Students First Agenda Introduced with Senate Bill 1

Senate Bill 1 will bring a "students first" agenda to Ohio’s public universities.

Senator Jerry Cirino is the lead sponsor of the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act and is our guest this week on the President's Podcast.

Wednesday he held a news conference at the Ohio Statehouse with the Higher Education Committee Chairs of both the Senate and the House, Senator Kristina Roegner and Representative Tom Young. 

Watch the highlights here.

The bill includes these key elements.

·       Ensures intellectual diversity in the classroom and among the faculty.

·       Provides free speech protections for students, faculty and staff.

·       Allow an education of free, open, and rigorous intellectual inquiry to seek the truth

·       Eliminates DEI programming, staff, consultants, titles and spending

·       Requires full syllabus transparency

·       Bans political and ideological litmus tests in all hiring, promotion, and admissions decisions

·       Protects students and tuition by eliminating the ability of faculty to strike.

·       Requires full disclosure of any donations made by any affiliate of the People’s Republic of China.

·       Reaffirms the authority of university trustees that they run the school and not the faculty.

College campuses and faculty clearly have leaned to the political left, but today’s campuses are replete with a “cancel culture” mentality that exercises discriminatory faculty hiring practices, leading to a level of student intimidation across campus.

"No student should ever be ostracized, cancelled, or have to worry about a failing grade for merely daring to have a difference of opinion with classmates or a professor," said Cirino. "It is essential for students to learn how to think rather than what to think, and how to listen to opposing views with a respectful but critical ear.”

Senate Bill 1 bans Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion courses, training, litmus tests, required statements, and spending for any DEI initiatives or programs with the same intent. “We want every student in Ohio, regardless of race, gender, or religion to be able to pursue their choice of post-secondary education,” said Cirino. “However, DEI programs are inherently discriminatory and cannot be tolerated or paid for by taxpayers.”

Just a few years ago, Ohio State University allocated $13.4 million to a DEI budget, funding 132 positions that ranged in salary from $289,000 to $26,000. Read this remarkable story from City Journal Magazine written by John D. Sailer, who is the Director of Higher Education Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Sailer documents the blatant discriminatory hiring practices that should have no place in any human resource office regardless of whether it is on a college campus or a Fortune 500 corporation. Fortunately, Ohio State is under new leadership with retired Naval Fighter Pilot, President Ted Carter.

Today, companies across the country are terminating their DEI programs, recognizing the discriminatory impact of division, exclusion and inequality, the program of misguided woke political correctness creates. Among those corporations, Ford, Walmart, John Deere, Caterpillar and Jack Daniels. Now the White House under President Trump’s leadership is ending those misguided programs of social promotion.

A small but vocal group of students, organized by a radical Ohio State University Professor and other far left special interests tried to shut down Senator Cirino's news conference by shouting and chanting as they tried to falsely suggest that the bill promotes antisemitism, holocaust deniers, and censorship. That is patently false and laughable. The students who protested were led by a professor who is the faculty advisor of Students for Justice for Palestine. That's an organization that supports Hamas, sympathizes with terror groups, and protests against Israel following the heinous and barbaric attacks of October 7th 2023.

“I will tell you that the students who were here today protesting probably were getting extra-credit,” said Senator Cirino.

It’s unfortunate that some far left members of the General Assembly have called the bill antisemitic, while being too tone deaf or simply too shallow to realize that the very protestors they’re supporting are the people who hate Israel, the people who are the real Holocaust deniers, and the people who intimidate Jewish students on campus.

The Editor of Cleveland.com even accused Senator Cirino of wanting to turn Ohio’s college campuses into fascist states with the prior version of the bill, SB 83, in the last General Assembly. That’s today’s media. Radically out of touch with the people who decided both the popular vote and the Electoral College in November. The media continues to provide example after example of why they are putting themselves out of business. The media, in this case the new publisher of cleveland.com, who villify the hard-working Ohioans who just want to make sure their sons and daughters receive an education at college rather than an indoctrination.

Senator Kristina Roegner chairs the Senate's Higher Education Committee along with Representative Tom Young who chairs the House Higher Eduation Committee, joined Senator Cirino at the news conference. Both reinforced the importance of holding immediate hearings on Senate Bill 1, and its companion bill in the House.

"As chair, I am committed to ensuring that our universities are offering the highest caliber education, where studnets are able to reach their full intellectual potential, where research and critical thinking are promoted, free speech is encouraged, where innovation is nutured and performance is rewarded," said Senator Roegner. "To be the best, we must be a meritocracy. We want Ohio's students to be educated rather than indoctrinated."

Senator Jerry Cirino delivers a hard hitting interview on this week’s President’s Podcast.