By Michael Leppert
The Indiana Citizen
March 5, 2025
I left public service in 2002. The experiences of the thirteen years I spent as an employee of the State of Indiana help define me. On paper, my career path wouldn’t make immediate sense to most people today. But it makes perfect sense to me. Why? Primarily because I enjoyed serving the public, and importantly, I was good at it. People thanked me for my service when I left.
In less than two months since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, approximately 75,000 federal employees accepted a buyout package offered by the new administration and voluntarily left public service. Another 30,000 have been fired. For context, Delta Airlines employs 100,000 people, and United Airlines Holdings, Inc. employs 107,500.
This will cause significant and widespread suffering in predictable and unpredictable ways. Americans will feel this, one way or another. Even in the post-trust era, this is one thing we can all count on. And Trump and Elon Musk are just getting started.
Included in those breathtaking numbers are individual people who were doing important things, vital things, even life-saving things that are no longer being done. An excellent example is “Emily,” a recently terminated lab technician who worked at the National Institutes of Health. She worked in a cancer research lab, and she worries what these cuts will mean to people who need the treatments NIH is, or was, developing. “People will lose their lives,” she said in an interview with the NBC local affiliate in Washington.
Also commenting was White House spokesperson Kush Desai. He said, “The Trump administration is committed to slashing waste, fraud, and abuse while increasing transparency of where limited taxpayer dollars from NIH are going and how exactly they’re advancing scientific research and development.” The “waste, fraud, and abuse” bit is the go-to storyline for the entire enterprise of this profoundly troubling cleansing of public servants. And while that spin is becoming the new Big Lie, adding the phrase “increasing transparency” makes it even more absurd.
In Indiana, Luke Britt, the state’s longest serving public access counselor, stepped down last week after 12 years in the role following changes to his office by state lawmakers this time last year, as reported by WFYI. Prior to last year’s legislation, Britt’s office was designed to construe disputes about public access to government records in favor of government transparency. His office was created in 1999 in response to public outcry for exactly that, transparency.
I was in charge of public access matters at the agency where I worked when the original law was passed, and we took the matter seriously. Indiana’s handbook of public access laws states: “When confronted with a question of interpretation, the law should be liberally construed in favor of openness.”
Uh, yea. That was how we viewed transparency then. The question we would ask whenever there was a public records request was: “Is there any legal or public interest reason why the request should be denied?” If there wasn’t, we disclosed whatever was requested. It was a simple decision-making process, but it required judgement, by a person, with the goal of serving the public interest.
The 2024 law that changed the handbook, came through an amendment filed by Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, which mandated a strict, textual interpretation. What was his reason? It’s hard to say. However, the most consequential public access debate in Indiana today revolves around terminated pregnancy reports, or TPRs. Britt issued an opinion that protected the privacy of these reports as patient information. The abortion-ban crowd wants access to the TPRs to help them enforce Indiana’s draconian new abortion law. Pay attention to this one, it’s priority number one.
When I decided to leave the government and enter the private sector twenty-three years ago, my boss and mentor at the time thought it was a mistake. He told me I had a “public service ethic” ingrained in me, that I would miss serving after I was gone, and that one day I would want to return. I rolled my eyes at him and went on about my new career that was focused primarily on making money.
It turns out my mentor was right, again. Twenty years later, I did return as a teacher at a public university, where I expect to finish my career. I could disgust people with stories about the joy my new career brings me, but I won’t today. I will privately bask in the knowledge that I spend my days making the lives of my mostly American students better.
I look into the faces of my brilliant students and see the endless possibilities that lay ahead. Without the public service of people like Emily, their brilliance will be a necessity.
Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com.The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
