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Ohio Republicans have introduced a bill to protect civics schools at the state’s universities from leftwing influences.
The Strengthening Ohio Civics Act would grant independence in hiring, curriculum, and funding at the five public universities with civics schools: Ohio State, Miami University, Cleveland State University, Wright State University, and the University of Toledo.
Senate Bill 461 “seeks to close loopholes that were used to limit the intended authority of center directors,” according to state Sen. Jerry Cirino, the bill’s primary sponsor.
Beginning with the 2029-30 school year, Ohio students must take a civic literacy course to graduate under a law passed last year. The course must include readings from the U.S Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers, Emancipation Proclamation, and Gettysburg Address.
The newly proposed bill would establish an Ohio Civics Board, composed of the directors of the state’s five academic civics centers, also commonly referred to as “intellectual diversity centers.”
The board would approve the curriculum for the required civic literacy courses rather than external university departments or faculty senates.
Students attending Ohio universities with civic centers would have to fulfill the civic literacy course mandate through the centers, according to the bill. Students at Ohio public universities that do not have a civics center would take a civic literacy course that was reviewed and approved by the statewide Ohio Civics Board.
“The centers were created in 2023, and enrollment has been low so far. Cirino’s bill also requires that tuition, state share of instruction and other revenue associated with the required course goes to the civics centers, to ensure their survival,” Ohio Statehouse News Bureau reported.
“We know there is reluctance and downright tactical things being done to try to frustrate these centers from being successful. We’re not going to let that happen. We want to make sure that they have the student body necessary,” Cirino told the Bureau. “We want to make sure that they are financially viable, and that they are not taken advantage of by those that would like to frustrate the implementation of the laws that we passed.”
Stanley Kurtz wrote in National Review that Ohio State University’s curricular decisions demonstrate the need for such legislation, citing OSU’s required “Citizenship for a Diverse and Just World” mandate as an example.
To meet the requirement, students can take: Citizens Behind Bars: Black Leadership and the Politics of Liberation In African-American History; Social (In)Justice and the Black Experience; Gender and Citizenship in Modern Arabic Literature; Native American Identity; Equity and Diversity in Education; Writing for Social Change; Digital Activism; Muslims in America and Europe; Musical Citizenship: Activism, Advocacy and Engagement in Sound; Understanding Bollywood, Knowing India: Hindi Cinema Since 1960; Queer Comrades: Sexual Citizenship and LGBTQ Lives in Eastern Europe; and Gender, Race & Leadership, among other similarly themed classes.
“Instead of being educated in America’s Founding documents and the principles on which they rest, OSU students are spoon-fed identity politics, leftist political activism, globalism, and courses on non-Western cultures. While some of those courses in non-Western cultures may be fine, they do not qualify as American civics,” Kurtz told The College Fix via email.
This example illustrates why SB 461 is needed, he said.
Turning over civics education to those who hold disdain for America makes no sense to Kurtz, he said: “The risk is that faculty members who’ve already tossed away the opportunity to teach American civics will mangle, distort, and subvert the new civic literacy course if required to teach it.”
“So, if the new American civic literacy requirement is going to work, it’s got to be taught by faculty who have real expertise in, and commitment to, the letter and the spirit of the requirement. We find that sort of faculty in the new civic centers.”
The Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors has come out against the bill.
“SB 461 requires Ohio’s universities to fund the five new civic centers before anything else—even if they aren’t offering courses that help students graduate or don’t have students enrolled in their programs or courses,” OCAAUP Executive Director Jennifer Tisone Price wrote in a statement to the Ohio Statehouse News Bureau.
“This absolutely drives up tuition costs for every other student at that university,” she said.
Cirino’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
MORE: Ohio professors lose battle to derail ‘intellectual diversity’ centers at state’s major universities
