Protesters are led in a chant by members of the Ohio Student Association in front of the Ohio Statehouse Wednesday in defiance of Ohio Senate Bill 1. Credit: Daniel Bush | Lantern Photographer
Roughly 200 students, faculty and staff walked out Wednesday in opposition of Ohio Senate Bill 1, which aims to ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and faculty strikes at public higher education institutions statewide.
The protest — which was organized by the Ohio Student Association — marched from the Oval to the Ohio Statehouse from noon to 2:30 p.m., as chants of “This is what democracy looks like” and “Mikey, Mikey hear us say, we need DEI to stay” rang through the streets, in reference to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine. Hours after the walkout, SB 1 passed through the Ohio House of Representatives, per prior Lantern reporting.
The Senate is set to concur with the House changes — which are currently undisclosed — at a later date, said Ohio Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon), according to the Ohio Capital Journal.
After the concurrence, the bill will make its way to DeWine, who will have 10 days to either sign the bill into law or veto it. If the bill is vetoed, the legislature will need to provide a three-fifths vote in each chamber to reintroduce it.
Pranav Jani, a professor in the Department of English and president of the American Association of University Professors, said he and many others believe DeWine will “cave” to the bill.
“We hope he actually sees the truth in our critique of the bill, which is that it’s anti-union and anti-freedom of thought,” Jani said. “You know, it just wants to shut people up and push conservative ideas, which is the opposite of what they say they’re doing. But you know, that’s what’s going on right now.”
Brielle Shorter, a third-year in psychology and OSA student leader, said she joined the protest due to her concerns that the bill would make it more difficult to teach about social issues in psychology.
Shorter said she worries that professors would have to devote less time and specialized instruction to topics such as the rate of suicide among transgender youth, who are four times more likely to attempt suicide in comparison to their cisgender counterparts, according to the National Institutes for Health.
“What [are] both sides of that conversation?” Shorter said. “And that’s something I have been imagining, and I don’t know how my teachers will make 55 minutes — they will use half of that to teach us a differing point of view on what causes trans youth to commit suicide more often than non-trans youth. It’s scary.”
As a professor, Jani said he has seen the onset of a “chilling environment” across the university.
“Faculty are fighting, no doubt,” Jani said. “Faculty are speaking, no doubt. But they’re also conscious of the fact that they’re being watched and that they’re being surveilled.”
