It's About Time: This Ohio Higher Education Bill Would END Diversity Mandates

On Wednesday, Republican state Senator Jerry Cirino of Ohio introduced the Higher Education Enhancement Act. The Bill aims to put into effect specific reforms on campus. Bill 83 would enhance the protection of free speech, eliminate training and statements regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), make course syllabi public, and sever any financial or academic ties to China.

Senator Cirino told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “I believe it’s important to keep Ohio’s higher education institutions from going off on a tangent, which they’ve already started to do...in losing their focus on what their mission ought to be, and that is true diversity of thought [being] taught on campuses and actual freedom of speech and academic freedoms for everybody to have on all sides of issues.”

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For universities that will not adhere to the mandate regarding DEI training for faculty members and students or implement a “political and ideological litmus test,” the Chancellor of Higher Education is ordered via the Bill to withhold state funding.

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According to the Bill, universities “aren’t permitted” to have an academic or financial partnership with any Chinese-based institution. “Agreements with the Confucius Institutes will not [be] renewed” once they expire, and universities would refrain from accepting any “gifts, donations, or contributions” from a Chinese-affiliated “organization or individual who may be acting on behalf of the People’s Republic of China.”

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Cirino explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation, “We have Communist China that [are] engaging in activities that [are] contrary to the interests of the United States, both economically and strategically, and the way they run their country from the standpoint of individual freedoms. I do not see us [as] wanting to cooperate with that with state taxpayer money through our institutions.”

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Additionally, universities must make the syllabus for undergraduate courses public and available on its website. The Bill also requires Universities to establish post-tenure reviews and prohibit a strike by university and college employees.

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Cirino said, “Students pre-pay for their tuition, and they deserve [to get] the instruction they need without interruption.” “I’m not against organized labor or [against] unions in our universities, but we are taking striking off the table. They can negotiate their contracts through other means that [are] available to them and not use the students as pawns.”