I am in the business of words. Few people choose a career path that leads to regular debates about whether the use of words like "moreover" or "furthermore" read like the connection of one scolding to another. Even fewer of us enjoy those debates as much as I do.

Senate Bill 202, legislation now on the floor of the Indiana House of Representatives, is an attempt to make public universities more welcoming to those with conservative views. That's a difficult task for obvious reasons. First, the strained solution that Senator Spencer Deery, a Republican from Tippecanoe County, has developed in this bill presumes there is a problem. I disagree on that foundational point. Second, he believes the legislature can solve this perceived problem. And that is pure comedy.

The bill relies on Deery's desire for "intellectual diversity" at Indiana's public universities. Not familiar with that term? I wasn't either. When I first read it, I thought it meant "the differences between smart people and stupid people." After a weekend exercise in amateur lexicology, I have failed in disproving my original interpretation.

In my exercise, I first dissected the term and evaluated what the words mean separately to determine what they must mean together. According to Dictionary.com, "intellectual" means, in part: "the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge." "Diversity" means, "difference; unlikeness; variety." Put them together and the term must then mean, "the differences in the faculty of thinking and acquiring knowledge," right?

My original interpretation survives.

We should put that exercise aside though. That's not what the Indiana General Assembly means when they use the term in 2024. What they mean is "ideological diversity," but for some strange reason, they won't say what they mean. Why not?

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