During my second week as the new executive director of the ACLU of Indiana, I found myself in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee testifying against Senate Bill 17, an online age verification bill supporters claim is aimed at preventing minors from accessing pornography.

You can imagine how popular that made me with the other parents of teenagers in my neighborhood. Nonetheless, the position was the right one to take to protect the Constitutional rights of Hoosier adults.

The bill passed the legislature, was signed by the governor, and was scheduled to take effect this week. Fast forward to last Friday, when Pornhub, the most visited pornography website in the United States (and the country’s 10th most visited website of any kind) blocked access to its site in Indiana because of our state’s age-verification law. In announcing their plans, Pornhub’s parent company explained in a statement, “Any regulations that require hundreds of thousands of adult sites to collect significant amounts of highly sensitive personal information is putting user safety in jeopardy.”

Led by the Free Speech Coalition, Pornhub, other websites, and individual performers filed suit against the state. Late last week, US District Court Judge Richard Young put Senate Enrolled Act 17 on hold because he found that it was “likely facially unconstitutional under the First Amendment. In other words, it is likely the law is unconstitutional in toto.”

The ACLU of Indiana strongly agrees with this decision. The First Amendment doesn’t just protect a speaker, but also those who want to hear what someone is saying. And in the case of constitutional protections, “speech” is interpreted broadly to include video productions, including pornography. Protecting free speech is not a theoretical exercise. Today, local and state government officials in Indiana are threatening free speech in our libraries, schools, universities, public spaces, and online. 

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Because of decisions by our state’s elected officials, administrators at Indiana University, and city councilmembers in Loogootee, the ACLU of Indiana is in the heat of #FreeSpeechSummer, and it’s not even July. Collectively, we are litigating three new cases protecting Hoosiers’ speech.
 
In March, Indiana created a new law that seeks to curtail the free speech rights and academic freedom of our public university and college faculty. The law, purported to support free inquiry and expression, does the opposite by governing the content of faculty’s instruction, including pressuring them to cover fringe and disproven theories to avoid termination, demotion, and salary reduction among other disciplinary actions.
 
The ACLU of Indiana filed suit on behalf of four professors who believe the statute interferes with their free speech. One of the plaintiffs, Steven Carr, is a Professor of Communication at Purdue-Fort Wayne. He also directs the Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Carr is suing, in part, because he believes the law would force him to cover theories that challenge the scope and causes of the Holocaust.
 
Despite our lawsuit, the law will go into effect on July 1, 2024. Because classes are largely out of session during the summer, the law should have little effect right away. And we are hopeful that the court will rule on our petition for a preliminary injunction in early August before fall classes start.
 
Our second suit is against Indiana University because administrators there abruptly changed a long-standing campus policy overnight. The change was made to apparently stifle pro-Palestinian protests planned for Dunn Meadow, a well-recognized venue for free speech on campus. State and campus police were called in the morning of the protest to aggressively enforce the new policy. More than 50 people were arrested over three days, and arrested protesters were subsequently banned from campus for one year. We sued on behalf of three of those arrested because the bans infringe on their right to return to future protests in Dunn Meadow.
 
In a sign of how misplaced the initial arrests and bans were, Monroe County’s Prosecuting Attorney declined to prosecute in all but one case. And most protestors have had their bans rescinded by University Police. Our case continues, though, because no one’s ability to exercise their First Amendment rights should be contingent upon the whim of a government employee or elected official.
 
And if you think free speech infringements are limited to college campuses, the City of Loogootee is out to prove you wrong. Residents of Loogootee and the surrounding area successfully hosted an LGBTQ Pride Celebration on the town’s Public Square in 2023. And, when they applied for a permit to host another one in 2024, it was originally granted.
 
Then, the organizer’s permit was invalidated by a newly passed ordinance that gave Loogootee too much discretion in approving events. The organizers submitted a new permit application in February of this year in compliance with the new ordinance. Their application has languished, unapproved for months despite being an agenda item for several council meetings. Earlier this month, a third special event application process was adopted via another ordinance. We are suing because we believe both ordinances include several constitutional problems. And, given that another event in town is moving forward unhindered, it’s clear to us that the city is targeting the Pride Celebration because of the purpose of the event. 
 
And that is what ties these three cases together. Someone in a position of power doesn’t like what someone else is saying and is using the power of the government – our collective power – to chill or silence that speech. This abuse of government authority is wrong and makes us weaker as a state and a democracy. As we have for over 70 years, the ACLU of Indiana will fight for free speech when it is under attack.