Exploring Ohio Senate Bill 1: Supporters versus Opponents Analysis

Ohio Senate Bill 1, known as the “Enact Advance Ohio Higher Education Act,” recently passed in the state’s senate and is now being considered in the state house legislature. The bill aims to achieve various objectives, such as banning the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education and prohibiting faculty strikes.

While the bill has garnered support from certain organizations, it has also faced criticism from opponents, with numerous letters of opposition submitted. Additionally, a significant protest took place at Ohio State University against SB 1 when Sen. Jerry Cirino provided his sponsor testimony last week.

Several student governments in Ohio have officially declared their opposition to the legislation, including those of Ohio State University, Bowling Green State University, John Carroll University, and Kent State University.

Meanwhile, SB 1 is supported by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the National Association of Scholars and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, among other organizations. These organizations are listed in the text of Project 2025 as part of the project’s Advisory Board. 

The House Workforce and Higher Education Committee is overseeing a second hearing of the bill Tuesday. In the meanwhile, here’s a deep dive into some of the bill’s provisions, alongside commentary by its supporters and opponents.

A major facet of the bill would force universities and colleges to end their diversity, equity and inclusion programs and offices. These pressures are also being applied at the national level; in a February memo, the US Department of Education told all public schools they must cut all “DEI” programming or risk losing federal funding. 

“The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal,” the letter stated in part.

But many who oppose the bill argue this is a bad-faith argument; they say it denies and removes the progress made in creating equitable education that has been historically inaccessible or less accessible to minoritized populations. 

Dr. Rachel Walsh is an associate teaching professor at Bowling Green State University. Walsh opposes the bill. She said the bill’s claim to promote intellectual diversity actually limits it, and the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion are harmful to students who are in need of those programs. 

“[The bill] cynically engages in the familiar tactic of colorblind racism or claiming ‘not to see’ race in the face of overwhelming evidence that race, gender identity, sexuality, ability and socioeconomic status continue to determine students’ access to and experience of higher education,” Walsh said. “It’s denying what we know, which is that we do not enter the classroom, we do not enter the university on equal footing.”

Walsh said that diversity, equity and inclusion programs allow students who are disadvantaged – such as being a first-generation college student or coming from underserved communities – to have access to the same resources as other students. 

“What those [diversity, equity and inclusion] offices and programs are ultimately about is ensuring that students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds who are minoritized can thrive, can access the same opportunities that all of our students can,” she said. 

Walsh said diversity, equity and inclusion programs help a variety of students. Among her concerns are that the end of these programs would put these students at a significant disadvantage in achieving a quality education. 

“Racial wealth gaps and the underrepresentation of faculty of color do adversely affect how students experience their education,” she said. 

Walsh also argued that creating equitable access to education is not a new concept.

“Many of our state representatives come from families that benefited from the GI Bill, which provided access to higher education for returning white WWII veterans and, consequently allowed them to enter the middle class,” she said. “We have never had that same kind of investment for minoritized students in this country. DEI programs – which, I can’t stress enough, are often under-funded – were making painfully small inroads to support our students and faculty.”

State Rep. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania) filed a letter in support of SB 1. He is also a part of the state House’s higher education committee that will offer revisions to the bill before it is voted on in the house. 

Williams accused higher education of limiting freedom of thought on its campuses, specifically in the form of courses, programming and trainings for students and faculty alike. 

“We need to remove the indoctrination of our college students from university campuses that receive public dollars,” he said. “Essentially, our public universities will be prohibited from requiring students to participate in DEI programming, and requiring that they espouse certain particular political views in order to graduate or obtain their degrees.”

To Williams, the purpose of education is to prepare students for the workforce, and this doesn’t include, he argued, the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion. 

“[The university’s] goal should be to educate students, get them the best educational outcome possible, get them prepared to enter the workforce, and not dive deep into these ideological debates when it comes to whether or not students should be required to espouse DEI-related topics.”

Williams, in his response to the bill, specifically suggested trainings and courses related to diversity, equity and inclusion should not be required. 

“If a student is taking a math degree, they shouldn’t have to take DEI-style trainings, nor should teachers have to either take the training or espouse those views moving forward,” he said.

SB 1 specifically does not provide an exact definition of diversity, equity and inclusion. When asked about this, Williams said it was intentional decision. He referenced schools that received pushback for teaching critical race theory in its classrooms; according to Williams, when told to remove the usage of critical race theory, educators replaced it with a concept called social-emotional learning.

“We’ve seen that type of code switching, and we choose not to indulge in that,” he said. “If we try to define it very narrowly, universities are just going to go outside of that definition and do the same exact thing.”

Social-emotional learning is a type of education. According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), an organization that promotes social-emotional learning, it is understood as the following definition:

“…the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.”

“[Social-emotional learning is] just closeted CRT,” Williams said. “So that’s why we don’t give specific definitions.”

Another facet of the bill would require that a university neither endorse nor oppose a belief or policy considered by the state to be controversial. The bill lists the following topics as being controversial, but it is non-exhaustive. 

• Climate policies
• Electoral politics
• Foreign policy
• Diversity, equity and inclusion programs
• Immigration police
• Marriage
• Abortion

As for university policies and actions, Walsh said this could change how an institution is allowed to operate. 

“Likewise, when they cite climate policies, does this mean that any green initiatives that a university or college adopts would also be out of bounds?” she asked. 

BGSU and the University of Toledo, for example, both operate offices of Climate Sustainability. BGSU’s goal is to be carbon-neutral by 2040, while UToledo aims to achieve it by 2058. Both universities operate a variety of sustainability projects. It is not clear if an institution’s sustainability initiatives would be considered endorsing a “controversial issue.” Climate change is widely accepted by the scientific community. 

Williams said that while institutions will not be permitted to endorse or oppose controversial topics, faculty are free to have their own opinions publicly – so long as they do not share them in the classroom. 

“If your professor is espousing viewpoints in the classroom on a particular topic such as abortion or climate change, or any of these other types of public topics, would you feel safe?” Williams said. “Having open debate inside of a classroom where your teacher holds your degree over your head?”

Meanwhile, Walsh said faculty already teach – and consider – a variety of views. She said it’s a concept fundamental to academia:

“The language that has been used about this bill by its proponents has been that we need to foster a marketplace of ideas within the university,” said Walsh. “At colleges and universities, though, we already teach a diverse array of ideas. Research is arrived at through considering a diverse array of ideas.” 

The language in the bill does not prevent faculty from teaching about topics the state deems controversial, but it does instruct faculty to “allow and encourage” students to come to their own conclusions about these topics. In discussing the bill, Williams said SB 1 would prohibit faculty from sharing their own opinions on these topics while in the classroom or, as he said, requiring that students also agree with them. 

Cirino, who sponsored the bill, claimed during the March 6 Ohio House Higher Education and Workforce Committee meeting that the bill doesn’t limit what can be talked about in the classroom.

“There’s absolutely not one limitation of what can be talked about in the classroom,” Cirino said, as reported by WTOL 11 sister station 3News. “What we say very specifically and explicitly is that there has to be an openness to looking at other opinions and welcoming diverse opinions as well.”

Its other proponents suggest SB 1 would be instrumental in promoting what is described as intellectual diversity. 

“This bill would promote academic freedom and freedom of expression, protecting faculty and students’ rights to express their viewpoints,” wrote Beau Eton on behalf of the Opportunity Solutions Project in the organization’s formal letter of support. 

But some worry that opening the door to any and all perspectives could negate the fundamental truths of a discipline and open the door to hate speech.

The Ohio Federation of Teachers, whose Legislative and Political Director Darold Johnson penned a letter in opposition to SB 1, argued that faculty may feel pressure to exclude certain topics or ideas for fear of a student reporting their lessons as stifling to intellectual diversity.

“This bill will have a chilling effect that leads some faculty to omit important content from their courses out of fear that one student could be offended and make a complaint that threatens their livelihood,” the letter stated. “It could also lead faculty to bend over backwards to include an opposing viewpoint, even when that opposing viewpoint is vile or factually incorrect.”

In his analysis of the bill, state senator Casey Weinstein (D-Akron) argued SB 1 “undermines the very principles of academic freedom.” “Forcing professors,” he wrote, “to teach ‘both sides of history’ will only give a platform for Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories, or other absurd denials of truth and fact in the classroom.”

Weinstein voted against the bill. 

Johnson’s letter expressed similar concerns:

“A plain reading of the bill would support the conclusion that if you teach about the Holocaust, you have to teach about Holocaust denial; if you teach about the civil rights movement you need to give Bull Connor and Martin Luther King equal time; and if you teach about biology and medicine, you have to give pseudoscience as much weight as peer reviewed studies. I understand that this is not the intent of the bill, but this is what the bill seems to dictate.”

In his letter of sponsorship, Cirino wrote that one of the primary purposes of SB 1 was about “the core value that students come first; they are the customers of these institutions.”

Indeed, Cirino even said the following in the March 6 committee hearing:

“We need to treat our institutions of higher learning a little bit more like a business,” he said. “If we don’t help (university presidents and boards of trustees) with these management tools, we’re going to find a real disadvantage for the state of Ohio.”

One of the business-like approaches in SB 1 would require the elimination of undergraduate programs that have conferred an average of fewer than five degrees annually over a three-year period. 

Walsh disagrees with this view. 

“By including that provision in the bill, they are approaching a university as if it were a business, as if a degree were simply a commodity, instead of thinking about it more holistically,” she said. “What might that student gain from pursuing this course of study, and how they might contribute, once they graduate, to their communities through the knowledge they gained through that program.

“Just because it [the program] has a low number does not mean that low number is a reflection on its value,” Walsh said. 

Another stipulation in SB 1 is the requirement that all undergraduate students take an American Civics course that must meet certain criteria and must meet the approval of the Ohio Chancellor of Higher Education. 

All students seeking a bachelor’s degree must complete the course, beginning with students who graduate in Spring 2030. This means the incoming freshman class in 2026 would be the first students in four-year degree programs required to complete the course. 

To its proponents, such as the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, who wrote a letter in support of the bill, the class would serve a way to increase “historical and civic literacy” among students, which it described as being insufficient. The ACTA referenced findings from a study it created to demonstrate what it felt were inadequacies in the civic knowledge of American students. 

The course will, in the eyes of the ACTA, “put Ohio in the vanguard of states whose legislatures have recognized their solemn responsibility to mandate this remedy for civic and historical literacy.”

However, Walsh pointed out that universities already teach topics outlined in the proposed course, such as the Constitution, government and important American writings through a variety of classes and programs, such as in political science, literature and others. 

“To ask that we do something that in effect we’re already doing across different departments and disciplines betrays a lack of understanding about what we actually do in the classroom,” said Walsh. “It betrays a lack of respect for how we deliver our classes as well, with what resources we have to deliver these classes.” 

Walsh also pointed out that the state is not providing any funding to cover the cost of creating and instructing this course. 

Indeed, the Ohio Senate’s fiscal notes of the bill said the annual cost of the course “could range from little, if any, cost at universities that currently offer a course to millions of dollars per year at those that would need to establish new course sections to meet the bill’s requirements,” according to analysis by the Inter-University Council of Ohio.

Though the state won’t pay for the courses, it said the cost would be covered by students who take it. 

“Any new costs may be offset somewhat by additional tuition received from students enrolling in those courses and subsidy received from ODHE and the State Share of Instruction (SSI) formula for students who complete those courses.”

The SSI formula, according to the state department of education, provides funds to a university through an “outcome-based approach,” meaning the funding that an institution receives is highly dependent on course completion and degree attainment, not enrollment. 

Another major part of SB 1 is changes to collective bargaining law. Williams said he agrees with the bill’s provision, claiming it negatively impacts students’ educations. 

“Students are planning for their college years in advance,” he said. “They’re planning their life based off of how many semesters they have to be in college. They’re planning internships years in advance. … So it’s unfair for a student who’s in the middle of a semester to have the threat of their teachers walking off, them being unable to complete their degree.”

But Walsh said it isn’t that simple. 

“As we saw last year with the success of the UAW strike, strikes only occur as an absolute last resort – it is only when workers have their backs pressed up against the wall that they will go on strike,” she said. “To take that right away is to severely compromise union power. This provision in the bill will be the canary in the coal mine and it should concern all unionized workers.”

Walsh also said this bill could deter faculty from teaching at Ohio colleges and universities. 

“If a college or university cannot promise a prospective faculty member relative job security, they will go elsewhere,” she said. “Anytime that a worker has to fear for their job, they will not perform well.”

The Ohio Federation of Teachers’ letter in opposition to the bill agreed:

“If passed, SB 1 would be the legislature’s biggest attack on collective bargaining since SB 5 in 2011. It would limit what topics faculty can bargain into their contracts and it would deny them the right to strike,” the organization wrote. “Why would any faculty member – regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum – stay here or move here if they had a choice between working in Ohio or another state?”

Meanwhile, Williams argued faculty positions should fall into the same category as other jobs that are not allowed to go on strike. 

“We don’t let our police strike, we don’t let our correctional officers strike, we don’t let our firefighters strike,” he said. “I believe that university professors should be respected and valued, and at the same time that they should respect and value the education of their students and not use strike provisions as a bargaining tool to get better pay or benefits.”

SB 1, as it was passed by the Ohio Senate, would prevent the establishment of new institutional scholarships that “use DEI.” It would also prevent institutions from accepting more money for existing scholarships that include “DEI requirements.” Since DEI is not specifically defined in the bill, it’s unclear what scholarships this might include. 

But Williams, as a member of the State House of Representatives, said this is something he’d like to see changed as it moves through the chamber. 

“I would prefer to see scholarships that are previously existing be able to remain,” Williams said. “We see outside donors give donations toward scholarships with specific intent. Sometimes that can go to underrepresented groups, and the university is simply administering that scholarship.”

Williams said scholarships like these are important in getting underrepresented students enrolled in college. 

“We all know that there are underrepresented groups that are less inclined to enroll in college,” he said. “If you believe that you can benefit from a diverse student body, you need to have the ability to encourage and even recruit minority students to your campus in order to get that type of diverse student body that can be beneficial to the whole student body, and I think scholarships need to be available for those types of programs.”

Walsh’s sentiments are similar – she said it’s of the utmost importance that these scholarships remain for the students who need them. But she also said that, like the scholarships, offices and programs of diversity, equity and inclusion are needed for the support they provide minoritized and underserved students.

“What we know as we think about the history of higher ed in this country, which is that we do not access a college education in the same way, we do not step into the classroom on equal footing,” she said.