Group aims to stop controversial law banning DEI at Ohio's universities before it takes effect
'Unfortunately, given how bad this bill is for faculty, students, and higher education in general, this was our only option,' Mark Vopat, president of Youngstown State's faculty union, said.
Vopat is one of three professors at Youngstown State University driving a state-wide volunteer effort to pause Senate Bill 1 until voters can decide whether or not to pass it in November. Vopat and his colleagues are racing a June 26 deadline to complete the referendum process, which requires collecting 250,000 signatures and submitting them to the state before S.B. 1 goes into effect on Friday. This past weekend marked the final major push for signatures.
EdChoice families hit first when public schools lack transportation funding
Senate Bill 1 will ban diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at Ohio's public universities, and limit faculty union powers. Ohio allows laws to be challenged in the 90 days before they take effect, and Vopat said it seemed that was the only option. See previous coverage in the video player above.
'It was clear that the 1,500 instances of opposition testimony, hundreds of in-person testimony, and thousands of people protesting resulted in no changes to the bill,' he said.
To get on the ballot, they must collect 248,092 valid signatures from Ohio voters — equal to 6% of participants in the last gubernatorial election. They must also collect as many signatures as equal to 3% of the last gubernatorial vote in 44 of 88 counties. However, training materials for the effort's petition circulators said the group is hoping for at least 425,000 signatures, as they expect not all signatures will be considered valid.
Vopat said this last weekend marked the final push for petition drives, adding the 'No Kings' protests, Pride events and Juneteenth events were especially productive for getting signatures. He said although there may be some targeted breakout petition events this week, widespread collection will end by Monday to have time to prepare the submission to the state.
The group is entirely made up of volunteers. In early May, Vopat and his colleagues created the Labor Education And Diversity Ohio PAC to fund the printing of petitions, but said they initially paid out of pocket for materials and a website.
How to stay safe from firework-related injuries this summer
Vopat said the hard work is important to stop the bill from going into effect, and to prevent similar bills in the future.
'We want to stop the government in its steps before its attacks reach K-12 and other unions,' the effort's website said. 'What happens to higher education is going to roll down to K-12 and outward to other labor unions.'
Vopat said the anti-DEI provisions in S.B. 1 harm everyone, from eliminating sensitivity training to support veterans to creating a 'chilling effect' toward what can be taught in the classroom. He also said the law's mandatory civic education course is an overstep and a dangerous precedent, saying it was the first time he can recall the state mandating both a course and the content taught in it. Provisions like these make the group think the measure could reasonably fail at the ballot.
This week, the group will gather its signatures so they can be submitted to the state for review. Vopat said Attorney General Dave Yost gave them until June 26 to submit the petition, one day later than they had originally thought. If the signatures are verified by the Secretary of State, it will go to the Ohio Ballot Board to place on the Nov. 4 ballot.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
8 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump administration widens George Mason University probes
The Trump administration announced Monday an additional probe against George Mason University (GMU), making it the fourth since President Trump took office. The Department of Justice (DOJ) said it is investigating if the university has violated Title VI by discriminating against students based on race or ethnicity during admissions or scholarship practices. 'Public educational institutions are contractually obligated to follow our nation's federal civil rights laws when receiving federal funds,' said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. 'No one should be denied access to opportunity or resources because of their race, color, or national origin, and the United States is committed to keeping our universities free of such invidious bias.' The Hill has reached out to GMU for comment. The investigation comes on the back of a similar DOJ inquiry into whether George Mason discriminated against faculty for promotion or hiring based on race or ethnicity due to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Other investigations include inaction on antisemitism and an additional inquiry into discrimination in employment practices. 'As always, we will work in good faith to give a full and prompt response. George Mason University again affirms its commitment to comply with all federal and state mandates. The university consistently reviews its policies and practices to ensure compliance with federal laws, updated executive orders, and on-going agency directives,' a spokesperson for the university said in response to the investigation regarding DEI.
Fox News
3 hours ago
- Fox News
WATCH: DEI efforts were rebranded at 2 red-state colleges to skirt Trump orders, staffers admit
Staff at two of Tennessee's most prominent universities — Vanderbilt and the University of Tennessee — were caught on undercover recordings admitting to rebranding their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in an effort to sidestep Republican-led bans. Despite state and federal orders aimed at dismantling DEI initiatives, school officials described a deliberate strategy to rename, repackage and quietly preserve these controversial programs under new labels like "access and engagement" and "belonging and community." "It's a chess game," Will Eakin, a coordinator for UT's "Access & Engagement" office, said in a recording obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital. "We had to take our current programming and our future programming and make sure that it aligns so that we can do the work that we're trying to do, while also catering to the Department of Education, the federal," the staffer went on, adding, "The biggest thing is using language as a tool for protection." The staffers at UT also boasted about how good the school's government relations team is at helping guide staff and faculty on how to deal with anti-DEI legislation at the state and federal levels. "We have an incredible government relations team," Eakin said. He claimed that UT President Randy Boyd, "though he is a Republican, cares deeply about access and engagement, and he has been fully committed to the work of DEI and access and engagement, and he works very closely with government relations when they go to Nashville." "Because our government relations team is so good, they know which bills to be mindful of, how to best prepare and everything. And so here we are. These committees and task forces and offices were built back in 2020, and they're still up and running," said Eakin. The staffer added that a few years ago, when state officials were beginning to scrutinize universities' DEI practices, the government relations team and other university leaders took steps to "get ahead of the curve" to "make sure the access and engagement, which is DEI, could maintain itself." "So they changed the language so that the state government couldn't put a magnifying glass on us," the UT staffer added. Meanwhile, at Vanderbilt, another major university in the state, an academic coach at the school's "Center for Student Wellbeing" said that though the names of their offices may have changed, their DEI missions have not. "At one point, you know, everybody, like different universities, were under investigation for their, like, DEI practices and stuff like that. So, that's why I think the naming has changed," said Ivie Carmouche, an academic coach in Vanderbilt's Center for Student Wellbeing. "We're in the Center for Student Wellbeing – like I said, we have things that clue people in and let people know that this is a safe space for everybody," she said, adding, "Belonging and Communities is like as close to that DEI work you can probably get. Previously, they were the Center for Social Justice and Identities." When asked whether the renamed university center was still doing DEI work, Carmouche responded, "Yeah." "The language will be different because we have to kind of be strategic. But there's a lot of collaborations with them, KC Potter House, Black Cultural Center, Women's Center, like even in the Women's Center, they're very open and welcoming to all gender identities." "When I say different, it just looks different now because the language has had to change. Students Center for Belonging Communities is kind of like the DEI," she added. Fox News Digital reached out to Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Boston Globe
11 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Far beyond Harvard, conservative efforts to reshape higher education are gaining steam
Advertisement 'What's happened nationally is now affecting Indiana,' said Beckley, who bought Harvard caps in bulk and passes them out to friends. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Officials in conservative states took aim at higher education before President Donald Trump began his second term, driven in part by the belief that colleges are out of touch — too liberal and loading up students with too much debt. The first efforts focused on critical race theory, an academic framework centered on the idea that racism is embedded in the nation's institutions, and then on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Since Trump took office, officials in states including Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Iowa and Idaho increasingly have focused on university governance — rules for who picks university presidents and boards and how much control they exert over curriculums and faculty tenure. Advertisement As at Harvard, which Trump has decried as overly influenced by liberal thinking, those state officials have sought to reduce the power of faculty members and students. 'They've realized that they can take a bit of a step further, that they can advance their policy priorities through those levers they have through the state university system,' said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow who studies higher education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. State officials push for more conservative leadership In Indiana, Braun said he picked new trustees who will guide the school 'back in the right direction.' They include an anti-abortion attorney and a former ESPN host who was disciplined because she criticized the company's policy requiring employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Braun's administration has ramped up scrutiny of hiring practices at colleges statewide. Indiana's attorney general, Todd Rokita, has sent letters to the University of Notre Dame, Butler University and DePauw University questioning the legality of their DEI programs. Butler, a private, liberal arts school in Indianapolis, was founded by an abolitionist in the decade leading up to the Civil War and admitted women and students of color from the start. 'I hope that Butler will uphold the standards they were founded on,' said Edyn Curry, president of Butler's Black Student Union. In Florida, the state university system board in June rejected longtime academic Santa Ono for the presidency at the University of Florida, despite a unanimous vote of approval by the school's own Board of Trustees. The unprecedented reversal followed criticism from conservatives about Ono's past support for DEI programs. That followed the conservative makeover of New College of Florida, a small liberal arts school once known as the state's most progressive. After Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed a group of conservatives to its governing board, many faculty left, including Amy Reid, who now manages a team focused on higher education at the free-expression group PEN America. Advertisement 'When our students started organizing at New College, one of their slogans was 'Your Campus is Next,'' said Reid, who saw the gender studies program she directed defunded and then cut. 'So no, we're not surprised when you see other states redefining what can be in a general education class, because we've seen it happen already.' Changes have met limited resistance The changes at several public universities are proceeding without battles of the kind seen at Harvard. In a standoff seen widely as a test of private universities' independence, Harvard has filed lawsuits against the administration's moves to cut its federal funding and block its ability to host international students. In Iowa, new DEI restrictions are taking effect in July for community colleges. And the board that governs the state's three public universities is weighing doing something similar to Idaho, where a new law imposes restrictions on requiring students to take DEI-related courses to meet graduation requirements. Historically, the Iowa board has been focused on big-picture issues like setting tuition rates and approving degree programs. Now, there's a perceived sense that faculty should not be solely responsible for academic matters and that the trustees should play a more active role, said Joseph Yockey, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Law and the former president of Iowa's faculty senate. 'What we started to see more recently is trustees losing confidence,' Yockey said. Advertisement A new law in Ohio bans DEI programs at public colleges and universities and also strips faculty of certain collective bargaining rights and tenure protections. There are few guardrails limiting how far oversight boards can change public institutions, said Isabel McMullen, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin who researches higher education. 'For a board that really does want to wreak havoc on an institution and overthrow a bunch of different programs, I think if a board is interested in doing that, I don't really see what's stopping them aside from students and faculty really organizing against it,' McMullen said. Defenders of academic freedom see threats on several fronts The initiatives on state and federal levels have led to widespread concerns about an erosion of college's independence from politics, said Isaac Kamola, director of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom at the American Association of University Professors. 'They have to not only face an attack from the state legislature, but also from the federal government as well,' said Kamola, who is also a professor of political science at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a pair of bills in June that impose new limits on student protests and give gubernatorial-appointed boards that oversee the state's universities new powers to control the curriculum and eliminate degree programs. Cameron Samuels, executive director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, an advocacy group, said politicians in the state are taking control of universities to dictate what is acceptable. 'When someone controls the dissemination of ideas, that is a really dangerous sign for the future of democracy,' Samuels said. The 21-year-old who is transgender and nonbinary went to college in Massachusetts and got into Harvard for graduate school, but as the Trump administration began targeting the institution, he instead chose to return to his home state and attend the University of Texas in Austin. Advertisement 'I at least knew what to expect,' he said.
