**UPDATE**

​SB 83 has passed the Ohio Senate and Ohio House committee. It now awaits a full Ohio House vote.

Many Ohio legislators are on the fence about SB 83. It is crucial that they feel public pressure so they DO NOT pass this devastating bill.

​​STOP SB 83

​SAY NO to the Higher Education Destruction Act!​

SENATE BILL 83


​Summary of Senate Bill 83
​​
​TARGETS
Colleges and Universities

​​​DESCRIPTION​
Heavily restricts the teaching of "controversial" concepts;
Bans most diversity ​programs and trainings; 
Significantly weakens workers' rights;
Bans public positions on "controversial" issues;
Places university courses and departments at risk;
Restricts relationships with China;
Requires certain US history and government courses;
Defines “retrenchment" to allow termination of classes and programs without valid cause;
Weaponizes performance evals & faculty workload policies;
Effectively eliminates meaningful tenure in Ohio
SPONSOR
Sen. Jerry Cirino, District 18
​
COMMITTEE
House Higher Education Committee
Senate Workforce and Higher Education
​
INTRODUCED 
March 14, 2023

HEARINGS
Read Testimony | Watch Hearings

BILL 
General Info |  Sub Bill | Analysis

​
​What does Senate Bill 83 do?​


**​UPDATE**
​The House Higher Education Committee adopted revisions to Senate Bill 83 on November 1, 2023.
All revisions are reflected below. Read a summary of the changes at AAUP and OEA

​Senate Bill 83, (and its companion House Bill 151) the "Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act" is a sweeping higher education bill directly impacting academic freedoms and instruction on controversial issues and policies. The bill restricts mandatory DEI training and programs, race and gender-based policies, hiring and education around controversial issues, academic partnerships with China, faculty retrenchment, and collective bargaining. 

DEFINITIONS
​
"State institution of higher education":  Includes foundations, the corporate purpose of which is solely to benefit an identified state institution of higher education, as defined in that section, and that receive, hold, or administer charitable transfers of property for that state institution of higher education.

"Intellectual diversity": Multiple, divergent, and opposing perspectives on an extensive range of public policy issues widely discussed and debated in society at large, especially those perspectives that reflect the range of American opinion, but which are poorly represented on campus

"Controversial belief or policy":  Any belief or policy that is the subject of political controversy, including issues such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion

"Course syllabus": Document produced for students by a course instructor including:
  • Course instructor name
  • Course calendar outlining course materials and topics 
  • List of any required or recommended readings for the course
  • Course instructor's professional qualifications

"General syllabus": Document produced for students by a community college including:
  • Course calendar  outlining course materials and topics
  • List of any required or recommended readings for the course

"Confucius Institute":  Public education partnership that is: 1) Established by an institution of higher education in
China and an institution of higher education in a different country; and 2) Funded and arranged by an entity affiliated with the
People's Republic of China

"Retrenchment": Process by which a state institution reduces programs or services resulting in a temporary suspension or permanent separation of one or more faculty, to account for a reduction in student population or overall funding, a change to institutional missions or programs, or other fiscal pressures or emergencies facing the institution

"Benefactor representative": Means either: 1) The administrator or executor of the estate of a person who signed a qualified endowment agreement as donor; or 2) A person designated in a qualified endowment agreement, whether or not born or existing at the time of such designation, to act in place of a party to the agreement for the purpose of resolving disputes about the agreement, including without limitation, its validity, interpretation, performance, enforcement, and any action that it contemplates

"Qualified endowment agreement": A gift instrument, signed by a person and a state institution of higher
education prior to the effective date of this section, under which the person commits to transfer property, the aggregate value of which is at least three million dollars, to that or another state institution of higher education and the state
institution of higher education commits that it or another state institution of higher education will hold or administer the
property as an endowment fund, subject to any restrictions on management, investment, spending, or purpose contained in the gift instrument.

"Aggregate value":  Includes the full value of all property transferred by the donor pursuant to the gift
instrument, regardless of whether the state institution of higher education holds and administers such property as one endowment fund or divides the property into multiple endowment funds.


STATE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Statement of Commitment
Institutions must incorporate the following into a statement of commitment:
  • The institution declares that it will educate students by means of free, open, and rigorous intellectual inquiry to seek the truth.
  • The institution declares that its duty is to equip students with the opportunity to develop the intellectual skills they need to reach their own, informed conclusions.
  • The institution declares its commitment to not requiring, favoring, disfavoring, or prohibiting speech or lawful assembly.
  • The institution declares it is committed to create a community dedicated to an ethic of civil and free inquiry, which respects the autonomy of each member, supports individual capacities for growth, and tolerates the differences in opinion that naturally occur in a public higher education community.
  • The institution declares that its duty is to treat all faculty, staff, and students as individuals, to hold them to equal standards, and to provide them equality of opportunity.

New Policies
Boards of trustees must adopt a policy with the following provisions within 90 days of passage of the bill:
  • No Mandatory DEI: Institution may not require mandatory DEI orientation or training course unless the institution determines the orientation or training course is exempt from that prohibition because the orientation or course is required to do any of the following: 
    • Comply with state and federal laws or regulations
    • Comply with professional licensure requirements
    • Obtain or retain accreditation
    • Secure or retain grants or cooperative agreements
    • Apply policies of the state institution of higher education with respect to employee or student discipline​
  • Each institution must prepare a report that summarizes all mandatory DEI programming and training at the institution and submit the report to the chancellor of higher education 
    • Each institution must respond to complaints from any student, student group, or faculty member about an alleged violation of the DEI orientation and training policy
  • No Public Positions: Institution may not endorse or oppose, as an institution, any controversial belief or policy, except on
    matters that directly impact the institution's funding or mission of discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge; the institution may also endorse the congress of the United States when it establishes a state of armed hostility against a foreign power (does not include the recognition of national and state holidays, support for the Constitution and laws of the United States or the state of Ohio, or the display of the American or Ohio flag)
  • No "Political and Ideological Litmus Tests": Institution may not use political and ideological litmus tests in all hiring, promotion, and admissions decisions, including diversity statements and any other requirement that applicants describe
    their commitment to any ideology, principle, concept, or formulation that requires commitment to any controversial belief
    or policy; no hiring, promotion, or admissions process or decision shall encourage, discourage, require, or forbid students, faculty, or administrators to endorse, assent to, or publicly express a given ideology or political stance; the institution will not use a diversity statement or any other assessment of an applicant's political or ideological views in any hiring, promotions, or
    admissions process or decision; no process or decision regulating conditions of work or study, such as committee assignments, course scheduling, or workload adjustment policies, shall encourage, discourage, require, or forbid students, faculty, or administrators to endorse, assent to, or publicly express a given ideology or political stance
  • Primary Function: Institution's "primary function" must be "to practice, or support the practice, discovery, improvement, transmission, and dissemination of knowledge by means of research, teaching, discussion, and debate"
  • "Intellectual Diversity": Institution must ensure the fullest degree of "intellectual diversity" and demonstrate intellectual diversity for course approval, approval of courses to satisfy general education requirements, student course evaluations, common reading programs, annual reviews, strategic goals for each department, and student learning outcomes
  • No Indoctrination: Institution must allow and encourage students to reach their own conclusions about all controversial beliefs or policies and shall not seek to indoctrinate any social, political, or religious point of view; must 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
  • Campus Speakers: Institution must seek out intellectually and politically diverse speakers; speaker fees in excess of $500 must be posted on the institution's website within 3 clicks to home page
  • Reporting and Discipline
    • Institutions must comply with any reporting guidelines established by the chancellor regarding any violations of the intellectual diversity rights
    • Institutions must inform all of its students and employees of the protections in its policies by providing the
      information to new employees and to each student during any new student orientation 
    • Institutions must respond to complaints from any student, student group, or faculty member about an alleged violation 

​Equality and Race and Gender-Based Policies, Programs, and Activities 
With respect to position, policy, program, and activity, institutions must:
  • Treat all faculty, staff, and students as individuals, hold every individual to equal standards, and provide those individuals with equality of opportunity with regard to those individuals' race, ethnicity, religion, or sex
  • Prohibit policies designed explicitly to segregate faculty, staff, or students based on individuals' race, ethnicity,
    religion, or sex in credit-earning classroom settings, formal orientation ceremonies, and formal graduation ceremonies
  • Prohibit advantages or disadvantages to faculty, staff, or students on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, or sex in admissions, hiring, promotion, tenuring, or workplace conditions
  • Prohibit training training for any administrator, teacher, staff member, or employee that advocates or promotes any of the following concepts:
    • One race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex
    • An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or
      unconsciously
    • An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of the
      individual's race
    • Members of one race cannot nor should not attempt to treat others without respect to race
    • An individual's moral standing or worth is necessarily determined by the individual's race or sex
    • An individual, by virtue of the individual's race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by
      other members of the same race or sex
    • An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex
    • Meritocracy or traits such as hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular
      race to oppress members of another race
    • Fault, blame, or bias should be assigned to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or
      sex

Reporting & Discipline
  • Institution's board of trustees must establish a process for students, student groups, or faculty members to submit a complaint about an alleged violation; the process must include an investigation and impartial hearing; the board of trustees must determine a resolution to address the violation and prevent further violations
  • Institution must implement a range of disciplinary sanctions for any administrator, teacher, staff member, or employee who authorizes or engages in a prohibited training 
  • Institution must issue a report including:
    • All violations committed by anyone under the institution's jurisdiction and all consequent disciplinary sanctions
    • Statistics on the academic qualifications of accepted and matriculating students, disaggregated by race and sex; 
      statistics must include information about students' academic qualifications and retention rates, disaggregated by
      race and sex

Online Posting of Undergraduate Course Syllabi
Institutions must publish course syllabi for undergraduate courses receiving course credit on the institution's website within 3 clicks of the home page, by the first day of class; syllabi must be searchable by keywords and phrases and posted for at least 2 years
  • Each course instructor must post current course syllabus on a publicly accessible web site; each website must include:
    • Course instructor's professional qualifications;
    • Course instructor's contact information;
    • Course instructor's course schedule;
    • Course syllabus for each course the instructor is currently teaching, also accessible by link or download through the website
  • Community colleges must post a general course syllabus on the college's publicly available website
​
Institutions must designate an administrator for the posting and submit a compliance report to the chancellor of higher education; the chancellor must prepare a report including each institution's report 

Mandatory American Government and History Courses
Beginning in the 2028-29 academic year, boards of trustees must develop a plan to offer mandatory courses in American government or American history; plans must be submitted to and approved by the chancellor of higher education

Courses must be at least 3 credit hours and require students to read and pass a proficiency exam on the following:
  • US Constitution
  • US Declaration of Independence
  • At least 5 essays from the Federalist Papers
  • US Emancipation Proclamation
  • Gettysburg Address
  • Letter from the Birmingham Jail by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Institutions can exempt students who have completed at least 3 credit hours, or the equivalent, in a similar course or passed a proficiency exam developed by the chancellor

Restricts Academic Relationships with China
Institutions may not accept gifts, donations, or contributions from China or any organization or individual who may be acting on behalf of China
  • Institutions may accept payments from Chinese citizens related to instructional fees, general fees, special fees, cost
    of instruction, or educational expenses or donations from the institution's alumni
  • Institutions may receive philanthropic or unrestricted grants with safeguards

Institutions must notify the chancellor of any new or renewed academic partnership with an academic or research institution located in China
  • Institution can only enter into a new or renewed academic partnership with an academic or research institution located in China if the institution maintains sufficient structural safeguards to protect the institution's intellectual property and state and national security; Ohio state auditor will audit the institution's safeguards; safeguards must include:
    • Compliance with all federal requirements, including the requirements of federal research sponsors and federal export
      control agencies, including regulations regarding international traffic in arms and export administration regulations, and
      economic and trade sanctions administered by the federal office of foreign assets control
    • Annual formal institution-level programs for faculty on conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment
    • A formalized foreign visitor process and uniform visiting scholar agreement

Institution must submit a copy of the US Department of Education filing report to the chancellor of higher education

FACULTY AND STAFF

Changes to Faculty Workload Policy
Institutions must update, get Board of Trustee approval, and submit their faculty workload policy to the chancellor of higher education at least once every five years 

The workload policy must include:​
  • An objective and numerically defined teaching workload expectation based on credit hours
  • A definition of all faculty workload elements in terms of credit hours with a full-time workload minimum standard established by the board of trustees and made publicly available on the institution's website 
  • A definition of justifiable credit hour equivalents for activities other than teaching, including research, clinical
    care, administration, service, and other activities as determined by the state institution of higher education
  • Administrative action that an institution may take, including censure, remedial training, for-cause termination, or other disciplinary action, regardless of tenure status, if a faculty member fails to comply with the policy's requirements
  • Termination under these circumstances requires the recommendation of the dean, provost, or equivalent
    official, concurrence of the state institution's president, and approval of the board of trustees

Performance Evaluations of Faculty
Student Evaluations
  • Institutions must establish a written system of peer evaluations for faculty members, with emphasis placed on the faculty member's professional development regarding the faculty member's teaching responsibilities
  • Chancellor of higher education must develop a minimum set of standard questions for institutions to use in student evaluations of faculty members; questions must include: "Does the faculty member create a classroom atmosphere free of political, racial, gender, and religious bias?"
  • Institutions must establish a written system of faculty evaluations completed by students with a focus on teaching effectiveness and student learning; institutions must include a minimum set of standard questions developed by the department 
  • Evaluation accounts for at least 25% of the teaching area  annual faculty performance evaluation
​
Peer Evaluation
  • Institutions must establish a written system of peer evaluations for faculty that focuses on professional development of teaching responsibilities​

Annual Faculty Performance Evaluation
Boards of trustees must adopt an annual faculty performance evaluation policy for every faculty member compensated by the institution and submit the policy to the chancellor of higher education every five years

Evaluations must be conducted by the department chairperson or equivalent administrator, reviewed and approved, or disapproved by the dean, and submitted to the provost for review; if there is disagreement between the chairperson and dean, the provost will have final decision authority

Performance evaluations must:
  • Be comprehensive and include standardized, objective, and measurable performance metrics
  • Include an assessment of performance for each of the following areas that the faculty member has
    spent at least five per cent of their annual work time on over the preceding year:
    • Teaching
    • Research
    • Service
    • Clinical care
    • Administration
    • Other categories, as determined by the state institution of higher education
  • Include a summary assessment of the performance areas including: "exceeds performance expectations," "meets performance expectations," or "does not meet performance expectations"
  • Establish a projected work effort distribution for the faculty member for the next year which must used during the next year's evaluation; the distribution msut be compliant with the institution's established workload policies ​

Tenured Faculty & Post-Tenure Review Process
Boards of trustees must adopt a post-tenure review policy and submit the policy to the chancellor of higher education; each policy must contain an appeals process for tenured faculty whose post-tenure review process results in a recommendation for
administrative action; boards must update the post-tenure review policy every five years

Institutions must conduct a post-tenure review if a tenured faculty member receives a "does not meet performance expectations" evaluation within the same evaluative category for a minimum of two of the past three consecutive years on the faculty member's annual performance evaluation 

Institutions must subject any faculty member who maintains tenure after a post-tenure review and receives an additional "does not meet performance expectations" assessment on any area of the faculty member's annual performance evaluation in the subsequent two years to an additional post-tenure review.

The department chairperson, dean of faculty, or provost of a state institution of higher education may require an immediate and for cause post-tenure review at any time for a faculty member who has a documented and sustained record of significant underperformance outside of the faculty member's annual performance evaluation. For this purpose, for cause shall not be based on a faculty member's allowable expression of academic freedom as defined by the state institution of higher education or Ohio law.

The post-tenure review due process period, from beginning to end, shall not exceed six months, except that a one-time two-month
extension may be granted by the institution's president.

The provost must submit a recommended outcome of the post-tenure review process to the institution's entity that is responsible for the final decision of post-tenure review pursuant to the institution's policy. The administrative action that a state institution of higher education may take includes censure, remedial training, or for-cause termination, regardless of tenure status, and any other action permitted by the institution's post-tenure review policy.

RETRENCHMENT
Boards of trustees must develop policies on tenure and retrenchment, submit policies to the chancellor of higher education, and update policies every five years 

ENDOWMENTS 
Outlines a detailed process by which an institution can be punished and/or lose endowments if the institution violates a restriction laid out under the endowment agreement (refer to pages 2-7 of bill)

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING


GOVERNANCE
Boards of Trustees
Reduces terms of office for nonstudent university boards of trustee members, appointed on or after July 2024, from nine to six years; student members appointed before July 2024 retain nine year term
​
​Financial Reporting 
  • For each biennial state operating budget and capital budget cycle, institutions must submit a 5-year cost summary of its institutional costs, including:
    • Instructional, staff, or maintenance costs, 
    • DEI initiatives or programming
    • Tallies of faculty, staff, and administration
  • Chancellor of higher education must present a cumulative report to the General Assembly

Education Programs for Boards of Trustees
  • Chancellor of higher education must develop and deliver a education programs for boards of trustees
  • Training must include prescribed curriculum on the trustees’ role, duties, responsibilities, and current higher education issues
  • New trustees must participate in a program at least once in their first two years on the board

Feasibility Study for 3-Year Bachelor's Degree
  • Ohio Department of Higher Education must publish a study that investigates reducing requirements in a variety of fields of study to see if programs can be reduced to three years without impacting accreditation




What is our position on Senate Bill 83?

OPPOSE

The Higher Education Destruction Act
BAD for Students. BAD for Higher Education. BAD for Ohio.
The so-called "Higher Education Enhancement Act" is another sweeping attempt by Ohio legislators to mimic the worst impulses of the Florida government by importing extremist gag orders intended to DESTROY, not ENHANCE higher education. Deeply rooted in Culture War ideology, this attack on academic freedom can harm students, cause irreversible damage to our institutions of higher education, and devastate Ohio. SB 83 is an affront to all who believe in honest, inclusive education and Ohio's future.

SB 83 is bad for students. This attack is a series of contradictions on freedom of speech, claiming to promote intellectual diversity while simultaneously dictating the content and manner in which certain topics can be discussed. It would ban the types of training that ensure all students, no matter their backgrounds, can succeed.

Rather than cultivating learning environments that help students understand complicated aspects of our shared history, uncomfortable truths, and complex systems of power, SB 83 whitewashes history, sanitizes the truth, and reduces lived experiences around race and identity to "controversial beliefs and policies".
​
SB 83 is bad for higher education. The bill restricts instruction in diversity, equity, and inclusion in public and private colleges and universities; prohibits public colleges and universities from speaking out on important issues and forces them to turn campuses into safe spaces for hate speech; and prohibits faculty and staff at public colleges and universities from striking, taking away a powerful tool to advocate for themselves and their students. 

Onerous administrative mandates in this bill will ensure that more of Ohio’s higher education funding goes to bureaucratic compliance and less goes to academic programs. The legislative micromanagement of academic programs will also make it harder for Ohio’s public universities to compete with those in neighboring states. 

SB 83 is bad for Ohio. The untenable mandates in SB 83 would shift money, time, and attention from student learning to bureaucracy. It would make it harder to attract students and faculty to Ohio institutions of higher learning, and in the long run, Ohio will become even less competitive economically.


What have coalition partners said about SB 83?

Check out video clips from the Wednesday, April 19 hearing of opposition testimony:

"[A]re big employers like Intel still going to want to be here? Are we going to be able to provide these employers with employees that can think for themselves, that can communicate, that are well-rounded, that are adaptable? That’s the things that faculty help students to hone when they’re at an institution. That’s why college graduates earn more than people that only have a high school education.... We’re putting up a big red flag to faculty around the country that you don’t want to come to Ohio.”
--Sara Kilpatrick, executive director of the Ohio conference of the American Association of University Professors​

"There are many local and specific reasons, but the orchestrated wave of attacks against ethnic studies, gender studies and the like is clearly associated with an attempt to roll back the changes in K-12 and higher education, and in society at large, that have taken place since the 1960s.... Ohio Senate Bill 83 isn’t just trying to roll back a few programs, but an entire legacy of protest and transformation. And by banning strikes at public universities and bringing greater political surveillance over faculty teaching and retention, the bill wants to undercut our very ability to resist such draconian changes in policy."
--Pranav Jani, Director of the Asian American Studies Program and Associate Professor in the Department of English at Ohio State University

"It’s essentially a gag order that would have a chilling effect on learning in Ohio’s public and private colleges and universities. It’s broad enough that if it were to pass, it would make people nervous, more nervous about what they can say and do, and it would inhibit the ability to really have honest conversations about the complex history of this country and this state.”
--Piet van Lier, senior researcher, Policy Matters Ohio

TAKE ACTION​​

Testimony Needed


​​HOW TO SUBMIT TESTIMONY

STEP 1:
PREPARE YOUR TESTIMONY
Read tips for preparing and submitting testimony HERE


STEP 2:
EMAIL TESTIMONY DOCUMENTS TO COMMITTEE
Email a PDF of your testimony & this completed Witness Slip 
to [email protected]


​ **IMPORTANT**
Do NOT send your testimony until the appropriate hearing is announced.
You must submit your testimony 24 hours ahead of the scheduled hearing.
Indicate in your email that you are submitting testimony and ask for a confirmation of receipt.
All testimony will be uploaded HERE


STEP 3:
ARRIVE EARLY FOR IN-PERSON TESTIMONY
Arrive at least 1 hour prior to the scheduled hearing 
There is convenient parking in the Statehouse Parking Garage