"Trans People Belong Here:" Ball State University Professor Leo Caldwell Speaks Out on LGBTQ+ Event Cancellations, Preemptive Compliance

   

     MUNCIE, Ind. - On the third floor of Ball State's Arts and Journalism building, bright yellow, blue, and pink papers can be seen. Each page proclaimed the same four words: "Trans people belong here."

    These posters appeared after the verbal cancellation of Professor Leo Caldwell's Trans Day of Disability events and the pausing of the LGBTQ 101 staff training. On February 26th, I spoke with Caldwell, who believes both he and the community were wronged.

    "I just think that we have to tell the truth, and I think we have to speak our truth," shared Caldwell. "And I was actually told by a few people to be really cautious and tread lightly on how I speak about this. But the reality is something happened here, right? And it felt to me, I felt wronged, and I felt that the queer community was wronged in some way."
 

    "I don't have position, I don't have resources, but I have my voice. And that's all I have is my voice. And I have a small audience on LinkedIn. And so I was like, 'This is the only way that I can affect change, and this is the only way that I can speak truth to power.' And so, that's why I am going and speaking to you and speaking out and speaking out on my social media as well."

    When asked how navigating the Office of Inclusive Excellence has been, Caldwell said, "It really wasn't the Office of Inclusive Excellence that initiated the issues that I have ran into."

    "I actually have no challenges with them. It's, again, been more upper administration that I've run into challenges with. The issue was that they were sharing information to me through the Office of Inclusive Excellence."

    When asked what department was reaching out to Caldwell via the Office, Caldwell shared, "It was Chief Strategy Officer Charlene Alexander. She was the one that I was told was the contact person. And the person that I had emailed, you know, I shared on Medium the emails I was sending to try to get clarification and the emails I was receiving."

    "And that's who I was communicating with and, again, hoping to get something in writing, because I felt really nervous to proceed with any events without more clarity in writing. She was willing to meet through Zoom or in person. We ended up canceling our meeting because I felt very uncomfortable continuing conversations that were in person or on Zoom, because that's what the conversations I kept having across campus and what led us to where we were at, because all the conversations I had about my events were verbal and my budget and all that. So I wrote up a budget and sent it over, and it was verbally approved. And so I wanted something that was, like, official and in writing."

    When Caldwell was informed that his LinkedIn post was recirculated on LinkedIn and student social media platform YikYak, Caldwell shared "that the reason I shared that and I wanted to alert people to that is because the university has been making what they would call strategic choices in response to state legislation. And I want to say this: I understand that while state gets funding from the state, a big part of our funding comes from the state."

    "And I understand that, and I understand we have to comply with law. But this this they basically say in their quote that they're essentially preemptively complying to things that have not yet went into law. And that, I think, is really important for students to understand, because that's a slippery slope to preemptively comply and to take take programming away from marginalized groups. And I think that students need to be aware of that. And honestly, if the university did have a strategy, I would have liked to see communication with the groups that were going to be affected by the strategy."

    Caldwell believes the publicity of the situation has allowed him to cover some events. 

    "I mentioned this in my Medium article and I mentioned it in a video that I posted. I found out about the cancellations on a Thursday and I spent the Friday trying to figure out what I was going to do and taking some space from it. And I don't know when I wrote my first Medium article. It may have been Saturday or Sunday. But I originally was just kind of waiting to see how I felt. And, you know, because of my reaction initially, I was very hurt and heartbroken and very upset. So I was trying to get to, you know, give myself some space for feelings. And so then I was like, 'Oh, I'm going to share this because this is affecting me and it's important that my story gets out there.' And in the meantime, as well, I was emailing and trying to get some clarification about what happened."

    "And so by Monday, so Thursday to Monday, I started to share more publicly. And then when I found out about the LGBTQ 101 being paused or at the time canceled is what I heard, I said to myself, wow, there's a pattern here. There's a pattern of stuff happening. So I'm really going to share more. And so I did."

    "And then by Wednesday is when I heard the clarification that not all my events were canceled, but only my keynote. And it came. The timing came at a pretty interesting time for me because I had started sharing. I had received messages on LinkedIn that people were emailing the president and the chief strategy officer. And then after that, as when all my events suddenly, you know, the communication became a little more clear that my events were not canceled."

    When asked if the LGBTQ 101 staff training was paused or cancelled, Caldwell shared that he "initially [...] heard canceled and that was the message that was sent out to the participants in the faculty development program. It said canceled. The university went on record through Greg Fallon and said it was paused pending state legislation. That's the last I've heard. So I don't know."

    The funding for Caldwell's events wasn't state or federal funding. The funds were, reportedly, over $20,000 from a donor, specifically for LGBTQ+ events. When asked if Caldwell knows where the funds are now, he said he didn't know.

    "I don't know what happened to the funds," Caldwell disclosed. "And yes, I was told that there was a pretty decent sized budget earmarked, pretty decent sized donation earmarked for LGBTQ plus events and programming. And that that would be a great use of it."

    "So, yeah, this actually wasn't related to state state funds at all. And I'm not sure now what will happen with those funds."

    Vivian Bostick, for the Tell Viv podcast, attempted to reach President Mearns' office twice via email, and did not get a response. 

    Becca Rice, Ball State's Vice President for Governmental Relations and Industry Engagement, said to the Ball State Daily that "State funding is important to the success of Ball State. About 40% of the university's operating budget, as well as building restoration costs and capital projects, come from the General Assembly."