Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith and Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales had a belated brainstorm.
They decided to have Indiana partner with Turning Point USA to proselytize MAGA-style conservative values in Hoosier high schools and on the state’s college campuses—and pump up voter registration.
Braun touted the new relationship as a sign of his administration’s commitment to preserving free speech in Indiana schools. He said letting Turning Point USA, the organization led by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, loose in our state’s classrooms would open up dialogue and debate — and that his administration was all in favor of that.
He even managed to say all that with a straight face.
It is hard to take Braun, Beckwith and Morales seriously in many contexts, but it’s particularly difficult to do so when they present themselves as defenders of free expression and fair play.
Beckwith, after all, didn’t even wait for his inauguration to start threatening everyone with whom he disagreed with the loss of government funding—just because they disagreed with him.
He had a particular focus on schools. He blustered that Indiana University’s Indiana Daily Student newspaper should have its budget curtailed because it dared to publish some material unflattering to President Donald Trump.
And he went after an Indiana high school because, headed into one of his highly partisan and often spectacularly ill-informed appearances at the school, many parents said they would prefer their children not be subjected to Beckwith’s pettifogging. The school withdrew its invitation to him, then—after Beckwith whined—extended it once again.
There are at least a couple of things that are intriguing about Beckwith’s posturing.
The first is that he greatly overestimates his place in the universe. If he thinks the Indiana lieutenant governor—one of the more insignificant offices ever devised — has the power to do anything unilaterally, he must have skipped astronomy class when he was young.
If he didn’t, the notion that the planets revolve around the sun and not him must have provided him with such an unpleasant shock that his mind completely blanked out the unwelcome knowledge.
The second is that, when Beckwith served on the Hamilton Southeast Public Library Board, he was part of a campaign to keep people from reading books with which he disagreed.
(Sensing a theme here?)
In that instance, Beckwith wanted to empower people with whom he agreed to decide what others should read and hear. Those folks were allowed to express their disapproval regarding certain kinds of thought and expression.
But the high school parents who didn’t want their kids listening to Beckwith?
Not so much.
And Morales?
Well, he’s spent most of his time in office working with Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita trying to purge the state’s voter rolls of enfranchised citizens who can’t be counted on to vote Republican.
Morales is as dedicated to principles of fair play as the gamblers who fixed the 1919 World Series were.
That said, I don’t object to the state letting Turning Point USA into our schools.
Provided, that is, that they open the door to all other organizations dedicated to advocating for a particular political or ideological point of view.
If the governor and the lieutenant governor really, truly think that Indiana’s high school and college students need more honest debate, then let’s, by all means, give them that debate.
It would be good for young minds to hear Beckwith and, say, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, square off and argue the issues.
Doing so would honor the reason the founders of this state and nation committed to having government fund education. They saw public schools as an investment. They wanted Indiana’s and America’s classrooms to be breeding grounds for citizens armed with the knowledge they needed to govern themselves.
Part of that knowledge involved sorting through conflicting points of view to find one that reflected their beliefs.
If Mike Braun, Micah Beckwith and Diego Morales are committed to doing that — committed to inviting Move On or the Lincoln Project into Indiana schools along with Turning Point USA—then they would be on firm ground constitutionally and ethically.
But if that’s not what they’re interested in, then please spare us all the talk about making America great again.
I don’t know what they’re trying to make great, but it sure isn’t America.