with Bopp. They will likely vote on adopting the new code in their September meeting following committee review.
It’s unclear whether a draft of the code will be made public prior to the next meeting.
Bylaws
The board approved the request to revise bylaws, but did not disclose what the revisions included.
Presidential compensation
The board approved a bonus for Whitten totaling $225,000, or 25% of her
annual salary. The board votes on the approval of this bonus annually, Finance and Audit Committee chair Cindy Lucchese said.
Lucchese recommended the board approve the bonus due to Whitten’s performance over the past year, including achievement of university goals and strong leadership — despite faculty voting “no confidence” in her April 2024. Whitten also received a $200,000 raise last February.
Student Relations chair Kyle Seibert cast the only dissenting vote.
“We’re facing significant financial challenges, and we have to reduce benefits for employees,” Seibert said. “We’re asking them to make cuts across the institution. That’s where I struggle with this. For that reason, I will be voting no.” The bonus passed with a vote of 8-1.
Next meeting The board will next convene on Sept. 11 at IU Indianapolis.
IDS reporter Jonathan Frey covered this event live on X, formerly known as Twitter. Go to
IDS FILE PHOTO
IU President Pamela Whitten is pictured at the IU Board of Trustees meeting June 13, 2024, at the Henke Hall of Champions in Bloomington. The Board of Trustees will meet again Thursday, June 12, 2025.
The IU Board of Trustees met Thursday for their first meeting with the newly appointed trustees
JONATHAN FREY | IDS
The Board of Trustees is pictured in Henke Hall June 12. It was the debut appearance for the board’s three newest members — James Bopp Jr., Sage Steele and Brian Eagle.
Omeed Mehrzad (he/him) is a rising junior on the pre-med track studying Political Science/Economics.
On May 29, 2025, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to IU’s new expressive activity policy, UA-10, determining it to be “likely unconstitutional”. The ruling comes after months of opposition to the policy in the form of lawsuits and protests — the latter often occurring in purposeful violation of the policy.
The ruling on UA-10 comes as no surprise to many organizers on campus, as it imposes blatantly overbroad time, place, and manner restrictions on free speech where the First Amendment demands narrow tailoring.
Violating the Constitution of the United States is a serious affront to students, faculty, and staff and to the integrity of this university as a premier public institution of higher education. And as a member of IU Student Government who has worked toward creating a more inclusive, transparent and democratic IU, listening to students guides my philosophy to serve. Therefore, it would truly be a disservice to overlook the pattern of malicious disregard university leaders display for the IU community and pretend these actions are inconsistent with past stances IU leadership has taken.
IU leadership continuously violates their own policies and circumvents the core tenet of shared governance they pledge to uphold — which ensures students, faculty and staff all have a seat at the table — all for the comfort of convenience.
When the kitchen gets hot, the Whitten administration and the Board abandon any notion of what should be the true mission of IU: promoting the public good through transformative education, groundbreaking research and the development of society — all which necessitate academic freedom and freedom of speech — benefiting those in the IU community, state and beyond.
To say these past few years under the Whitten administration have been a disaster for the mission and reputation of IU would be an understatement. It has been demoralizing, frustrating and nearly impossible to watch our institution shrink away from its former legacy as an unflinching heavyweight in the pursuit of knowledge — formerly pioneering the likes of the Kinsey Institute, building the largest foreign language program in the coun-
IU leadership chooses convenience over community
try and taking pride in the free exchange of ideas.
However, with recent unilateral and seemingly fear-driven decisions, Whitten and her administration have shown a frustrating lack of respect for democratic decision-making on campus, often at the expense of the very mission they’re meant to spearhead.
We’ve seen it in the concerning weaponization of and confusion regarding SEA 202 policies, the detrimental cuts to the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society and the alarming centralization slashing through different majors and programs in the name of austerity.
Moreover, a central grievance cited by opponents of Whitten and her administration involves the Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition. Despite the backing of most graduate workers and a supermajority vote in support of recognizing the graduate workers’ union by the Bloomington Faculty Council, the Coalition has failed to gain recognition by the university, prompting IU community members to question the university’s commitment to its students’ well-being and to shared governance.
Additionally, in December 2023, IU administration unilaterally suspended a tenured professor without due process and in violation of IU policy. The suspension came at a time when IU was under pressure by then-Representative and now-Senator Jim Banks to crack down on antisemitic activities on campus — emphasizing the eradication of pro-Palestinian activity.
The same month, IU canceled Palestinian American, IU alum, and former IU ten-
ured professor Samia Halaby’s art exhibit less than 2 months before it was set to open after being planned for 3 years due to vague security concerns and the artist’s pro-Palestinian social media posts. And shamefully, the night before the encampment, IU Provost Rahul Shrivastav convened an ad hoc committee without student input to amend the 1969 Dunn Meadow policy and disallow temporary structures without prior approval, paving the way for the Indiana State Police to intimidate, brutalize, arrest, and trespass dozens of students, faculty, and staff.
In the aftermath of the administration’s catastrophic mishandling of the encampment, in order to maintain control over campus and ensure the cessation of the ongoing encampment and any future encampments, IU administration scrambled to put forth a new expressive activity policy — UA-10. This policy was sent to student leaders across the 9 campuses.
At the time, I was a member of the IU Student Government Congress. We held a meeting discussing each section at length, and in the end we unanimously voted to reject it and noted our recommendations that were to be sent back. The executive branch, then the FUSE administration, also sent out a campus-wide survey that garnered roughly 2,000 responses — most of them negative. All feedback was sent to the administration to review and subsequently revise the policy draft.
Except there was virtually no revision.
The policy draft I read ahead of the congress meet-
I thought AI Would Make My
Aathirai Senthilkumar
Thamaraiselvi (she/her) is a 2025 graduate of IU with a master’s degree in data science.
I’ve always enjoyed the friction of thinking through a challenge. I thrive in the chaos, the creativity, the frustration, and the joy when it finally clicks. It’s the messiness in the middle where I feel most alive. But recently, something shifted. As a data science student, I use AI almost every day. Whether I’m debugging code, creating visualizations, summarizing research papers, or quickly learning to use new tools, I rely on it to accelerate my work and catch mistakes or insights I might have missed. I now solve things faster than ever. But after the job is done, I feel empty. Without the chaos and the struggle, there is no sense of accomplishment. Instead, in that silence, I feel like I’ve lost something that made me deeply human. While I was trying to put these feelings into words, I remembered something chilling from “The ThreeBody Problem,” a sci-fi novel series I like. In the final book, after Earth is destroyed, a spaceship named Gravity carries the last surviving part of humanity in search of a new home. Without a deeper sense of why they are surviving or what makes them human anymore, they begin to lose the will to live. One by one, they die, not from violence or disaster, but from quiet surrender. They become disconnected from the people they once were and the world that gave them meaning. The loss of purpose and belonging slowly wears down their will to live and their sense of what it means to be human. I am not floating in space. But sometimes I feel like I’m in my own version of Gravity. I am doing my
ing was nearly identical to the UA-10 policy that was passed and carried the same fundamental grievances I had with it: the complete restriction on expressive activity from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m., the disallowance of temporary structures without prior approval, the banning of overnight camping and the allowance of police to enforce the policy. The last being directly contrary to a subsection I admired greatly in the 1969 Dunn Meadow policy that forbade the use of physical force as a means of enforcement.
While overnight camping had technically been banned since 1969, it’s clear the policy was rarely, if ever, enforced. IU proudly touts its history of activism with the Vietnam War and Gulf War encampments. But with the past encampment and the impending implementation of UA-10, unpunished overnight camping was undoubtedly to be a thing of the past.
On July 29, 2024, in the name of student safety, IU Board of Trustees Chair Quinn Buckner introduced UA-10. It passed 6-3 after lengthy debate and multiple failed amendments, notably with Student Trustee Kyle Seibert voting against the resolution and offering many of the failed amendments.
Following UA-10’s implementation, testimony from a staff member at a weekly Sample Gates candlelight vigil — organized to mourn free speech at IU — who had been threatened with termination in the case of a second violation of UA-10 still haunts my mind. Many students,
faculty and staff were forced to stand across the street, partaking in the protest from afar, in fear of a citation.
Aside from the candlelight vigils, protests persisted during the allowed hours of 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. But in a bizarre fashion, on April 4, 2025, IU attempted to shut down a pro-Palestinian protest perfectly compliant with UA-10.
Initially, PSC had been told by an administrator that they should register the protest through the tabling system due to speculation IU administration may attempt to quash the rally for not being approved to be at Sample Gates. This request was processed and approved, until the approval was revoked roughly 45 minutes before the start of the protest. While the request was denied, the students went ahead with the protest — as is their right to, guaranteed by the First Amendment.
However, despite demonstrating within the time restrictions, installing no temporary structures, and not materially or substantially disrupting university operations, administrators insisted that the protest was not permissible according to UA-10.
I asked administrators point-blank as to why they were asking the protestors to cease and disperse, to which they replied that since it was a planned protest, as evident by the advertisements on social media a few days in advance, that it needed to be approved by IU.
Then it was found there was no such rule.
And then it was because they were empowered to determine proper time and place restrictions for expressive activity and had done so to shut down the rally. And
then that was found to be fatally misunderstood. And then it was because IU event management policy UA-19 prohibited such a rally. And then that was found to be seriously misrepresented. Each explanation fell apart as quickly as it was given, and students and administrators argued back and forth throughout the protest until the administrators conceded and left. What began as a peaceful protest quickly became a revealing display on how administrative power can be brandished to threaten displays of free speech when left unchallenged.
— It is clear that the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, and staff have not been a priority of this university administration and board of trustees, and it is clear that the input of the IU community has not been duly considered when it comes to issues of academic freedom, freedom of speech and shared governance.
In light of the pausing of the time restrictions of UA-10, IU leaders have the chance to reconsider their approach to free speech on campus as a whole, and the June 12, 2025 IU Board of Trustees meeting will provide leadership the opportunity to do just that, with the agenda set to address changes to UA-10 and Whitten’s salary.
Higher education faces unprecedented threats of dwindling state and federal funding, attacks on DEI initiatives and marginalized students, and barrages against academic freedom and freedom of speech. Now is the time for IU leadership to own up to their mistakes, such as the gravely irresponsible UA-10 policy, and commit to working with all stakeholders of IU by increasing transparency, communication, and shared governance across the 9 campuses.
Standing up for your principles isn’t always easy — sometimes it’s a fight — but maliciously disregarding shared governance, submitting to the increasing corporatization of higher education and bowing to (if not encouraging) political agents aiming to undermine academic freedom and freedom of expression utterly betrays what IU ultimately stands for. It’s time to buck the trend, have the courage to stand up for IU students, faculty, and staff and work towards a public institution truly for, by and of the people.
omehrzad@iu.edu
Life Easier, But It Left Me Empty
work and checking off my to-do lists, but I feel disconnected from the version of myself that used to love problem-solving. The curiosity is fading, and it terrifies me. This makes me ask myself, “Am I losing the part of me that makes me feel human?” Then I wonder, “If AI can now do so many things we once believed only humans could, what’s our role? Where do we fit in this evolving world? What unique value do we still bring?” Some companies now expect their employees to use
AI. Some CEOs have even made it mandatory that hiring will only be considered if AI cannot do the job. We are not just using AI anymore. We are being compared to it. I used to be proud of my ability to think creatively, my curiosity, and my persistence. But now these skills are seen as “less efficient,” a distraction. It is nice to have, but not required. But in a world that values efficiency above all else, it’s easy to forget that some of our most human traits can’t be measured in speed or
productivity. AI doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night with a vague idea it can’t shake. It doesn’t chug caffeine and scribble half-baked thoughts in a notebook, hoping they make sense in the morning. It cannot think outside the box. It reminds me of that one smart kid in school — always top of the class, great at memorizing, and excellent on paper. AI is great at optimizing what’s already out there; but creating something from nothing? Not yet. As AI takes over more of
the work I once took pride in, it forces me to question what intelligence truly means in a world no longer defined by struggle and discovery. I’m left navigating this strange middle ground, where progress demands that I adapt but also threatens the essence of what I once valued. I am not rejecting AI. I am not surrendering to it either. I use it like an editor that takes my original, raw ideas and refines them. I don’t let it write for me. It isn’t my ghostwriter. I don’t feel like it solves my problems completely. It helps me out and even creates polished noise but is super convincing. To me, the struggle is the process. That’s what makes the solution meaningful. I know that AI is here to stay. But every innovation also brings a strange, subtle emotional toll that must be acknowledged. AI hasn’t just changed the way I used to work. It’s making me question what it means to be alive and engaged. As I ask what makes me human in this AIdriven world, I know I am not alone. As we redefine intelligence and what makes us unique, I hold onto this one truth: AI cannot replace the messiness, the struggle, and the soul behind the work. That’s still ours.
aasent@iu.edu
Q&A with Mêlisa Annis, bookwriter of new musical ‘The King’s Wife’
By Sydney Weber syaweber@iu.edu
Note: This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
“The King’s Wife,” a new musical about Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of King Henry VIII of England, premiered June 13 at Constellation Stage and Screen in Bloomington. The Indiana Daily Student spoke with Mêlisa Annis, one of the writers of the show, ahead of its debut.
Annis is a Welsh playwright and director who also serves as an adjunct instructor at New York University. She received a True West Award as the lead writer on “Of Spacious Skies” a radio play series put on by Colorado College.
Sydney Weber: To get started, can you tell me a little bit about why you went with the story of Catherine of Aragon for the musical?
Annis: The interesting thing is, I think it’s easy to think that we’re just telling another Tudor story. Right? There have been so many Tudor tales over the years. There’s all of these other things, but I do feel a little bit like Catherine of Aragon gets short shrift. Partly because of course, she was the first wife, and she was erased almost completely from the history book because he (Henry VIII) needed to get rid of her so that he could move on. But people forget that, actually, they were married for over 20 years. And so even though the majority of our fascination is with Anne Boleyn and with all of the horrific deeds that he did — you know, the murder of the women after that — people forget that actually, there was 20 years of his life that he was with this one woman. And so, a part of the story that we’re telling is: in that 20 years, who were they to each other at the beginning of that time? And then again at the end of that time that they had with each other? So, in 100 minutes, we’re spanning two decades. As you can imagine, only musical theater can do something like that.
Although we are using Catherine of Aragon as the vehicle to tell this story, we are using essentially the archetype of familiar faces to reflect on our own society today. So, although it is the story of Catherine of Aragon, and we do have Anne Boleyn entering the court, and of course we have the king and all the things, trappings, that come with the Tudor court, we are essentially looking at
history through this musical reimagining of the story of Catherine of Aragon, so that we can look at who we are today. (We’re) using those archetypes to try and raise the mirror to some of the problems we have in society, still, even though it’s however many hundreds of years later, right?
And then, of course, in our show, one of the things that was very important to us is that our story is about the women that we never hear about, as opposed to the king that they share. So, they get to take center stage and tell their own stories of power, ambition, sisterhood, heartbreak, hope, all of that sort of stuff, you know?
Weber: Some of those problems of modern times that you alluded to are reflected in the story. What are some of those that you were thinking about during development?
Annis: Well, I think that as an artist, our job is to constantly have our satellite dishes open, our ears open, to what’s happening, and sometimes we’re not even aware of what we’re writing until we’re writing it. And so, it’s been actually very, very interesting to constantly be developing this piece — because we’ve been developing it now over seven years, more or less.
And so, things have come in and out of the musical, but the core of it remains, and that is that sometimes the smartest person in the room is a woman, and she doesn’t get the job. She gets the job done, but she doesn’t get the job, because she’s not a man. So that essentially is a big core part of our story, which is: What is it about this sharing of power, this equitable power, that we struggle with so much? That women are just not getting a portion of the pie? Because it’s not their brains, it’s not anything else other than choices that society makes to say ‘no, no, no, no, you don’t get a right to be at the biggest table’.
And so, it sort of looks at: Well, why is that? And why is it even as far back as 1513, that the most extraordinary woman, from a dynasty of extraordinary people who did extraordinary things in Spain, comes to England and essentially is not only sidelined but erased from much of our history? And so, that is a big, big part of the story.
And then, of course, there is this idea of, you know, how society treats the female body and freedom of choice. And so, Anne Boleyn comes in with ideas that she can have some sort of freedom of choice. And then she quickly
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realizes, ‘Oh, we are here,’ for lack of a better word, ‘to birth an heir. That is my role. And if I want to move forward in my role, I have to achieve this one thing, that I have no power or control over, to give a male heir, to have a voice.’ And so, it all comes back to this idea of: Gosh, why is it one rule for one and another for another? It just, you know, it’s the constant question that we as women ask, I think in society: Why can’t we all play by the same rules?
Weber: You mentioned that development of this has taken seven years. What has that process looked like?
Annis: Well, there’s a lot of heartbreak. I actually wrote the script first. I wrote the play of it first, and then our producer Jennifer Kranz with Rosalind Productions, she discovered Jamie’s work. Jamie Floyd is a Nashville writer. She writes a lot of great songs for a lot of great people. What Jamie does so beautifully is she’s a wonderful storyteller, but she also captures the emotion of a moment so beautifully, and with a hook. So, we discovered that, gosh, we can really push this feeling of a contemporary retelling of a story using Jamie’s superpower, which is pulling at the heartstrings.
Jamie and I really just kind of spoke to each other about ‘Well, what are the things that are important to us, for us to say?’ And Jamie and I are very, very different women. You couldn’t get two more different people if you tried it, she and I. And yet we came together on this feeling of, we both know what it is to be marginalized in rooms. We both know what it is to try and have to speak up for ourselves when others perhaps have a much louder voice and can step on ours. So, we have these similar experiences, and we just basically played in the sandbox from there on.
With us working with each other for a little while, the pandemic hit, and that was very hard because I was in New York City and she was in Nashville. We experienced being separate and writing a musical when you’re that far away from each other and when you think the world is coming to an end. Our respective industries closed down, hers being music and mine of course being theater; it was just a very troubling time. And so, we really had to reassess once we sort of came back together: ‘Who are we now?’ Because who we were pre the pandemic and who we were post the pandemic had shifted. And then we looked at
the script and we thought: ‘Well, that is exactly what these characters have gone through.’ Huge shifts, you know, in their lives and huge traumas that they’re expected to just move forward regardless. But actually, the world shifts with these major events. And so, there’s one moment in the first act, where Catherine of Aragon is — not to give too much away — but she is pregnant with her fifth child, and she still hasn’t produced a male heir for the king. Of course, she has a beautiful young daughter who’s perfectly capable of taking over the throne, but she doesn’t count. So, she’s pregnant, she’s late in her 30s at this point and she thinks that she probably won’t make it through this last birthing.
And so that moment in the musical became so clear to us that ‘That’s the shift in the show.’ And so, we start at the beginning of the show in this crazy Tudor romp, where it’s almost cartoon-like. The archetypes are at their fullest at the top of the show. And then at this final loss of her final child, everything shifts, as if the reality hits. The world has changed, and it’s almost like we go into a sort of, for lack of a better word, almost like a grayscale version of the show, where they’re all trying to figure out, how do they move forward from this moment?
Our first reading was at Playwrights Horizons in New York City, and then we were lucky enough to be able to go to the Adirondack Theatre Festival, after that. We had four performances with three glorious days there of sold-out performances of another reading, which taught us so much about what we were doing. Every time we have an audience, we learn so much. And then we were at Paramount just a couple of months ago just outside of Chicago, in Aurora, Illinois, where we learnt again with a new cast. And just being with Constellation in Bloomington for the last week has been the biggest growing experience for the show, because now we’re finally staging it for the first time. And anybody of your readers who is a playwright, or musical theater writer, will know that you don’t know anything until you have bodies on stage, moving around. And so, Jamie and I have been deep in rewrites every day this week. And we’re so grateful for Constellation to give us this opportunity to play, form and to learn from your audiences here in Indiana. Weber: How did it come
about that it was going to be at Constellation and Bloomington, Indiana for the world premiere of this musical?
Annis: Well, you guys have a great theater here. I think that there’s this very elitist idea that theater only happens in New York City, and maybe occasionally in Atlanta and California and of course, Canada. We don’t want to have polarized audiences, right? And it’s so helpful to actually take a story around, like the old troubadours used to do back in the day, to take a story around and see what’s resonating with different audiences. And you here in Bloomington, have such a great variety of audiences. So just looking at Constellation, you know, they’re challenging people; they’re putting entertaining stories out there, as well as putting new ideas, putting new plays out there. And developing new plays and developing new musicals is a difficult, difficult thing to do. Trust me, you don’t do it for the money. And so, when Constellation approached us because we had won the Woodward Newman Prize for the script, when they approached us to do the first production, we just thought: ‘Yes, that’s exactly what we need to do. We need to learn.’ Chad, the artistic director, has been fantastic with giving us thoughts and notes and helping us realize this dream. It was one of those things where all of the pieces came together at the right place at the right time. And that place happened to be Bloomington, Indiana. And so, it’s great for me as a woman from Wales who has never been to Indiana; I get to experience a whole new part of the country, which is lovely.
Weber: Is there any way in which you can see how your background as a Welsh woman has really influenced how the show came about or what it’s like?
Annis: I think that politics is a very complicated thing, right? And international politics are very complicated. However, when a producer came to me with this idea, the one thing I knew I had in bucket loads was experience of being around the Tudors. Being born in Britain, you know, we’re surrounded by castles. It’s a big part of our history. Everyone goes to Hampton Court on a school trip, and I’ve probably been there six times at this point. Our whole show is actually set in the Great Hall. And the way that we’ve staged all the scenes because, as you know, being in the Great Hall, there’s all those eaves-
droppers. There’s always people listening. And there are doorways everywhere. It really has that feeling of ‘you can’t have any private moments.’ There’s someone listening at all times. And that was something that I really discovered in Hampton Court recently when I was there last year. Again, that it was a very exciting thing, to never know who’s listening. But to go back to your question, we are surrounded by Tudor history in Britain. And so that was a very easy thing for me to plug into as a person. But I also have a bittersweet connection with the Tudors too, because I am Welsh and they were Welsh. They were the last reigning Welsh royal family that have been on the throne. But I think that that connection at least allowed me to think, as a Welsh person who’s always felt somewhat colonized by the English, ‘What is it to feel that precarious insecurity of: I need to secure something to prove my worthiness?’ And so, I really, really identified with that feeling, weirdly, that Henry had, of ‘I need a son because I need an heir to continue the legitimacy of my life.’ And I think sometimes as a minority culture, you’re constantly trying to prove yourself. And sometimes we do stupid things and sometimes we do great things, but sometimes we do stupid things just to say, ‘Hey, I’m worthy.’ And so that really spoke to me. But ultimately, what I was really interested in is once I sort of dove into the story of Catherine of Aragon, was this woman who was born in a family that essentially ended up colonizing the world. And the power that she had coming to England, which was a teeny tiny little country that was not yet an empire and did not become an empire until Elizabeth the First, essentially. And so, just sort of this idea of these extraordinary women from these extraordinary, powerful places that have been put into, you know, big hoopskirts and caged and put into corners. When actually, we need to remember that they were a big part of the history of not only America, but other countries, too, be it good or bad, because it’s very complicated. Just like I said, with my history of the Tudors, it’s very complicated, but it is endlessly fascinating. And I think that’s why the story remains, is because it is just endlessly fascinating to think, ‘Gosh, we are repeating so many of the same things in the past. Why? Why is that?’
COLUMN: “The Phoenician Scheme” is a fun but forgettable picture
By Joey Sills sillsj@iu.edu
Wes Anderson has always been fascinated by dysfunctional families. He’s come back to the subject again and again — most profoundly, perhaps, in his early triumph “The Royal Tenenbaums” — and “The Phoenician Scheme,” the director’s 12th and most recent featurelength picture, might be his most elaborate take on the subject.
The film could be most accurately compared to “Tenenbaums” in its precise focus on one family unit, but it also contains all the usual trappings of his later-period output. It’s an espionage tale set in the mid-20th century in a faraway country in the eastern Mediterranean. It’s set against the backdrop of a political struggle, which repeatedly rears its head into the main narrative. Anderson asks questions about religion and muses on all the philosophical uncertainties of life that come with it.
Unfortunately, what we’re left with is a film which never justifies its convolution and seems to believe it’s something much deeper than it actually is.
The plot follows Zsa-Zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro), a wealthy and infamous arms dealer with a penchant for surviving a slew of assassination attempts. After a harrowing plane crash, he attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who be-
came a nun after Korda sent her to a convent after her mother’s mysterious death. She wants answers to the mystery, and he wants her to be his sole heir.
Korda’s attempts to meet and deal with investors for a plan to completely overhaul the economy of Phoenicia with slave labor drive the narrative. His estranged brother, Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch), is both one of those investors and the man whom Korda believes killed Liesl’s mother — even though everyone else be-
lieves it was Korda himself. Throughout the film, he involves himself, to varying degrees, with communist revolutionaries, monarchical royalty, foreign spies and the angelic residents of an afterlife that may or may not be real.
Anderson’s plots are something akin to a Rube Goldberg machine, circuitous displays of whimsical complexity that ultimately harbor some very specific, grounded topics. But Anderson’s film seems much more delighted simply to wallow in
the aesthetics of these topics than to actually say anything meaningful about them. Mid-century guerrilla freedom fighters sermonizing about class struggle, or Liesl debating Catholic doctrine with her father, are fanciful images, but it’s always unclear what Anderson thinks about them or whether he thinks anything at all. In Anderson’s directorial philosophy, style comes before everything, to the point where his name has become a byword for a particular sort of quirky, twee aesthetic
that’s only become more and more extravagant as he’s gotten older. Many of his recent movies, which have increasingly taken place across the Atlantic Ocean, owe a significant debt to the French New Wave, but it’s hard to argue that Anderson has taken anything from the movement besides its stylistic proclivities. A scene like the famous nine-minute tracking shot of a traffic jam in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 film “Weekend” might seem especially Andersonian by today’s standards, but there’s little doubt
about the sort of revolutionary social and political points Godard was making when he achieved it. This isn’t to say I have any beef with Anderson’s style per se — if his films are anything, they’re completely earnest, and his obsession with things like symmetry and a pale color spectrum are just part of who he is. It’s just the fact his style has become something closer to a gilded veneer that is the issue. It’s true that “The Phoenician Scheme” is a fun enough movie, and I don’t necessarily dislike it, but I just wish it were less dull as I began to scratch away the surface. I was hoping for something much better, considering how tremendous “Asteroid City,” Anderson’s last film, was. With that movie, Anderson seemed to be saying, “I’m at the point in my career where my style needs to be increasingly metatextual and self-aware both to continue to evolve and to say anything at all.” Unfortunately, with “The Phoenician Scheme,” it seems this plan has totally screeched to a halt. I’m so glad that inventive filmmakers like him still exist, and anything he creates is going to have more heart and soul than your average Hollywood assembly line slop. But, for an artist so intent on grabbing our attention, perhaps the worst thing about “The Phoenician Scheme” is the fact it’s so forgettable.
COLUMN: Swift summer: Lyrical storytelling and ‘Folklore’ 5 years later
By Stella Klaus ssklaus@iu.edu
As the five-year anniversary to Taylor Swift’s album “folklore” approaches — her first of two original releases in 2020 —Swift is once again in the spotlight; purchasing the rights to the master recordings of her first six albums, after re-recording four of them.
Starting in 2021, Swift began re-recording her first six albums after her old record label, Big Machine Records, who owned the original recordings of her songs, sold them to a private equity group owned by music manager Scooter Braun. He later sold to another company, Shamrock Holdings, without Swift’s knowledge. Swift earned royalties as songwriter for the first six albums but did not have publishing rights. Swift also claimed that Braun had bullied her and that, when he owned the albums, wouldn’t allow her to perform any live at her 2019 American Music Awards performance.
Swift has been very outspoken about why she decided to remake her first six albums; she believes artists should own their own work because they are the only ones who truly know what it’s about. Now, she finally does.
“I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening,” Swift said in a letter published to her website May 29. “I really get to say these words: All of the music I’ve ever made... now belongs... to me.” Swift also briefly mentioned the awaited release of “Reputation (Taylors Version)” and “Debut (Taylors Version).” She states that some unreleased songs from the “Reputation” era and a re-recorded “Debut” are not out of the picture and could
be released at the right time. As Swift celebrates the rightful ownership of every “era” that was once taken from her, the anniversary of one of her most individualistic albums approaches.
“folklore” was released, as a surprise to fans, July 24, 2020, as her eighth studio album. The album featured 16 songs and was different from her other albums, both because of the more indie genre and its fictional storytelling. With a darker tone than her previous album “Lover,” “folklore” dove into a more alternative and indie folk/pop genre.
Being released in 2020, “folklore” was Swift’s COVID-19 album. She wrote the songs during quarantine, shaping up into an album quickly. As recording studios closed due to quarantines, Swift decided to make a studio in her house where she recorded the album.
In contrast to her previous albums, “folklore,” as previously mentioned, explores more fictional story telling than stories about her actual life. One of the stories she dives into in this album is the teen love triangle, as fans like to call it.
A love triangle between the fictional characters Betty, James and Augustine is told through three songs on the album from each characters’ perspectives. “betty” has always jumped out as having a clear storytelling aspect. However, if you dive a little deeper into some of her other songs you can learn about how they are connected and what other stories they tell.
The entirety of the song “betty” is told from the perspective of James, a high schooler who has just lost the supposed love of his life because of a mistake he made one summer. The premise of “betty” is that James is apologizing to his girlfriend, Betty, for cheat-
ing on her. “betty” has a very high school vibe to it and focuses mainly on why James thinks Betty is mad at him and how he hopes to get her back.
“cardigan” is a song that is a little less clear on the premise of the story. The song, however, is from Betty’s perspective and Swift said she believes that it is an older, more matured Betty reflecting on what happened in high school. It highlights Betty’s feelings of being tossed to the side “like an old cardigan” and being treated poorly by James.
There are a few parallels between “betty” and “cardigan” that reveal their connection. The few obvious ones being the mention of a cardigan in “betty” and both songs mentioning walking on cobblestones. The biggest parallel between the songs “though” are lyrics “I’m only seventeen, I don’t know anything” in “betty” and “When you are young, they assume you know nothing” in “cardigan.” James is obviously saying that he was young and didn’t know what he was doing. As Betty reflects, she realizes that James knew exactly what he was doing because high schoolers aren’t so naive.
Another layer of the story that Swift revealed is that she believes James and Betty ended up together. The line in “cardigan” that makes this outcome more evident to the listener is “But I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss, I knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs.” It portrays this idea that Betty feels like if she didn’t forgive James and try again, he would always be in the back of her mind as a “what-if.”
After hearing Betty’s perspective, it would be safe to conclude that whoever this “other woman” James cheated on Betty with is some bad girl with bad intentions; but then you listen to “august.”
In an interview Swift said people would think Augustine is a bad girl because she is the other woman but really, she isn’t. She’s a sensitive teenager who really fell for James and this is revealed through the song. Swift believes that the narrative that there is always a “villain girl” who takes your man is a myth because in reality everyone has feelings.
Many other lyrics reveal Augustine’s sensitivity, like “I remember thinking I had you.” She also mentions thinking he would call and wishing he were hers in “august” countless times.
“betty,” “cardigan” and “august” are the only three songs Swift has confirmed are about the triangle; however, fans have theorized how other songs on the album could be related.
“illicit affairs” tells the story of an affair and could probably be from Augus-
tine’s perspective as she tells the tale of her and James sneaking around. “tolerate it” is theorized to be from Betty’s perspective as a girl who puts more into the relationship but doesn’t get the same love in return.
“exile” is another good example of a song that could be related. It tells the story of a guy who can’t get over a girl and still believes they will end up together, but the girl is angry because her ex won’t let her move on. This song doesn’t really support the theory that James and Betty ended up together but could still be related to the situation — in high school James wasn’t over Betty, but Betty was probably angry at him for some time.
Personally, I don’t think that Swift intentionally wrote the other songs to expand on the love triangle and was instead writing about different fictional sto-
ries. But it is cool to be able to connect the story of the love triangle to other songs and it is fun for fans to be able to come up with their own stories about how each song could theoretically be connected. That is the fun thing about an album that tells stories whether fictional or not.
Even after five years and multiple new albums released, “folklore” stands out as a prime example of Swift’s storytelling. While “folklore does share similarities with Swift’s follow up album “evermore” released December 2020 the more whimsical spring and summer vibes of “folklore” have always stood out to me. And though sShe has definitely reverted back to her autobiographical storytelling after the two pandemic albums though and I would love to see more albums like “folklore” from Swift.
Orbit Room hosts “Cosmic Songwriter” show to kick off Granfalloon
By Maxine Cain maxcain@iu.edu
Three pairs of musicians who were strangers before they stepped on stage performed as duos Wednesday June 4 to kick off this year’s Granfalloon Music festival.
Granfalloon is an annual arts and culture festival presented by Indiana University’s Arts and Humanities Council inspired by the work of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. The festival consists of four days of concerts, literary readings, visual art exhibits, and film screenings interpreting and commenting on his life’s work.
The event was hosted by The Cosmic Songwriter, a nonprofit organization founded in 2021 to provide a collaborative environment for musicians from across the country in Bloomington. They operate on what they call the “cosmic format”, where performers who were strangers before sharing the stage alternate playing songs, bantering back and forth, and sharing the stories behind their work.
“This format is unusual, and it’s out there,” Cosmic songwriter cofounder Sean McDermott said. “The songwriters really discover each other, and they have to break
their own rhythm to do that. It causes something fresh to happen that the audience catches on to.”
He said songwriters always ultimately begin to play off each other. Sometimes it becomes a rivalrous game of one-upping each other, but more often the chemistry emerges and they form a long-term connection. Through the Cosmic songwriter organization, musicians have been able to collaborate on tracks, help each other find gigs, network in new groups and even form bands and partnerships.
After Rachel Swain performed her song “Harris
County” about her mother’s death, her coperformer Will Griffith looked over at her with admiration and said, “We’re going to be friends for a long time.”
“I knew it as soon as I saw your hat.” she responded. They bonded about their southern roots and both are currently on tour.
“There’s things that happen on stage that would never otherwise happen,” Cofounder Pablo “Oso Blues” Fuentes said.
Swain played one of her songs for the very first time live, which is common for artists to do in the Cosmic format. It is designed to cre-
ate a welcoming, forgiving environment for artists to showcase brand-new work.
“I think they feel like, ‘I’ve got a buddy and I can take the risk to perform something new.’”. McDermott said. Two months ago, the Cosmic Songwriter hosted Grammy award winning songwriter and poet Carry Newcomber, who shared two brand new songs that had never been performed or released.
As well as Grammy winners, the Cosmic Songwriter supports musicians who have never performed before. Laura Switzer performed her original mu-
sic for the first time, as she shared the stage with Ross DeLong. They broke the ice with a quick game of rock paper scissors to see who had to go first. DeLong lost and started off with his song Wednesday Joe.
“I just totally did not expect my songs and her songs to mesh so well, so that was really exciting — to be able to dialogue with one another like that” DeLong said. The event ended around 9:30 pm, but all of the musicians and most of the audience stayed around to chat, exchange numbers, and purchase merchandise, records, or another round of drinks.
MOVIE STILLS DATABASE
The cast of “The Phoenician Scheme” is pictured in a scene from the film. Directed by Wes Anderson, “The Phoenician Scheme” was released May 30, 2025.
TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE
Taylor Swift’s album “folklore” was released in July 2020. The album features three songs that Swift refers to as the “Teenage Love Triangle.”
Trey Galloway taking Indiana basketball lessons to NBA draft workouts
By Daniel Flick danflick@iu.edu | @ByDanielFlick
Trey Galloway etched his name into Indiana men’s basketball history with a record-setting 140 career appearances. He’s one of 56 Hoosiers to eclipse 1,000 points and he’s seventh alltime at Indiana with 433 assists.
But on June 4, his name appeared elsewhere: A videoboard in the Golden State Warriors’ media room, surrounded by logos for the Warriors and Chase Bank.
On a chair in front of the board, the former Hoosier guard answered questions for over 10 minutes, reflecting on the heights of his five years in Bloomington and the promising yet uncertain path ahead.
Galloway, who completed his fourth workout of the 2025 NBA pre-draft process, believes his past helped ready him for the road ahead.
“Being able to handle all the pressure that comes with playing at IU is important — I think that’s really prepared me for this step,” Galloway said. “(The NBA) is an even
bigger stage, but I think IU, for the platform they have, it’s a big brand. So, I think just being able to play for such a prestigious college was very helpful for me.”
The Culver, Indiana, native started 86 games for the Hoosiers, including 76 over the past three years. He finished his career with an average of 7.3 points, 3.1 assists and 2.4 rebounds per game.
Galloway scored a careerhigh 10.6 points per game as a senior in 2023-24, and he accepted the NCAA-granted extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic to return to Bloomington for the 2024-25 season. He started 20 of 32 games, riding the highs and lows of a trying season that generated boos toward both he and his team from the Hoosier faithful.
Then-Indiana head coach Mike Woodson, who stepped down at the end of the season but coached Galloway for the last four years, said March 8 he wants Galloway to be remembered at Indiana for his hard-nosed, competitive nature.
Woodson and Galloway aren’t done with each other
yet. Galloway’s next workout is with the Sacramento Kings, whose coaching staff Woodson joined in May.
But even with teams Galloway didn’t have ties to previously, he feels he’s shot the ball well and had successful workouts through his first four showings.
“Each workout has been good, and just really been able to get some good feedback on what I continue to improve on and what I can do,” Galloway said.
That feedback centers on consistent shooting — he battled inconsistency at Indiana, shooting 46.2% from 3-point range in 2022-23 but failing to shoot better than 33% in any of his other four seasons — along with guarding at a high level and playing off the ball. He added teams like the versatility he learned playing different roles at Indiana, be it a distribution-based point guard, downhill scorer or spot-up shooter.
But Galloway is also trying to prove he’s better than the last time he removed his candy stripes. The 6-foot5, 205-pound guard has worked with Indianapolis
trainer Jason Smeathers since early April, and he has subsequently elevated his skills to a level he thinks is NBA-caliber.
“I’ve really seen some improvements in my game,” Galloway said. “I think I’ve really prepared myself to have a chance.”
Galloway used the end of his college career as motivation. Indiana entered the NCAA Tournament selection show squarely on the bubble but largely projected to make the field. Instead, the Hoosiers were the second team left out of the NCAA Tournament.
When the full 68-team field was announced and Indiana was excluded, it not only ended Indiana’s season, but Galloway’s time in Bloomington.
“With how the year ended for me, I think that has really helped me as a player and as a person continue to grow,” Galloway said. “That hunger has continued to grow even more, because obviously it was a very hard ending.”
While emotionally challenging, Galloway’s season closed with less physical
MEN’S BASKETBALL
pain than the prior year. Gal-
loway missed Indiana’s twogame run in the 2024 Big Ten men’s basketball tournament, all of summer workouts and part of fall practice due to a knee injury suffered March 10, 2024, against Michigan State. Consequently, Galloway didn’t get to work on his game. He started slow last season, scoring 6 points or less in five of the Hoosiers’ first six contests. This summer, Galloway, who’s healthy and unbothered by classes, has ample time.
Galloway has focused on shooting the ball and working through different movements. In his free time, he watches film of professional players and tunes into the NBA Playoffs. Galloway specifically looks for players who fill roles similar to the one he’ll receive at the next level, noting their shot selection. He wants to be a threat from 3-point range, whether he’s catching and shooting or shooting on the move.
But amid perhaps the biggest basketball-related job interviews he’s had thus far, Galloway is trying not to lose perspective. He’s
spoken with several former Hoosiers who have gone through the pre-draft process, including forwards Trayce-Jackson Davis, Race Thompson and Miller Kopp. Their message? Appreciate the opportunity at hand.
“Obviously, it is a grind, and a lot of those conversations are just continuously telling me to really enjoy the process and take it all in,” Galloway said. “Because each workout was a learning experience, and it’s a chance for me to grow and continue to grow my game and take these valuable lessons that I learned from each team.” But no place taught Galloway more than Indiana. The two-time Hoosier captain enjoys reflecting on the memories he made and the growth he experienced. After all, he takes it everywhere he goes.
“I think it’s going to continue wherever I end up playing,” Galloway said about the lessons learned at Indiana. “It’s going to continue to help me grow. And just having that level of intensity and the passion Indiana had, I think it’s really, really helped me a lot.”
DeVries rebuilt Indiana basketball’s roster
By Daniel Flick
danflick@iu.edu | @ByDanielFlick
BORDEN, Ind. —
Darian DeVries has more resembled a tour guide than a head basketball coach in his first two-plus months leading the Indiana men’s basketball program, but his efforts produced a roster he feels can compete this season.
DeVries doesn’t know the heights his first Hoosier squad can reach. Indiana has 11 players currently signed to its roster with its first practice looming June 2, and DeVries said he’ll know much more about the strengths and weaknesses of his team as summer progresses.
The 50-year-old DeVries, who spoke with reporters May 28 at Huber’s Winery in Borden, Indiana, for an NIL event, likes how the Hoosiers’ roster projects.
“I think we got great depth in shooting the basketball, which is a priority for us,” DeVries said. “I think, for the most part, we got good positional size at a lot of spots. At center, we’re a little smaller, but every other spot I think we got some great size. And I think overall we’ve got great depth.” DeVries, whose rosterbuilding philosophy places an emphasis on high school recruiting and retention, had to craft Indiana’s roster primarily through the transfer portal. Left with no returning players, DeVries retained one high school recruit — four-star forward Trent Sisley — while adding 10 transfers.
The Hoosiers signed six seniors in guards Lamar Wilkerson, Tayton Conerway and Conor Enright and forwards Tucker DeVries, Reed Bailey and Sam Alexis. They also
added junior guard Jason Drake and wings Jasai Miles and Nick Dorn, along with sophomore forward Josh Harris.
Five of Indiana’s 10 transfers shot at least 35% from 3-point range last season, while three — Wilkerson, Tucker DeVries and Bailey — eclipsed 40%.
The Hoosiers collectively shot 32.1% from distance last season, which ranked third-worst in the Big Ten. However, what Indiana gains in shooting will be lost in size. After rostering six players 6-foot-9 or taller last season, they enter 2025 with only one. The 6-foot10 Bailey will be the closest thing to a true center for the Hoosiers following Oumar Ballo’s departure.
Darian DeVries ac knowledged Indiana is un dersized and may not have high-end rim protection defensively, but he noted there are several ways to protect the rim that don’t include blocking shots.
The Hoosiers’ roster is built more on versatil ity and shooting than sheer size and physicality, a no table difference from pre vious head coach Mike Woodson’s tenure. Wood son valued inside-out of fenses with a post-heavy style. DeVries wants to play more up-tempo and hit shots from the perimeter.
Still, DeVries likes In diana’s interior pieces in Bailey and a pair of 6-foot-8 players in Harris and Alexis. DeVries admitted there will be nights the Hoosiers are undersized defen sively, but he said size doesn’t always dictate effectiveness in the paint — mind set does. He believes his group’s mindset can help offset any height or weight deficiencies. “I feel really good about
the five,” DeVries said. “I like the guys we have. I think they fit how we want to play offensively especially. I think they have the ability to really have the ball in their hands and be facilitators and playmakers.”
Indiana still has two scholarships available, which DeVries implied will go to senior wing Luke Goode and guard Anthony Leal, each of whom played for the Hoosiers last season. Goode and Leal are awaiting news from the NCAA on waivers to receive another year of eligibility.
“That’s why we’ve kind of held back a couple scholarships here, trying to see where this process
and Enright — have been with DeVries previously.
DeVries said the biggest challenge he faced building his roster was ensuring each player aids his goal of establishing an early identity for his tenure. With short recruiting windows and the pressure to add pieces to his team, DeVries had to gauge character quickly in his interactions with recruits, be it getting food or showing them around campus.
Toss in the extensive process of filling out his coaching staff, and DeVries was in an uphill battle with a high-pressure time crunch. He said he didn’t take any shortcuts and tried
recruiting, watching these kids come through the high school ranks, go through the college ranks,” DeVries said. “And there’s always somebody you can touch that has a really good feel for what the kid’s about.”
DeVries will get more time than usual to learn about his team this summer.
NCAA rules restrict coaches to four hours of skill-related instructions per week, but with Indiana playing three games in August in Puerto Rico, the Hoosiers get 10 additional practices.
The opportunity expands the window for DeVries to watch film and instill principles within his players. Perhaps most
Hoosiers time to jell, an invaluable asset for a roster full of players who currently know little about one another.
Indiana’s new-look team hasn’t yet made its first fullsquad appearance in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. It hasn’t held a team meeting. Players won’t arrive until this weekend. But after two months of phone calls with players and giving tours of a town he doesn’t fully know, DeVries is optimistic Indiana has the assets necessary to win in his first season.
“I think overall on paper, I like the balance we have,” DeVries said. “I think there’s a lot of things we can play to
TRINITY MACKENZIE | IDS
Former Indiana guard Trey Galloway points at the shot clock in a game against Ohio State on March
2025, inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington. Galloway etched his name into Indiana men’s basketball history with a record-setting 140 career appearances.
