COLUMBUS, Ohio — It is the end of an era on Ohio’s college and university campuses. Despite outspoken opponents rallying for months against its passage, Gov. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, signed the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, also known as Senate Bill 1, into law Friday.
The bill served as a source of controversy since State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, introduced it in the chamber in January. It passed in both chambers largely because of the Republican majority serving in the Statehouse.
The measure eliminates diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) standards for recruiting and scholarships, as well as bans faculty strikes. Other provisions include a requirement for instructors to publicly post their course syllabus, and for faculty and staff to not “indoctrinate any social, political or religious point of view.”
“I think it’s really important that they don’t teach us what to think, but they teach us how to think for ourselves,” said Spencer Mandzak while testifying in support of the bill before the Ohio House Workforce and Higher Education Committee on March 19.
The Miami University senior shared some of his college experience with the panel of lawmakers, alongside fellow College Republicans.
That same day outside the Statehouse, a crowd of activists voiced its opposition to the measure by joining in chants that “SB1 has got to go.”
More than 1,500 opponents also testified to urge lawmakers not to pass the bill during formal legislative committee hearings before the measure was brought before each chamber for a vote, with many saying Senate Bill 1 would limit free speech.
But Mandzak said he was contacted by students across the state who were silently supporting the bill’s passage.
“They are really afraid of the backlash, retaliation they may face,” he said. “Either from other students or from the professors and faculty that they work with every day.”
One aspect of the bill he particularly supports is that faculty will be prohibited from instilling their points of view on students. Mandzak said he was forced to side with a foreign language instructor’s opinion or risk a lesser grade on a topic unrelated to learning Spanish.
“If I say, ‘No, we should not allow reparations,’ then I get points taken off,” he said. “There is no room for debate.”
Mandzak hopes the new law will lead to more intellectual diversity in the classroom and allow free expression of both popular and unpopular viewpoints.
“DEI has shifted their purpose into being a lot more divisive and creating separation in these communities based on identity politics,” he said. "Overall, it's just a difference of beliefs, and you can't fault someone for having different beliefs, because that's based on different experiences."
In a statement Friday after the bill was signed, Cirino said:
“I believe this is monumentally significant legislation that will allow Ohio’s public universities and community colleges to deal with looming enrollment challenges and usher in a renaissance of academic excellence.
Passage of this landmark legislation took more than two years, as we faced tremendous opposition by those with vested interests in preserving a status quo that was no longer serving our students and was endangering the very survival of our world-class higher education system.”
The Advance Ohio Higher Education Act goes into effect in 90 days.
