Republicans said the bill was “designed to restore free speech and diversity of thought on campus.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said the “legislation is unconstitutional and cannot stand,” citing a commitment to First Amendment rights.
Among the provisions of Senate Bill 1, the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act:
- Ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on public college and university campuses and force current DEI initiatives to close, despite offering no definition of what actually constitutes a “DEI” initiative;
- Allow the state to withhold funds for non-compliance with the bill;
- Require universities to “Affirm and declare that the state institution will not encourage, discourage, require or forbid students, faculty, or administrators to endorse, assent to, or publicly express a given ideology, political stance, or view of a social policy, nor will the institution require students to do any of those things to obtain an undergraduate or post-graduate degree”;
- Require students to take a state-designed American civics or history class before being awarded a bachelor’s degree;
- Automatically eliminate any university degree program that awards fewer than five degrees per year on a three-year rolling average;
- Prohibit full-time university faculty from striking;
- Require state training for university trustees and reduce trustee terms from nine years to six.
Dayton Unit NAACP President Derrick Foward recently said the dismantling of Ohio DEI initiatives will take away opportunities for Black youth and lead them to seek higher education in other states. Under SB1, schools would be blocked from establishing any new DEI scholarships.
State Sen. Kyle Koehler, R-Springfield, disagreed with arguments made by some students and parents this week that SB1 promotes the opposite of diversity, equity and inclusion.
“Parents and students will now have a more comfortable feeling that their public institution of higher learning will foster an environment of open and free expression for everyone,” Koehler said.
State Sen. Steve Huffman, R-Tipp City, said he was proud to cosponsor SB1, citing “the great potential it has to ensure academic excellence at our state institutions of higher learning.”
“This bill is a badly needed course correction that restores students’ basic rights on campus, primarily the right to free speech,” Huffman said.
Democratic Party groups have called the bill an attack on public sector unions and said it will lead “current and prospective Ohio students, higher education professionals, and businesses to look elsewhere.”
