‘Students are under attack:’ Ohio State students and faculty rally against controversial bill
Hundreds of Ohio State students, faculty, staff and alumni protested against a massive bill that would dramatically change higher education across the state last Tuesday afternoon.
More than a dozen speakers touched on the various aspects of Ohio Senate Bill 1 during the protest, which lasted more than three hours and was organized by the Ohio Student Association. Ohio State’s rally was part of a statewide day of action against S.B.1, said protest organizers.
“Students are under attack,” said Brielle Shorter, a junior at Ohio State.
Ohio S.B. 1, which has been passed by the state Senate and is now in the Ohio House’s hands, would ban diversity and inclusion efforts, block faculty from striking, set rules around classroom discussion, put diversity scholarships at risk, shorten university board of trustees terms from nine years down to six years, and require students take an American history course, among other things.
Regarding classroom discussion, it would set rules around topics involving “controversial beliefs” such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion.
S.B. 1, which only applies to public colleges, stipulates classroom discussion allows students to “reach their own conclusions about all controversial beliefs or policies and shall not seek to indoctrinate any social, political, or religious point of view.”
“This bill would change everything about what education is, and it would gut all your professors’ rights to have job security, to have union power, to have bargaining power,” said Rachel Coyle, with Honesty for Ohio Education. “It would make it so your professors couldn’t get tenure. They would not be able to strike if they’re full-time. This would make it so hard to be a professor that all the best … would leave.”
The Ohio Senate passed S.B. 1 last month. Bill sponsor Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, testified in front of the House Higher Education and Workforce Committee while Tuesday’s protest took place.
Joel Wainwright, a professor in Ohio State’s geography department, said it’s likely the Ohio House will pass S.B. 1, which will send the bill to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk for him to sign it into law.
“What we are playing for, strategically speaking, right now is a veto from Gov. DeWine,” he said. “If you want to convince Republicans to veto this bill, you have got to get really good at talking about the negative economic consequences.”
If S.B. 1 passed, he said many of Ohio State’s best faculty would leave for the private sector, private universities “or the country of Canada.”
“If even 5% or 10% of our best faculty leave, then guess what? The federal research dollars they bring to this university leave too,” Wainwright said.
This bill would chill professors and researchers, said Jill Galvan, an executive board member of the Ohio State chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
“It would degrade the quality of education in the state that would make it harder for us to hire good people in fields across disciplines, medicine, law, history, philosophy, English, social work, you name it,” she said.
Chants of “Shame on you, OSU” and “S.B. 1 is a war on people. Censorship should be illegal” regularly broke out during the rally and rang across the Oval on Ohio State’s campus.
“We have an unwavering commitment to freedom of speech, and we support the right of students, faculty, staff and others to exercise their freedom of expression,” Ohio State University Spokesperson Ben Johnson said in an email when asked about Tuesday’s protest.
State Rep. Munira Abdullahi, D-Columbus, reassured those at the rally that she is here for students, faculty, and staff.
“S.B. 1 is … trying to ruin your futures,” she said. “Shame on the universities who are pre-complying to these horrible, horrible bills that are coming out.”
President of the Ohio Federation of Teachers Melissa Cropper talked about the labor aspects of the bill.
“Senate Bill 1 not only takes away the right to strike on campuses where there is a right to strike, but also limits what could be collectively bargained,” she said. “That means it takes away from people their rights to have a voice in what their workplace looks like and what their salaries are and all those other kinds of things that are important to making a workplace a place where you want to be.”
Corinne Sugino, an assistant professor in Ohio State’s English Department, called S.B. 1 a dangerous attack.
“How can I expect my students to stand up for themselves and what they believe in, if they see us being muzzled?” Sugino said.
This is not the first time S.B. 1 has received an outpouring of opposition. More than 800 people submitted opponent testimony against the bill — significantly outweighing the amount of supporter testimony the bill has received. Several students have said they would leave Ohio if this bill passed.
Even though the protest was scheduled beforehand, Tuesday’s protest came less than a week after Ohio State closed its Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Office of Student Life’s Center for Belonging and Social Change. Sixteen professional staff positions will be eliminated.
“These attacks and the bending to the need of the attacks in higher education are unacceptable,” said Sabrina Durso, president of the Council of Graduate Students.
Last week was the deadline for schools to comply with 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.
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