We Spoke Out, Again, Against the Destruction of Higher Ed in Ohio
There was a “hearing” on SB1, but will politicians listen?
It’s the morning after the historical day of opposition testimony against Senate Bill 1, the bill seeking to destroy Ohio higher education as we know it. As we did in March 2023, Ohioans came out in the hundreds and demonstrated their strong opposition.
Despite very little notice from the Senate Higher Ed Committee — which is trying to vote it out of committee this morning and then through the full Senate in the afternoon — we came out in force to send a message. And all the headlines are carrying that message today, that SB1 is heavily contested by the residents and taxpayers of this state.
Here’s a rough breakdown
— over 200 signed up to give oral testimony
— over 800 submitted written testimony
— we forced the session to last 8.5 hours
Student voices were quite prominent in opposition. And a bill supposedly being passed in the name of students couldn’t even get ONE student from a public university to testify. (One student testified in favor from a private university.)
There’s many many people to thank for this effort. This turnout was impossible without tremendous work. The feeling to oppose was spontaneous; the organizing was essential to helped channel and unify it.
But this is far from over. Before I say more about yesterday, here’s a guide from the Ohio Conference of the AAUP on what we can do right now, including calling legislators.
Changing the Narrative
SB 1 is more or less a copy of SB 83, the unpopular bill that couldn’t pass a GOP-dominated legislature for 22 months. Many have spoken out against it; I’ll just add my recent Op-Ed here.
Instituting surveillance of faculty for teaching “controversial topics,” banning necessary DEI programs, prohibiting faculty strikes, making the shutting down of departments and colleges easier (retrenchment) — these are among the many problems with SB1. Though it is being projected as bringing freedom of thought and “intellectual diversity” to universities.
SB1 was a repeat — and we in the statewide coalition repeated our strategy, too. Forums, trainings, media spots, Op-Eds and student-led actions: we helped to make Ohioans’ anger against the bill visible. Just like in March 2023, you can’t read a single journalistic report about SB1 this morning which does not show the mass opposition. And my prediction is that this will carry for several months.
Make no mistake. We’ve changed the narrative. we have shown that Ohio will not go down without a fight. And that is immeasurable.
What will happen next?
Here’s what happened at the parallel point in 2023. Despite the mass opposition, the bill was quickly pushed out of the Senate committee and passed in the full Senate. It looked like what we had feared would happen: the GOP-dominated legislature would easily pass the bill. And Senator Cirino, the bill’s sponsor, repeatedly told us that he had the votes and the House was in the bag.
But it was not to be. SB 83 stalled in the House again and again — here’s what I wrote after one of those instances. In my view, Cirino’s SB 117 — the wretched Bill that established so-called “intellectual diversity” centers in five Ohio universities — passed in the summer of 2023 as a compromise. But even this wasn’t a direct validation of that bill. Rather, SB 117 was snuck into the budget.
We can give all kinds of reasons for why it happened, but the fact remains that SB 83 died in the House. If this were a popular bill, there is no reason why Republicans in the House would not have made it happen.
So what do I expect today? More of the same initially.
In terms of the Senate, I think history will repeat itself. At the 9 o’clock session today, I expect SB1 will be voted out of committee. And at 1:30 today, I expect the full Senate will vote it through.
I hope that this does not happen and that the testimonies of hundreds of Ohioans matters. But at the end of the day, this is not about the merit of the bill, but partisan politics and power.
It would take some brave Senators to defy their party and actually stand up for true freedom of thought. I hope they exist.
Can this bill stall in the House again? Will the governor veto the bill if it passes? The signs point towards SB 1 passing, if I am to be honest.
And yet I keep remembering that if someone asked me in March 2023, I would have said the same thing. And it didn’t pass.
Eyes on the Prize
The hardest thing to do in such a situation is to keep doing what’s right — regardless of consequences. My greatest satisfaction from last night is that the people of Ohio understood the need to stand up again, and came out in such large numbers against SB 1.
Last time around, I believe that the true impact of our mass opposition in March 2023 was only felt at a later stage, when it failed in the House. If we only took the Senate vote as the gauge for why our actions mattered, we would miss the full picture, which is that our mobilization helped to stop SB 83 from passing.
Whether SB1 passes or not, this historic day against SB1 mattered. And we will make it matter more if we take inspiration from the brilliant testimonies given yesterday (video link for verbal, written docs here) and keep pushing to change the narrative and stop harmful policies. Not only against SB1, but the many attacks that many of us are facing now.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., used to always say: “Let’s keep our eyes on the prize.”
Ups and downs are part of the longer struggle. But we know where the arc of history bends. Towards justice.
