The Ohio Statehouse, pictured Nov. 29, 2023. Credit: Jake Zuckerman/Cleveland.com via TNS
Members of 34 student groups that signed an open letter calling for university President Ted Carter Jr. and administrators to address seven questions regarding on-campus diversity, equity and inclusion programs met with university administration last week.
Prior to the meeting, Carter delivered a testimony to the Ohio Senate Workforce and Higher Education Committee May 8, in which he addressed various topics like budget requests, investments and “challenges and opportunities” at the university, along with briefly addressing diversity, equity and inclusion — also known as DEI — at Ohio State.
The testimony took place after the release of the open letter, which was published on Instagram May 2. The letter contained signatures from the Ohio Union Activities Board as well as the Undergraduate Student Government and called for a university response to its questions before Carter’s testimony.
Student organizations hold meeting with university leaders regarding open letter
Student signatories of the letter met with members of the offices of Government Affairs and Student Life, university spokesperson Chris Booker said in an email. Koel Shaw — a fourth-year in industrial and systems engineering as well as a member of both Ohio State’s NAACP chapter and the National Society of Black Engineers — said he thinks it was a “productive conversation.”
“It also painted it as the complex issue that it is,” Shaw said. “We got to speak to people that are actually responsible for handling this on the university level and formally address it, as it’s not a university issue, it’s not a state issue, it’s on a national level, some of these problems, and this helps put everything into perspective.”
Shaw said the main point stressed during the meeting was how “broad” the issue at hand is. Shaw said the meeting differentiated how distinctions between Senate Bill 83 — which aims to limit the enforcement of some DEI initiatives at Ohio public universities, per prior Lantern reporting — and the United States Supreme Court’s overturning of affirmative action in June 2023 each affect the student groups’ concerns in varying ways.
“Essentially, what we’re seeing is how changes made at the national level affect us in our day-to-day lives,” Shaw said. “The decisions are not only because of Senate Bill 83, but also because of affirmative action — which, in retrospect, is making more sense on the student side, but it’s still equally aggravating.”
In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race-conscious admissions in two cases involving the University of North Carolina and Harvard University were unconstitutional, per prior Lantern reporting.
Jasmyn Story — a fourth-year in biochemistry — said she feels “more comfortable” with university officials since their meeting and is excited to see the next steps.
“I just feel like I had some level of mistrust because there wasn’t transparency before and there wasn’t as effective communication before having that face-to-face meeting, so I feel like actually speaking and having a more casual conversation with the admin helps to relieve some of those tensions,” Story said.
Story said now that the student groups and university administration have begun a dialogue, she feels like another meeting is necessary to address more specific concerns and what student representatives want to focus on.
Shaw said the biggest concern coming out of the meeting is the status of protections for diversity-related programming and organizations, along with the relationship between student organizations and “any university.”
“What happens to our [organizations] if the university is legally forced to take an anti-DEI stance?” Shaw said. “So, we just want protections for our retention tools, our resources, and we would also just like to have some communication about our organizations.”
Booker said in an email “Senate Bill 83 has not been passed or signed into law” and “Ohio State is taking steps to ensure compliance with the Supreme Court ruling.”
The university has not publicly responded to the student organizations’ open letter.
“University leaders met with the letter writers and have spoken publicly numerous times about Senate Bill 83 and the Supreme Court ruling,” Booker said. “The Board of Trustees issued a statement regarding Senate Bill 83 a year ago.”
Story said moving forward, she wants to see more campus-wide discussion surrounding these topics.
“I feel like people know about SB-83 and its implications, but maybe having educational workshops and getting the word out and having students be more in the know and connecting with other students about what steps we should take as a student body,” Story said.
Shaw said there is uncertainty regarding next steps as changes continue to unfold on a national scale.
Carter’s May 8 Testimony
Carter began his testimony by describing the infrastructure of Ohio State and briefly mentioning his time in the United States military. He stated the university’s “fundamental identity” as a public, land-grant institution dedicated to “service to the greater good.”
When addressing “challenges and opportunities” within the university, Carter focused largely on the “declining faith in the value of higher education” and included a section on DEI.
On this subject, Carter said he wants Ohio State to “value diversity of thought, protect freedom of expression” and “foster a welcoming environment for Ohioans from every community in this state.”
Notably, Carter said the university’s overall DEI spending makes up 0.37% of its budget, which is “in line with our fellow [Inter-University Council] schools.”
“We are in the process of reviewing our expenses, as we review all of our expenses at Ohio State, to make sure we are achieving the alignment we need as a university,” Carter said. “Our focus is on the services and support we need to provide in order for our students to successfully graduate and enter the workforce.”
Carter said more than half of the university’s DEI expenses can be attributed to four services that fall under the university’s DEI spending budget, which include the Office of Institutional Equity — the home of Title IX and the Americans with Disabilities Act — and expenses related to programming that supports “retention, persistence and graduation” for historically underrepresented students.
“My commitment to you is that we will continue to serve students from all backgrounds and in all circumstances, whether urban or rural, first generation, parenting students, veterans and more,” Carter said.
During his closing statements, Carter said that “conversations such as these are important” because our nation is “in a divisive period.”
“Even more so, the public has lost trust in large institutions of all kinds,” Carter said. “They have lost trust in the government. They have lost trust in the medical community. They have lost trust in the pharmaceutical community. They have lost trust in religious communities. They have lost trust in even the military, which has historically been one of the most trusted organizations we’ve seen since the Vietnam War.”
Carter said higher education is included in mistrust, and he ultimately wanted to come to Ohio State “to be in a position to lead the conversation that helps to change these perceptions.”
