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Republican backers of the 60% voter approval amendment are counting votes before it goes to the House floor, and a Senate bill seeks to make some sweeping changes in higher education to address concerns conservatives have held about universities.

I asked the sponsor about the possible and serious impacts of his bill this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

The Ohio house could decide in the next few days to ask voters to approve a Republican backed constitutional amendment to make it harder to pass future amendments, including one on reproductive rights and abortion access expected this fall.

But even though the GOP holds a supermajority in the House, the count may be close.

It will take a 3/5 majority of the House to pass the resolution to put before voters a constitutional amendment requiring 60% voter approval for future amendments.

But with two open seats in the 99 member House, that may be 59 rather than 60.

There are 65 Republicans and all 32 Democrats are opposed.

House Majority Floor Leader Bill Seitz, who voted for the 60% voter approval resolution when it passed in December, suggests it's down to the wire.

Do you know if the votes are there?

I'm not in charge of counting votes, so I know it's very, very close.

The Senate version of that resolution passed that chamber along party lines, 26 to 7.

This week, the Ohio Association of Elections Officials, which represents the people who would have to execute an August special election for a vote on the 60% approval plan, formally opposed the bills that would create that statewide special election for that purpose.

But Governor Mike DeWine, who's long been an advocate against abortion rights, says he'll sign the August special election bill if he gets it.

This week, the House was focused on the two year state budget, which passed 77 to 19, with votes from most Republicans and all but two Democrats.

But there were still about two dozen amendments that lawmakers wanted to put forward and were rejected by Speaker Jason Stevens.

Today is a big day for Ohio.

We passed a balanced budget that is focused on everyday Ohioans.

We focused on tax cuts for middle income Ohioans.

We've improved education funding on all fronts for Ohioans.

We're investing in our future on all fronts.

And it is a really good day for Ohio and was really pleased with the support throughout the House.

What did you think of the.

Thank you today and thank you.

What about not having amendments taken up on Stevens rival for speaker?

Derek Marin said Stevens didn't want to consider a Democratic amendment to repeal the remaining parts of the corruption tainted nuclear power plant bailout.

House Bill six, including subsidies to to coal fired power plants owned by utilities such as American Electric Power.

The budget, with an income tax cut for people making under $96,000 a year, an expansion of taxpayer paid school vouchers, along with full funding of the formula for K through 12 public schools.

Half a billion dollars to prepare big sites for economic development and increases in child care funding and Medicaid payments to direct service professionals.

Now goes to the Senate.

The August special election, and the 60% voter approval resolution, or just two of the high profile issues that got hearings last week.

Bans on trans athletes and girls, sports and gender transition treatment for minors also were heard.

And on the same day as all those measures, a hearing on a bill that would make big changes in higher education.

And members of an Ohio Senate committee got an earful on it in a hearing that lasted for more than 7 hours.

Senate Bill 83, what's known as the Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act, would ban universities from requiring diversity, equity and inclusion or DTI training, and would also prohibit them from requiring anyone to express a specific ideology or political view or from doing public statements on controversial issues.

It would prohibit financial partnerships with China, ban hiring based on ideological litmus tests, prohibit faculty members from striking, require tenured faculty to go through performance reviews, which could include student evaluations.

And universities would have to submit a four point statement when requesting state funding that states the institution's commitment to intellectual diversity and free speech that does not require DTI training.

And that course outlines or syllabi are published online.

And that's not all that's in the bill.

The hearing started with three supporters of Senate Bill 83, including Republican Representative Josh Williams, who said he, quote, witnessed the decline of open dialog on college campuses firsthand and quote at the University of Toledo College of Law when he expressed the view that the US should not adopt an open border policy.

There is a de facto censorship regime on college campuses now.

This bill reverses these policies and opens new avenues for transparency and accountability.

But nearly all of the more than 500 others who either spoke or submitted testimony were adamantly opposed to the bill.

Here's a sampling of what they said.

We can't afford to make education more costly, more restrictive and less supportive to our students in the state who would want to get their education in a state where education is censored.

Where diversity, equity and inclusion are not valued.

I will tell you this the.

People who do not want to do the DTI training are the people who need to do the DTI training.

Higher education has a lot of problems and every faculty member you talk to would say the same.

It is too expensive.

There are too many administrators.

There is too much bureaucracy.

SB 83 fixes none of these problems.

Instead, it would make higher ed more expensive and require us to hire more administrators to carry out its many unfunded mandates.

What this bill tries to do, it tries to mandate that we agree with each other.

It tries to mandate that we accept each other's opinions.

That's never going to happen.

Diverse opinions are important because this is crap.

You want to amend the bill, throw it out.

Next week I'll be talking with opponents of Senate Bill 83.

But this week, an extended conversation about the sweeping bill with its sponsor, Republican Senator Jerry Serino.

So you wrote a column about your higher Education Enhancement Act saying that, quote, It ensures free expression on campus and in the classroom at Ohio's public colleges and universities.

And you write, our First Amendment is under assault in academia.

Senate Bill 83 will fix that.

The idea of ensuring free speech and intellectual diversity.

It's vague.

I it certainly is what most higher education institutions would say they're already doing.

So how.

What do you mean by that?

And how would you set up standards that would measure if colleges and universities are doing that?

Well, that's a great question.

It's difficult to set up firm measurements, certainly.

But I can tell you that I've been working on this bill conceptually, certainly in my mind, for almost two years, and I've been researching and reading voraciously about what's going on in the campuses, particularly in Ohio, but also around the country.

And there's no question in my mind that that there is a bent in our campus on our campuses that is is is contrary to totally free expression.

How do you how do you do all that?

How do you how do you make those measurements?

Well, I think what we can do is follow what many refer to in the Chicago principles, which you may have seen, which really is a very it's a somewhat old document, but it talks about what should the environment be like in academia today?

How do we deliver the best education to our students and prepare them to go out and get jobs so they could pay off their great school or college debt that they've accumulated?

And part of that is that that we have to have an openness to all points of view.

And that points of view should be debated, discussed research and the job of the professor is to facilitate that activity, because then we are teaching our students how to think, how to analyze, how to respect other people's opinions, even if they disagree with them and not teaching them what to think.

And what we know is happening on many campuses today is that indoctrination is occurring or attempts to indoctrinate where professors are attempting to convey their point of view and to inculcate that into the students.

And that is not the that is not what is behind the First Amendment.

And in fact, it's somewhat compelled speech when you think about it, that students are basically told you have to believe this and whether they believe it or not and compelled speech is just as egregious as restricted speech.

How do you change that, though, if that's what you're alleging is happening?

How do you change that and measure that to ensure that it is change?

Well, one of the things we're doing in this bill and we can't absolutely ensure that it happens.

These are cultural changes in a sense, but what we have in the bill are engaging the the the trustees of our universities and community colleges because they're the governance body and they set the tone, they set the policies, they hire the president and make many other important personnel decisions.

We're asking them in this bill to step up and make sure that they are not only stating that in their mission statement and in their policies, that diversity of speech is not only to be accepted, it's to be promoted.

And and we're asking them to do that, and we will be watching that.

No hard and fast way to monitor that, except that we we will be watching, certainly.

And I think I think what we can do is, is make sure that we do empower those administrators to be able to defend people's rights, to speak with diverse opinions.

You receive more than 500 submissions from people who wanted to testify or share written testimony before a hearing last week.

That hearing went on for 7 hours, a little bit more than 7 hours.

By far, most of what you received was opposing the bill.

So I want to ask you about some of the concerns that were raised.

First of all, your bill would ban mandatory diversion equity and includes inclusion training.

It would still allow colleges and universities to offer that, but ban the mandatory use of that training.

Some of those who spoke who said they said they are concerned about a loss of federal funding and accreditation from certain for certain programs like nursing engineering business.

Is that a concern?

Well, what people there didn't know when I did status during the hearing that timing wise, it just wasn't coincidental with the amendment that we're working on.

We've been working on the amendment for almost a month, pretty much since the bill came out.

No bill is perfect when it's first introduced.

And so we started the process of after getting some inputs and we've been working with lots of interested parties to make sure that we have this right and that we avoided any unintended consequences.

Because I know what the spirit of the bill is supposed to be, because I wrote it and and it had help from lots of people, certainly.

But, you know, one of the things that we're looking to do is to make sure that in the amendment, we are making things that are perhaps not as clear as they should have been making them more clear.

We are making some eliminations and we're adding some things.

So that's the process that we go through.

But the objections of that, this would chill academic freedom, chill speech in the classroom, they're all absurd objections.

This bill is actually intended to promote the ultimate academic freedom so that anybody can feel free to express themselves wherever they are in the political spectrum.

They should be able to express themselves.

When you talk about the number of people who shut up, of course, when there's a protest of something, the protesters always show up in greater numbers.

That's pretty much to be expected.

And the vast majority, probably three quarters of the people who showed up were Ohio State professors or employees.

And because they're local, it was easy for them to come here.

But what we don't see is the students in the professors who I spoke with personally over the last several months, who perhaps provided some input to me and certainly perspective who are afraid to come in and testify, literally afraid I was the night before the hearing, I was trying to persuade one professor who I thought had a phenomenal story.

He was afraid of the impact it would have on his career.

He was afraid what his colleagues would think and how he might be ostracized, etc.

And students felt the same way.

I had one student who was graduating in just a couple of weeks, I think, and always graduating in the summer later.

It was very afraid.

He had a great story.

He had some some things that people should have heard, but she was afraid that it would impact her, her graduation and her credits.

Nobody should ever feel that way.

Anybody should be free to walk around campus and wear either a pro-choice t shirt or a MAGA hat and not fear for their lives.

And we don't have that today on the campuses.

And I've had I've had presidents of our universities tell me that they they stipulate that that danger that it would be a dangerous proposition today.

On the mandatory training.

Would your amendment bring get rid of that ban on mandatory training?

No.

We did Training is going to be optional.

It's not going to be mandatory.

Nor will we will we will not no longer tolerate litmus testing in hiring.

And that is going on all around our campuses here.

You know, we should be hiring people because of their experience, their the quality of their research.

If it's an instructional job or if it's a staff job based on their experience and competencies and so on, not because they agreed to sign a document that affirms their commitment to D-I that is compelled speech.

How do you prove that somebody did not get a job because of a ideological or political litmus test?

Well, if you.

Look at the ratio right now, as most of the studies have shown in both faculty as well as staff, it's like a 9010 relationship.

Okay.

So I can tell you that they're not out hiring droves of people who who are not following the woke agenda.

And a lot of that, a lot of the conservatives who are who would object to that are not even bothering to apply.

So we're missing out and some very talented people here.

And, you know, I'm all for diversity.

I think we should have more diversity, but that includes diversity of thought.

Is more diversity woke what is woke me to you?

Woke woke means.

You know we're we're responding to the the things of the day the concepts of the day.

Everybody jumps on board.

Look what has happened since George Floyd was killed.

A very unfortunate incident, certainly, But that triggered a bunch of things.

And all around our society today in America, and we're still living with those.

You know, I think I think, you know, we want to promote diversity.

I want every child in the state of Ohio who would like an education to be able to get the best education they can get if they want to.

We need it for two reasons.

We need it.

One, because our economy is going to require that we have highly trained people with the right skills to attract companies that are already here to grow here, or to bring companies that are not here like Intel.

But it's also on a human side for individuals we all know and stipulate that education is your best ticket out of poverty.

And that is indisputable.

And I want every student to have that.

I want them to have the highest quality education.

I want them to, when they graduate with $50,000 of student debt.

That in itself is not bad.

If it's a good investment, it's okay.

But I want them to graduate with the skills that are going to allow them to go out and work in their career and make the most money that they can so they can pay off their debt and it'll become a good investment for them.

You've a lot of companies that are requiring DEI training, though.

How do you how do you square that if you're not requiring it in college?

But yeah, the companies that come to mind, you know.

Companies are free to do what they want.

I'm a former corporate guy and I understand that.

And we don't like government telling us what to do.

And but I will tell you that in terms of the accreditations and grants and things that you mentioned earlier, that we that's something we're dealing with in the amendment to make it more clear we're not going to jeopardize in our ultimate final bill any of these things for the state of Ohio.

And we certainly don't want to hurt students.

I want to ask you about some of the other things that have been said.

Some faculty members have said that the bill could make so many sweeping changes, it could abolish courses on climate change or immigration policy, or it could abolish whole departments such as athletic studies or gender studies.

You've said that that's not the case, and you've said that that's part of the avalanche of misinformation and outright falsehoods about the bill that's come from opponents that you said you were surprised to find it.

Yeah.

I mean, everybody looks at something through their own glasses, right, in their own filters.

And I don't know where they're coming up with some of that.

Perhaps LSD is making a comeback, I'm not sure, but I don't know.

Those things are just manufactured.

You know, we're not trying to all controversial subjects should be talked about in the classroom.

We're not banning anything.

We're not we're not restricting speech.

This is about more speech.

But what we're saying is that when these controversial subjects are being presented, all sides should be presented and students should be trained and skilled at parsing through the various issues and the various sides of the issues and making up their own mind instead of having been, you know, being told by a professor, here's what you should think, here's what is settled science.

And, you know, I've had discussions with the climate folks.

We are, by the way, changing the words in the bill from climate change to climate policies, which arguably that's really where the debate needs to be right now.

There's no sense arguing over whether or not a temperature change in the earth is real or not.

You know, it's measurable.

But policies to react to climate change is should be up for very important debate.

When you talk about controversial issues, how do you define that?

Because what's controversial to somebody may not be to others some there are facts that are established about certain controversial issues.

How do you how do you define what that is and say we have to teach the other side of something that really is settled and factual?

When we when we list those controversial issues in the bill, we have two words that precede them, such as we're not trying to be, you know, all inclusive here.

In five years from now, maybe a year from now, who knows?

Things change pretty fast.

Things will change.

What's controversial now may not be later on.

And so we use the words such as and it's meant to be.

I don't think anybody would argue except on the climate change issue.

We've had some pushback on that.

But other you know, don't tell me that abortion is not controversial.

Right.

You know, parents rights is controversial right now.

So there's a lot of things we didn't include in there, but it was not intended to be all inclusive.

You also ban relationships and partnerships with China.

What does that mean in terms of how it would look on campus?

Are Chinese students still welcome here?

What about revenue that universities have in partnerships with the Chinese government?

Right.

We're working through that part of the amendment right now.

In fact, I was discussing that one before I came to see you.

And so students is note no impact on students admissions is not really is nowhere in the bill.

I don't know where everybody saw that in the first place.

Chinese students are welcome here and Ohio State, for example, should continue with whatever policy it decides is best and and they can pay tuition and pay their fees and room and board, etc.. What we're looking at is making sure that that our relationships, whatever they are, are protecting the assets and intellectual property that may be coming out in research with the university, making sure that national security in the United States is not jeopardized.

We I think it's pretty well understood and accepted today that China does not have our best interest at heart.

You know, communist China is not our friend and we don't want to be a closed society here like China used to be in the old days.

We do have to be careful in make sure that we are watching out for our best interests.

And that's what that section is intended to to accomplish.

There's also the concern that the bill would increase administrative costs to comply with the requirements such as posting syllabi online, and that that would force more hiring and drive up the costs of higher education.

I don't think it will.

I think, by the way, nobody came and asked us from Ohio State if for to help fund $14 million that they're spending on DTI with 143 people.

So they figured out how to come up with the money to do that out of their operating numbers.

So, you know, there are there might be a couple of things that we turn out that we we have to fund, like the training programs that we're going to ask the chancellor to develop for trustees.

We are going to provide ultimately dollars for him to do that.

But I don't I don't buy the issue that there's a lot of incremental costs involved in meeting the requirements of our bill.

Some of the things that you've expressed in this bill and you expressed them at the top of the interview are criticisms that conservatives have had about colleges and universities for a long time, that kids are being and indoctrinate and that students with conservative views, their views are being derided and they're even punished for those views.

Does this bill do anything about that?

I mean, and how can you and is that even really true if you talk to other people who say that's that's not the case?

I believe it is true.

And I again, I've been out gathering information since I came to the Senate and even actually before that.

So, you know, we need to change people's minds and hearts ultimately if we can't legislate everything.

Right.

But this is an attempt to get us get the attention of of our university administrators.

And I will tell you that after that seven hour series of hearings last week, I walked away as I was driving my two and a half hours back to Cleveland.

I was thinking about what's my takeaway from this, from this set of hearings.

And my takeaway is this The professors would like to tell the legislation, legislators, stay out of our sandbox, don't tell us what to do or how to do it, but keep sending us billion dollar checks every year.

And by the way, we'd like more because we professors are underpaid.

We actually heard that.

And I think that's that's what I told the university presidents this recently.

I said, that is an unacceptable viewpoint and you need to work on that with your with your faculty, because we do have as legislators, we do have a seat at the table.

We're not just check writers and we care about Ohio.

We care about higher ed, and we're tasked by the people to make sure that our dollars are being spent appropriately.

And that's what this bill one of the things this bill is trying to accomplish.

There are people who are calling this the Higher Education Destruction Act.

Well, they're very creative.

I hope they're that creative in teaching their classes.

It is the Enhancement Act.

This is to enhance higher ed, and it is a course correction for the direction that Ohio education is going in right now that I think is not good.

And this course course correction is very necessary if we don't address this sort of thing now, they will go down a path, a woke path that will be perhaps unchangeable in the future.

Are we going to lose potential college professors and even students if this goes forward?

Well, some of the ones that testified last week would be fine with me if they left.

The way they behaved themselves.

But I don't think we're going to see an exodus here, particularly after we redefine some things in the amendment.

I think some of them will be comfortable.

Professors are probably never going to like the bill really for any reason, but I think they will find it that we've addressed some of the concerns that they have.

And again, academic freedom is going to be enhanced.

That's why I called it that in the first place.

It will be enhanced.

It will there will be no chilling effect on academic freedom.

And again, please note, next week we'll have an opposing view of Senate Bill 83.

And that's it for this week for my colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our Web site at state News dot org and follow us and the show on Facebook and Twitter.

And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from Medical mutual providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans.

Peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community more at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.org.