DeWine signs law to ban DEI at Ohio public colleges; GOP praises, ACLU may sue

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : Mar. 30 -- Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Friday signed Senate Bill 1 into Ohio law -- a Republican-led higher education bill that will ban diversity, equity or inclusion initiatives as well as faculty strikes at public colleges, among other provisions.
47% : " "This bill is a badly needed course correction that restores students' basic rights on campus, primarily the right to free speech," Huffman said. Democratic Party groups have called the bill an attack on public sector unions and said it will lead "current and prospective Ohio students, higher education professionals, and businesses to look elsewhere."
44% : Among the provisions of Senate Bill 1, the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act: -- Ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on public college and university campuses and force current DEI initiatives to close, despite offering no definition of what actually constitutes a "DEI" initiative; -- Allow the state to withhold funds for non-compliance with the bill; -- Require universities to "Affirm and declare that the state institution will not encourage, discourage, require or forbid students, faculty, or administrators to endorse, assent to, or publicly express a given ideology, political stance, or view of a social policy, nor will the institution require students to do any of those things to obtain an undergraduate or post-graduate degree"; -- Require students to take a state-designed American civics or history class before being awarded a bachelor's degree; -- Automatically eliminate any university degree program that awards fewer than five degrees per year on a three-year rolling average; -- Prohibit full-time university faculty from striking; -- Require state training for university trustees and reduce trustee terms from nine years to six. Dayton Unit NAACP President Derrick Foward recently said the dismantling of Ohio DEI initiatives will take away opportunities for Black youth and lead them to seek higher education in other states.

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