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The sponsor of a controversial higher ed bill says it will be back after Ohio’s House speaker blocks a vote on it
By: Karen Kasler | Statehouse News Bureau
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (Statehouse News Bureau) — The Senate bill that conservatives say would stem what they see as liberal bias at Ohio’s higher ed institutions won’t come to the House floor, according to Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill). The bill would ban most diversity training at universities and require what it calls “intellectual diversity” on electoral politics, marriage and other topics.
“No, we’re not going to deal with Senate Bill 83,” Stephens said to reporters on Tuesday. When pressed for details on why, he responded, “Because we’re not going to do it. I mean, we’ve got a lot of other things that are a lot more important than that one.”
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) said he’s disappointed but not deterred.
“Just because the Speaker doesn’t seem to grasp the importance of this as a needed reform bill in higher education in Ohio does not in any way take away from its value,” Cirino said in an interview for “The State of Ohio“. “And so, we will be pursuing this in the future. I will be persistent, as I’ve told you before, in making this happen.”
Stephens had long said SB 83 didn’t have the votes to get through the House. It passed in a close vote in a House committee last year, and Republican supporters had hoped to force a floor vote in June, but it didn’t come up before lawmakers left for summer break. Cirino said he wouldn’t meet with Stephens during the break to discuss changes that could get the bill to the floor. Parts of SB 83 were folded into last year’s budget, but they were stripped out in conference committee.
SB 83 could face a friendlier environment in the next session. Stephens isn’t running for speaker, but Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) is, and he’s a strong supporter of the bill.
Cirino said the bill will be reintroduced, and he repeated what he’s said for more than a year – that some provisions he dropped as concessions to get the bill through the House will be back, most notably a ban on faculty strikes.
“That would be one of them,” Cirino said. “And there are a few other smaller ones, things that we negotiated on. But without the ultimate result that we were looking for obviously don’t deserve to be placed back in the new bill.”
SB 83 supporters have said they’ve been told the bill has sparked change at universities, and Sen. Matt Dolan (R-Chagrin Falls) has said because of that there are questions whether the bill is still needed. Another idea championed by Cirino was the creation of centers focused on instruction and research on the U.S. Constitution. The budget signed last year allocated $24 million for five of them: the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at Ohio State, the Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership at the University of Toledo’s College of Law and centers at Miami University, University of Cincinnati and Cleveland State.
“A lot of our universities are actually beginning to adopt some of the policies, and procedures in Senate Bill 83, even though it hasn’t passed out of the House yet. And so that’s a good thing,” said Cirino. “But it still needs to be passed. It’s got about 13 or 14 key reform areas that are necessary because higher education is changing right now in Ohio and around the country, for that matter.”
Republicans have said SB 83 will protect “free speech” on campus, to push back on what they have called “liberal indoctrination” at public colleges and universities.
In its current form, SB 83 doesn’t ban faculty strikes, but it does ban most mandatory diversity, equity and inclusion [DEI] training at publicly-funded universities. It requires what’s called “intellectual diversity” on topics spelled out in the legislation: “climate policies; electoral politics; foreign policy; diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; immigration policy; marriage; or abortion.”
The bill also prohibits universities from taking public positions on controversial topics, though they can lobby lawmakers on issues. It cuts the terms of university trustees from nine years to six years. And it includes a ban on financial partnerships with China, but that doesn’t include tuition from Chinese students.
The opposition to SB 83 has been fierce. Hundreds of faculty members, students and others have testified against the bill, saying it would have the opposite effect on expression and could hurt Ohio’s ability to attract top professors, researchers and students. One notable protest at the Statehouse featured a “funeral for free speech”.
Cirino said he hasn’t met with any of the groups that oppose the bill.
“I’ve had lots of input from them,” Cirino said, recalling a committee meeting that went on for more than seven hours. “I’ve gotten lots of letters, phone calls, messages, some of them pretty nasty. Many of them very nasty. And a lot of social media nastiness, certainly that’s out there, but that’s okay.”