COLUMBUS, Ohio—The right-wing operatives who occupy the Ohio State House are at it again. This time, they are using the perceived “anti-woke” sentiment and growing Sinophobia to grease the wheels on a bill that would stifle union organizing and insert jingoistic propaganda into the curriculum for all college students in the state of Ohio.
Senate Bill 1 was introduced in January by State Sen. Jerry Cirino, a business owner representing the heavily gerrymandered Senate District 18.
Despite receiving almost 800 submitted testimonies arguing against the bill, it was passed by a vote of 22 to 11 during the Feb. 12 session. All nine Democrats and two token Republicans voted “nay.” The bill now moves onto the House, where a previous version died in 2023.
Prior to the vote, all Democratic state senators voiced their opposition to the bill. In her statement, Senate Leader Nickie J. Antonio, D-Lakewood, said, “The premise of the bill is that somehow public universities are bastions of liberalism trying to indoctrinate our children.”
The alleged Marxist cabal who secretly runs public universities, of course, does not actually exist. This is a solution in search of a problem and takes the biggest whack at labor unions representing faculty and staff across the state since SB 5 was defeated in 2011.
The bill is anti-labor legislation under the guise of promoting “intellectual diversity.” Ironically, it explicitly bans diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs with regard to hiring, training, scholarships, and student organizations and attempts to stifle many other things Republicans don’t like, especially faculty unions.
If passed, faculty unions will be barred from negotiating on faculty evaluations, tenure, and retrenchment. It will impose a post-tenure review system and require student evaluations to contribute at least 25% toward faculty’s annual appraisals. The bill also bans the right to strike.
The proposed changes are some of the worst ideas since NBC’s creation of The Apprentice. Faculty strikes are a rare occurrence, with the last one in Ohio taking place at Wright State in 2019 following two years of failed negotiations between the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the administration.
Tenure is granted to give faculty true academic freedom. This is particularly important for professors who conduct controversial research in disciplines such as climate change, gender studies, and other areas that draw political ire from the same Republicans (and probably some Democrats) who would support this type of bill.
Requiring student evaluations to account for 25% of faculty’s annual appraisal is like asking rookie baseball players to evaluate a player who’s spent decades in the league.
Removing any bargaining option weakens the entire collective bargaining process, and being able to negotiate on retrenchment protects the most experienced professors from age discrimination by establishing protections for senior faculty in the event of layoffs.
The Republicans gave up the game by banning collaboration with any organization associated with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It bars state institutions from accepting gifts and donations from the PRC, or any entity suspected of associating with the PRC.
The bill would prohibit state institutions from creating or continuing academic partnerships from universities located in China. Considering the PRC is on the cutting edge of many emerging technologies, this will have an unintended consequence of allowing American researchers to fall further behind the curve. Since industry and technology firms rely on universities to conduct fundamental research, this will hurt U.S. industry in the long-term.
In addition to banning DEI, meddling with collective bargaining, and promoting anti-China rhetoric, legislators are trying to dictate curriculum changes by ordering colleges to create a new American civics class. This would be a required course for all students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Ohio’s public universities.
One supporter of the bill, State Sen. Kristina Roegner, R-Hudson, stated that the purpose of the overhaul is to encourage critical thinking and free speech, but upon examination of the required reading list for this new course, it is obvious that the bill’s crafters have ulterior motives.
Although Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” is cynically included in the list, the rest are the standard documents that, as one activist put it, “old rich white people fetishize because they were written by dead rich white guys who loved slavery, hated Native Americans, and glorified capitalism,” such as Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and a minimum of five Federalist Papers. Many educators say this would not encourage critical thinking or free speech.
When the State Sen. Cirino introduced the bill, he commented that he was working to reduce indoctrination at state institutions. He said, “A lot of it is related to making sure that diversity of thought is practiced as a policy in our universities and community colleges.” But after examining the planned curricula, many educators have concluded this is a false claim and that the civics course would be nothing but “America First” propaganda.
The bill has now moved to the House Higher Education Committee, where hearings are started in early March, although nothing appears on the agenda as of this writing.
Unions representing faculty from across the state have come out against the bill. The Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) has gone so far as to brand this bill the “Higher Ed Destruction Act.”
The OFT, AAUP, and Ohio Education Association (OEA) offered guidance on crafting testimony before the committee hearing, and dozens of educators and students submitted their spoken and written testimony. Turnout was so high for the Feb. 12 hearing that two overflow rooms were utilized. As the legislative process moves forward, OFT, AAUP, and OEA continue to encourage their members to stop the right wing from destroying one of Ohio’s greatest assets, public higher education.
These proposed changes are nothing new for Republicans who see anything that calls into question the greatness of U.S. capitalism as a threat to their privileged status. Lawmakers in Florida recently inserted themselves into the curriculum process at the state’s 12 public universities.
When Gov. Ronald Dion DeSantis, graduate of two private elite universities, took office in 2019, he started a coordinated attack on Florida public universities. While citing no evidence, he and friendly legislators claimed that the public had lost faith in higher education because of the perceived left-wing tilt in certain content areas.
Under the guise of “anti-indoctrination,” the Florida legislature passed a similar bill in 2021, and then continued its attack when by bullying universities into removing hundreds of history classes from the general education curriculum last year. Most of the courses focused on the history of LGBTQ people, African Americans, and coincidentally, the Florida Seminoles.
The passage of SB1 in Ohio would be the state’s first step down the same destructive path. With any luck, it’ll die on the vine like the version introduced in 2023, but this won’t happen without immense pressure from below.
Opponents of SB1 can consult the various union reactions:
And call the following state legislators who are members of the House Workforce and Higher Education Committee:
Tom Young – (614) 466-6504
Kevin Ritter – (614) 466-2158
Michael Dovilla – (614) 466-4895
Tracy Richardson – (614) 466-8147
Gayle Manning – (614) 644-5076
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