In the wave of anti-DEI state legislation that has crested over America this year (29 bills in 17 states), the recently introduced Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act (SB 83) is uniquely comprehensive.
“What a Frankenstein’s monster of a bill,” said Jeremy C. Young, senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America, a free speech organization. “This is the longest and most complex educational gag order I’ve ever seen; it is also one of the two or three most censorious.”
SB 83 would ban DEI training and programming for staff and students, as well as diversity statements in hiring and promotion. It restricts what can be taught in the classroom and changes how professors would be evaluated, even after tenure. And it forbids schools from having relationships with Chinese universities and faculty from striking, among other provisions that would re-shape higher ed in the state.
SB 83 is unique among this year’s anti-DEI bills, in that it would also regulate private institutions, preventing them from requiring diversity training or diversity statements, and forcing them to post all their course syllabi online in order to receive state funding.
Faculty and administrators at both public and private institutions throughout Ohio have expressed strong opposition to the proposed legislation.
Dr. Charles Peterson, chair of the Africana studies department at Oberlin University
“It’s clearly in response to the dramatically changing demographic, social, and cultural world of the state and the nation,” he said.
