The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
Students donning black graduation robes held a mock funeral for the death of higher education after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill into law that will overhaul the state’s public universities.
The Ohio Student Association organized the event, which took place Monday afternoon in the Statehouse Rotunda, days after DeWine signed Ohio Senate Bill 1.
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S.B. 1 will ban diversity efforts, prohibit faculty strikes, regulate classroom discussion of “controversial” topics, create post-tenure reviews, put diversity scholarships at risk, create a retrenchment provision that block unions from negotiating on tenure, shorten university board of trustees terms from nine years down to six years, and require students take an American history course, among other things.
For classroom discussion, the bill will set rules around topics involving “controversial beliefs” such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion. It prohibits professors from “indoctrination,” and while it doesn’t define that, it allows complaints to be filed against professors for review by the Chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education. S.B. 1 will only affect Ohio’s public universities and community colleges.
“It was really surprising, the quickness that it was signed,” said Ohio State University junior Brielle Shorter. “I think signing it at such a time was really interesting as well, but it was truly heartbreaking.”
DeWine got the bill Wednesday — the same day the Ohio Senate concurred with changes to the bill made by the Ohio House — and he signed it Friday.
“As a Black student on campus, our spaces have already been slowly getting demolished,” Shorter said. “I believe that with this bill there’s going to be more changes like that.”
Ohio State recently closed its Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Office of Student Life’s Center for Belonging and Social Change in response to the U.S. Department of Education’s Dear Colleague letter that threatened to rescind federal funds for schools that use race-conscious practices in admissions, programming, training, hiring, scholarships, and other aspects of student life.
Shorter said she has seen Ohio high school students post on social media how they are no longer interested in attending Ohio universities and instead plan to go to school out of state.
Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association, said it is unfortunate DeWine signed S.B. 1 into law.
“It’s disappointing to see that he did that, even though the overwhelming amount of opposition that was expressed on the bill from faculty and from students and from concerned citizens was strongly against it,” he said. “I think it’s unfortunate to see collective bargaining rights of people who work in higher education diminished.”
Pranav Jani, president of Ohio State’s American Association of University Professors chapter, said they will fight the impact of the bill as it becomes law.
“We know that we stand with thousands of educators, students, and parents, who are disgusted by this naked display of governmental repression of higher education,” he said in a statement.
State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, introduced S.B. 1, which took just over two months to pass both chambers and be signed into law.
“I believe this is monumentally significant legislation that will allow Ohio’s public universities and community colleges to deal with looming enrollment challenges and usher in a renaissance of academic excellence,” Cirino said in a statement.
