The Truth About Ohio's Restrictions on Campus DEI

What do campus shout-downs, cancellation campaigns aimed at heterodox faculty, increasing rates of self-censorship among college students, and the use of political litmus tests in faculty hiring have in common? They are all the sorry progeny of campus “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) efforts—a misleading moniker that conceals these efforts’ true purpose and impact on university campuses today. 

In fact, these concepts really stand for sowing division among students based on group identity; supporting race-exclusionary policies, clubs, events, and spaces; normalizing extremist views on questions of race and gender identity; and using the campus to indoctrinate students into left-wing political ideology.   

It’s hardly a wonder that state legislatures are finally passing commonsense restrictions on DEI offices and programs at publicly funded colleges and universities. Saving these institutions as truth-seeking enterprises depends on it.

On the heels of legislative successes in Florida and Texas, attention has turned to Ohio, where the Senate recently passed SB 83, a university reform measure that would ban mandatory DEI training and accomplish many other improvements for Ohio’s colleges and universities. The bill reportedly will be added to the state’s must-pass budget bill.

Unfortunately, we know from rhetorical shenanigans in Florida and Texas that university staff misrepresent education reform bills like this one—often to discredit them. We’re seeing that again in Ohio. 

A recent report expresses concerns about SB 83’s potential costs that are either fundamentally incorrect or dramatically overblown. 

In the area of federal grants, for instance, the report argues that universities will become ineligible if they are not allowed even to discuss DEI. This is false. The bill bans mandatory DEI training and mandatory DEI statements, leaving voluntary efforts alone. And the bill exempts even a mandatory program or training that is necessary to “secure or retain grants.”  

Accordingly, any concern about DEI training is a red herring. But if there were a federal grant that included mandatory training other than what is required by civil rights laws, why should any Ohio university want to take federal money to coerce its students, faculty, or staff? 

The truth is that nothing in the bill interferes with a university’s responsibility to comply with existing civil rights protections under Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act (protecting race, ethnicity, and national origin) or Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (protecting sex). Those statutes require nondiscrimination. And that’s also what SB 87 does. 

Nothing in the legislative proposal would prevent Ohio universities from ensuring that adverse employment actions are never taken for discriminatory reasons. Universities can and should continue to train faculty and staff about state and federal anti-discrimination protections in an employment context. Similarly, restricting campus DEI programs will in no way interfere with the operations of Title IX offices or universities’ responsibility to ensure that individuals are not discriminated against based on their race under Titles VI or VII. 

The report reads as though granting agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) fund research only at universities that include mandatory DEI training. That’s false, too. It’s false to suggest that grant proposals must remain silent about helping minority groups. Consider a different agency that explicitly helps members of minority groups: the Minority Business Development Agency. It makes grants that help socially or economically disadvantaged individuals (“SEDI”) as entrepreneurs, but it is not allowed to do so on a discriminatory basis; instead, proposals can show awareness of the kinds of challenges that SEDI entrepreneurs of different identities face, and then show how, in a non-discriminatory way, the project addresses such challenges—for example, by providing travel stipends or childcare services for those who would otherwise have trouble participating in the project.

All of this is still allowed by SB 83. 

So, when the report, prepared by the Inter-University Council of Ohio, claims existential harm, it’s either misinformed or misleading: “Ohio State risks disbarment as a federal contractor, and the loss of federal contracts, if they do not comply with their affirmative action and EEO obligations. Funding potentially at risk would include federal student financial aid and loans, $379 million, federal research grants, $581 million, and federal healthcare financing through Medicare/Medicaid of more than $1 billion.” In fact, none of that is at any risk at all. 

Additionally, some of the claims in the report are laughable. If Central State University is actually discriminating on the basis of race, it should stop doing so, but the bill in no way threatens Central’s HBCU (Historically Black College or University) status. To comply with the rule against taking donations from the Chinese Communist Party, probably all a college needs to do is require a gift form attesting, “I am not acting on behalf of China or the CCP.” And as for handling expensive lawsuits: if you’re not coercing students to believe that they are evil because of their race, or engaging in similar behavior, you have nothing to worry about. 

Finally, some of the bill’s expenses, as detailed in the report, are good. Teaching civics and providing curricular transparency are good—even great—expenses. If colleges have to cut administrative bloat to pay for those improvements, that’s all the better. (The high numbers here do prove how bloated the bureaucracies already are.)

The version of SB 83 being presented by the bill’s critics is very far from the SB 83 reality. Legislators should not be fooled.