On the campus of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo by Graham Stokes for the Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
Where 16-year-old Michelle Huang attends college is heavily influenced by the outcome of a massive, contentious higher education bill passed by the Ohio Senate recently.
Huang, a junior at Olentangy Liberty High School in Delaware County, said she had always imagined herself attending Ohio State University to study political science, but she is no longer sure because of Ohio Senate Bill 1.
She wants to receive Ohio State’s Morrill Scholarship, a merit scholarship program that includes the requirement to “contribute to campus diversity.” However, S.B. 1 would, among other things, prohibit diversity and inclusion initiatives and jeopardize diversity scholarships.
“The fact that S.B. 1 puts (diversity) scholarships in jeopardy is a big deterrent for me applying to Ohio State and other Ohio schools who offer similar scholarships,” said Huang.
In an email, Ohio State University spokesman Ben Johnson stated that the Morrill Scholarship Program is open to students of all backgrounds and will continue.
“We will continue to work with elected officials on both sides of the aisle to advance Ohio State and ensure our students, faculty and staff have the resources and support needed to succeed,” Johnson told me via email. “It’s too early to comment further at this time.”
S.B. 1 would prohibit diversity and inclusion efforts, prevent faculty strikes, establish rules for classroom discussion, jeopardize diversity scholarships, reduce university board of trustees terms from nine to six years, and require students to take an American history course, among other things.
It would establish guidelines for classroom discussions on “controversial beliefs” such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, and abortion.
State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, introduced S.B. 1 less than a month ago, and the Ohio Senate passed it last week, so the bill now moves to the Ohio House for consideration. SB 1 applies only to Ohio’s public universities and community colleges.
To become law, it must pass through the Ohio House and be signed by the governor. If Governor Mike DeWine vetoed it, lawmakers would need a three-fifths vote from each chamber to override it.
“I’ve always been really close to Ohio State and having one of the primary incentives to go there just to be taken away is honestly just so saddening to me,” Huang told the audience.
Huang said she will still apply to Ohio State as well as other colleges like Ohio Wesleyan University, a private school, and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
“I just have this impending feeling of not knowing,” Huang told me. “I really hope that this bill doesn’t progress much further.”
Huang was one of 837 people who submitted opposition testimony and testified in person at last week’s marathon eight-hour Ohio Senate Higher Education Committee hearing.
Several other students testified that if the overhaul is passed in Ohio, they will leave the state.
She is also concerned about the bill’s potential impact on classroom discussions, particularly in history and government courses.
“I feel like if the bill is signed into law, it will just be a lot harder for students to learn about our history from a nuanced perspective and also have these important conversations that are pretty essential to our understanding of society and our government,” Huang told reporters.
Eliminating undergraduate degree programs
S.B. 1 includes a provision that would eliminate undergraduate degree programs “if the institution confers an average of fewer than five degrees in that program annually over any three-year period,” according to the bill’s language.
“It’s an arbitrary number that implies things aren’t working properly, but it doesn’t always provide a clear picture of what’s going on in the program,” said Gretchen McNamara, a senior lecturer of music at Wright State University. “When you just look at things from a data standpoint, it doesn’t tell the whole story.”
She is also concerned tenured faculty would lose their jobs if a university program is cut.
“It’s just very detrimental to the profession, and there’s no point in tenure if it can be dismissed so easily without a clear metric and understanding of that specific number that they’ve selected,” said McNamara, who also serves as president of the American Association of University Professors’ Ohio conference.
A small program can be for a variety of reasons, according to John Huss, chair of the University of Akron’s philosophy department.
“It could be difficult, so students don’t want to major in it, or they flunk out of it because it’s just hard,” he told me. “It may be a niche program that is critically important, but it will never be numerically significant. I consider, for example, strategic languages.”
According to Huss, this provision would reduce the competitiveness of Ohio’s public universities.
“We’re having less flexibility for students at public universities than exists for students at state schools in other states or private schools in our own state,” he complained.
