Ohio Senate Bill 1, passed by the Senate, will be a big step forward for higher education.
The bill would protect free speech; forbid discrimination based on race or other group identity; forbid indoctrination by faculty and staff; forbid “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs; and institute an undergraduate General Education Requirement in American government or history that includes readings of major primary documents. (The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has endorsed SB 1.)
Not surprisingly, SB 1 is under attack by those who have misgoverned our universities for so long and whose domination is now threatened. This essay addresses those arguments.
[RELATED: A Buckeye Collegiate Revolution: Higher Education Reform Bill Likely to Pass Senate]
Opponents claim that SB 1 curbs free speech. This is an outrageous charge given that the bill expressly requires institutions to commit “to not requiring, favoring, disfavoring, or prohibiting speech.” Other passages mandate “free inquiry” and “tolerat[ing] differences of opinion.”
One recent essay bases the charge of curbing free speech on the bill’s passage forbidding faculty and staff “to indoctrinate any social, political, or religious point of view.”[1] This objection is strange because SB 1 fosters free speech by protecting differences of opinion. The critics claim that SB 1 bans discussion of controversial topics. The charge is utterly false. The bill requires faculty to “encourage students to reach their own conclusions about all controversial beliefs” and expressly permits discussion so long as intellectual diversity is allowed.
Critics claim that SB 1 falsely assumes that Ohio universities are bastions of woke politics. There’s nothing false about that assumption. Recent disclosures reveal that a faculty search committee went out of its way to select only finalists based on race.
Critics claim that SB 1 creates a “surveillance system.” Actually, the bill merely requires institutions to respond to complaints from students and faculty of any violations of governing rules. That is the case right now. Of course, an institution may respond by saying that the complaint does not allege a substantial violation. All the institution may not do is not respond at all. That does not seem unreasonable.
SB 1 opponents’ criticism about overbearing surveillance is ironic, indeed hypocritical. Hundreds of universities have created highly politicized Bias Response Teams (see Speech First’s Free Speech in the Crosshairs: Bias Reporting on College Campuses) to investigate complaints, often made anonymously. In many cases, students or faculty have suffered harassing investigations merely for making statements that transgress the dominant political ideology on campus. Those criticizing SB 1 haven’t objected to Bias Response Teams; they’re the ones who created them. Of course, the progressives who control our universities may handle complaints with a progressive bias, but at least SB 1 should make the process more open to public scrutiny, which may encourage fairness.
Critics say the statute will “instill fear.” This, too, is ironic, if not hypocritical. For years, students and faculty have reported that they are afraid to speak their minds because of the cancel culture that punished those who dissent from campus orthodoxy. SB 1 will help to relieve this fear. Critics say that droves of students and faculty will flee Ohio, but there has been no big exodus in states that have adopted similar legislation.
SB 1 abolishes DEI offices and diversity statement requirements. DEI has been a classic bait-and-switch scam, and opponents of SB 1 try to continue that scam. They say that DEI ensures everyone is treated fairly and that underrepresented minorities are not overlooked.
That pretense can no longer be taken seriously, especially in Ohio, due partly to investigations by John Sailer, the NAS, and Minding the Campus, which revealed that DEI has been routinely used as a tool for racial and political discrimination. In some cases, hiring committee members or administrators said that diversity was just as important as merit and that any slate of faculty candidates that was not sufficiently diverse would be kicked back with instructions to try again.
In February, I first wrote about Ohio State’s large-scale DEI-focused cluster hiring initiative.
Someone from “Higher Ed Strategy Associates” shot back in an article saying, basically, the university’s change in focus is probably warranted and not a big deal. After all, the… https://t.co/lsoZ7KKMwT pic.twitter.com/jOznsoy3Pw
— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) November 29, 2023
Further, there is no good evidence that DEI actually improves race relations, and there’s considerable evidence that it makes them worse. That’s hardly surprising; America is the least racist major country in the world, but DEI insists that America is systemically racist and dominated by white privilege and white supremacy. This doctrine only increases racial friction.
Critics also call SB 1 an unprecedented government intrusion into the autonomy of higher education. That is true, but the universities have brought it on themselves. SB 1 deals with public institutions that should be accountable to the public. Public universities were granted autonomy on the understanding that they would operate as apolitical, non-discriminatory educational institutions. For several years now, that understanding has been grossly betrayed.
For example, many students now get undergraduate degrees without having taken a course in American history or government, and surveys show that many of them lack basic information necessary for good citizenship. SB 1 requires such a course, and it’s shameful that the legislature had to step in to fix this glaring shortcoming.
A serious analysis of the criticisms of SB 1 shows why that bill is so badly needed.
[1] David W. Blight & Joan E. Cashin, Ohio’s proposed higher education overhaul bill and the integrity of history, https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/02/10/ohios-proposed-higher-education-overhaul-bill-and-the-integrity-of-history/.
Image: Ohio General Assembly. (2025, January 11). Ohio General Assembly. Wikipedia; Screenshot of SB 1: Current Version as Passed by the Senate.
