This Thursday, January 30 at 7:00 pm, in conjunction with the Honesty for Ohio Education coalition, we will be leading a forum and training on the new iterations of SB 83: SB 1 and HB 6.

Click here to register for the online event.

The forum will include an explanation of the companion bills and their potential impacts, Q&A, a training on how to write, submit, and present testimony, as well as how to talk to legislators about these issues.

As of now, there is scheduled activity only on SB 1. The hearing for sponsor and proponent testimony in the Senate Higher Education Committee is this Wednesday. We do not yet know with certainty when the opponent hearing will be held, but there is a good chance that it will be next week, possibly on Wednesday, February 5.

We will send another message when we have notice for the opponent hearing with instructions on how to submit your testimony. Typically, committee chairs request that written testimonies are submitted at least 24 hours in advance of the hearing, so be prepared to e-mail testimony early next week.

SB 83 returns as SB 1/HB 6.

We are proud of the work that we did during the last legislative session to build widespread opposition to Senate Bill 83. Our efforts solidified bipartisan legislative opposition to the bill, which prevented it from passing the Ohio House of Representatives. We knew that was not going to be the end, however, as legislators promised to resurrect the bill.

On January 22, State Senator Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland), the sponsor of SB 83, reintroduced the bill as Senate Bill 1 for the 136th General Assembly. On January 23, Rep. Tom Young (R-Washington Twp.), also the chair of the House Higher Education Committee, introduced a companion bill: House Bill 6.

The fact that the Senate majority designated the bill as SB 1 signals to the public that this is the their top priority. As Ohioans continue to voice concerns about cost of living, rising property taxes, and other pocketbook issues, the Ohio Senate, in return, has sent the message that they care more about culture war education politics and retaliation against higher education stakeholders than helping Ohioans deal with their most pressing issues.

What is in SB 1/HB 6?

We created our own synopsis of the bills, grouped by issue area and listed in the order they appear in the bill. We provided page numbers so that you can reference the language for yourself.

You will notice that the new bills are nearly identical to the last version of SB 83 with some significant and insignificant changes. By our count, there are 25 issue areas in the bills, and it’s one unfunded, onerous, and unnecessary mandate after another on faculties and administrations.

In terms of significant changes, the bill would ban faculty strikes. You may recall that all campus unions would have been banned from strikes in the original version of SB 83. At one point, the strike ban was removed; but at the same time, the sponsor added in language to prohibit certain collective bargaining subjects (retrenchment, tenure, evaluations). Now the language is limited to a ban on faculty union strikes, and the prohibition on bargaining subjects remains. Our labor union coalition, We Are Ohio, is still fully behind us and will be taking actions to remind lawmakers that an attack on any labor union is an attack on all labor unions.

Another major change is that SB 1/HB 6 would completely ban diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including DEI-related scholarships. Republicans have been using the U.S. Supreme Court’s Harvard admissions’ decision on affirmative action as a justification to drive the elimination of all campus DEI without legislation. The language in these bills would leave no room for DEI or even renamed DEI, except for in very limited circumstances to secure grant funding.

The bills still contain contradictory and confusing language about ensuring “intellectual diversity,” which raises serious concerns related to academic freedom and would open up faculty to unsubstantiated complaints. The legislation also retained the overbroad definition of retrenchment, which would allow for retrenchment to be invoked at almost any time.

We encourage you to read the bill for yourself and refer to our synopsis.

What can we expect in terms of timeline and legislative process?

All we know for sure at this point is that Republican leaders in both chambers want to fast-track these bills, because they know the more time they give their colleagues to read the bills and hear from constituents, the less likely legislators are to support them. As we told you in our last email, we face a much steeper uphill battle with the political realities in the new General Assembly.

We expect that there will be some kind of committee process, and it is likely to happen soon. Please stay tuned for opportunities to submit testimony.

Take action ASAP.

There are a number of ways that you can help us fight the legislation:

1) E-mail Senate and House members.

You can use our easy online form above, which will send messages to all state legislators asking them to vote no on the bills. We believe we have to contact all legislators right away given the quick timeline that is expected.

2) E-mail Gov. DeWine

Due to the anticipated fast-track nature of the bills, we have to start asking the governor now to veto the bill. Gov. DeWine has been less inclined than other Republicans to buy into culture war politics, and we believe he understands the importance of a higher education system that maintains integrity.

3) Talk to your state legislators.

Talk to state legislators you know, and get to know the lawmakers who represent you, if you don’t already. Regardless of party affiliation, they need to hear from their constituents that SB 1/HB 6 will harm higher education and its economic impact on Ohio. Visit https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/ to find your legislators.

4) Dust off your SB 83 testimony and/or op-ed.

Please have your testimony ready to update and submit. If you didn’t write testimony on SB 83, we will need even more voices this time, so please consider starting to draft testimony. We will send more information about testimony submissions when the time comes.

If you wrote an op-ed previously, consider updating that and submitting again to point out that the legislators who are pushing this bill once again have failed to listen to the overwhelming opposition from the public.

5) Donate to our new “Advocacy & Defense Fund.”

THANK YOU to our generous members who already have made critical donations! OCAAUP is a small organization with one staff member that has kept dues as low as possible for our chapters and members. The challenges we face are going to require more resources, and 100% of the money donated to this fund will be used to fight political attacks. ANY size donation is welcome and appreciated. Please note: the Ohio Conference AAUP is a 501(c)(6) organization; as a result, donations are NOT tax deductible. 

Please stay engaged as this process unfolds, and do what you can to aid our efforts. Thank you!

SB 83 is almost assuredly dead this General Assembly.

While the Ohio legislature is currently in its “lame duck” session and will be meeting through next week, it does not appear that there will be any last-minute attempts to push Senate Bill 83 over the finish line. In fact, House Speaker Jason Stephens told media before Thanksgiving that he would not bring it to the floor for a vote.

Take a moment to celebrate this victory!

We could not have done this without our strong State Conference that is fueled by a robust and active membership. Your testimonies, phone calls, and emails all made a difference in pushing back against “The Higher Education Destruction Act.” THANK YOU! We also could not have done this without our many education and union allies within the Honesty for Ohio Education and We Are Ohio coalitions. These relationships have been built over many years, and it goes to show that when we stick together, we win.

As a reminder, SB 83 is a far-reaching bill, which would severely undermine academic freedom, job protections for faculty, union rights, shared governance, student success programs, and institutional autonomy over a plethora of subjects. It faced bipartisan legislative opposition, and was opposed by organizations and individuals across the political spectrum. There were more than 600 opponent testimonies submitted to the General Assembly. In addition, more than 100 unions across the state signed a letter opposing the bill. There were also hundreds of thousands of anti-SB 83 emails sent to Senators and Representatives.

On numerous occasions, we reached out to the bill’s sponsor and other lawmakers integrally involved in the process to see if we could find common ground. They didn’t acknowledge our invitations, let alone meet with us, which made it clear that this bill is about playing culture war politics, and not about working with stakeholders for the good of Ohio higher education. SB 83 was a “copy and paste” bill based on model legislation from several right-wing “think tanks.” Legislation derived by groups that openly seek to diminish higher education should have no place in Ohio.

Despite this fact, we remain open to meeting with any legislators to discuss higher education issues. Ensuring that our public colleges and universities are well-funded, sustainable, and student-centered should not be adversarial or partisan. Attacking faculty and the fundamentals that make American higher education the best in the world is not what will attract qualified students and faculty to Ohio institutions. We are extremely grateful to the lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who recognized this and stopped the bill.

What’s next?

We wish we could tell you that this is the end of the ill-conceived ideas within SB 83; but unfortunately, we anticipate that a new, perhaps even more expansive, version of SB 83 will be introduced in the 136th General Assembly. Current Senate President Matt Huffman, a strong proponent of SB 83, will be the next Speaker of the House. Huffman has made it clear that “higher education reform” is one of his top priorities, and it is rumored that SB 83 likely will become the next General Assembly’s House Bill 1. We expect that the bill will be introduced in January. That means we have to start preparing now for what’s ahead.

Let’s be clear: whatever might be in this next bill was on the horizon anyway. Throughout the SB 83 process, the bill’s sponsor threatened to introduce a worse version later if it didn’t pass, but the reality is that there is a cadre of legislators who want to continue to chip away at higher education’s autonomy and will continue to do so unless we stand up to them. Nevertheless, we must be perfectly honest with you: we face a much steeper uphill battle next General Assembly, not to mention what might be on the horizon from the second Trump administration.

The next SB 83 will be happening alongside of the state budget process, placing higher education stakeholders in an undesirable position of pushing back on a priority bill of the majority party while seeking greater resources for public colleges and universities.

What you can do to help.

There are a number of ways that you can help us advocate next year:

1) Donate to our new “Advocacy & Defense Fund.”

OCAAUP is a small organization with one staff member that has kept dues as low as possible for our chapters and members. The upcoming challenges we will face are going to require more resources, and 100% of the money donated to this fund will be used to fight political attacks. ANY size donation is welcome and appreciated. Please note: the Ohio Conference AAUP is a 501(c)(6) organization; as a result, donations are NOT tax deductible. 

2) Talk to state legislators.

Talk to state legislators you know, and get to know the lawmakers who represent you, if you don’t already. Regardless of party affiliation, they need to hear from their constituents that whatever version of SB 83 is coming next session will still harm higher education and its economic impact in Ohio. Visit https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/ to find your legislators. Be advised that there will be some new lawmakers in the new year, so who represents you now may not be the same come January.

3) Dust off your SB 83 testimony and/or op-ed.

We can’t be sure whether there will be any, let alone substantive, opportunities to testify to legislative committees on the next version of SB 83, but please have your testimony ready to update and submit. If you didn’t write testimony on SB 83, we will need even more voices this time, so please consider starting to draft testimony. We will send more information about testimony submissions when the time comes.

If you wrote an op-ed previously, consider updating that and submitting again to point out that the legislators who are pushing this bill once again have failed to listen to the overwhelming opposition from the public.

4) Keep an eye out for updates and be ready to act.

Again, we are expecting the new bill to be introduced in January. Given that it’s a legislative priority for the next Speaker, the process could unfold quickly. In addition to the items above, we ask that you respond to legislative alerts, come to the Statehouse for hearings when your schedule permits, and participate in other actions and forums. The legislative process can be unpredictable, but we will keep you posted every step of the way.

We know that, for the many activists who vigorously fought SB 83, the thought of going through this all over again isn’t a welcome one. We hope that everyone takes the holiday season to relax and recharge. Be proud of the work that we did over the last two years against the odds. We must continue to be advocates and defend higher education. Onward!

In accordance with our constitution and by-laws, this will serve as our call for nominations for the 2025 OCAAUP elections. The positions to be elected in 2025 are:

-Vice President

-Treasurer

-At-Large Member from a public institution with fewer than 100 members or a private institution

The Vice President serves in the absence of the President. The Treasurer is responsible for overseeing the Conference’s finances. The At-Large Member represents public institution chapters with fewer than 100 members, as well as private institution chapters.

Each position serves a two-year term commencing September 1, 2025. Board members are expected to attend four quarterly Board meetings each academic year (a mix of virtual and in-person) and oversee the direction and interests of the Conference.

To nominate yourself or another member, or if you have any questions, e-mail sara@ocaaup.org. Nominations are due by January 20, 2025.

Ohio AAUP Members:

We invite you to attend this year’s virtual annual meeting on Saturday, October 26. The event will begin at 9:00 am and run approximately until 10:30 am. This Zoom meeting requires registration, which you can do here. All registrants will receive the complete meeting materials the week of the meeting.

This is an excellent opportunity to hear about the important work in which the State Conference has been engaged over the last year. During the first hour, we will present reports and conduct business. For the last half hour, we will hear from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) about their new “Real Solutions for Higher Education” campaign, which will include Q&A.

Among the business on the agenda, chapter delegates will be asked to approve the 2023 annual meeting minutes and the 2025 budget. There also will be a vote to establish the “John T. McNay Memorial Award for Outstanding Service.” Finally, collective bargaining chapters will vote on a proposed increase to OCAAUP dues.

As a reminder, OCAAUP will alternate between virtual and in-person annual meetings for the foreseeable future. We are planning an in-person meeting for fall of 2025, which will be the 75th anniversary of our State Conference!

We hope to see you on October 26!