Approximately 900 protestors gather in the Oval Tuesday in opposition to Ohio Senate Bill 1 and recent university diversity, equity and inclusion rollbacks. Credit: Sebastian Petrou Griffith | Lantern Reporter
Around 900 students, faculty and staff gathered in the Oval from 1-4:30 p.m. Tuesday to protest Ohio Senate Bill 1 and Ohio State’s diversity, equity and inclusion rollbacks.
From Ohio State community members to administrators, religious leaders and politicians, the crowd grew from a mere few dozen people just before 1 p.m. to approximately 900 by 2:30 p.m. The protest was organized by Ohio State’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors and the university’s chapter of the Ohio Student Association, which event organizers said marks the first time faculty and students have come together for this type of gathering.
Throughout the protest’s roughly three-hour duration, over 15 distinct speakers addressed the crowd with brief talks. Protesters chanted phrases like, “Hell no, SB 1 has got to go” and “F*** Ted Carter,” while some held signs that read messages like, “Buckeyes united against SB 1,” “Kill the bill,” “Sunset Ted Carter” and “Compliance with censorship is cowardice.”
University spokesperson Ben Johnson confirmed the group had a space reservation for the protest. Attendees were heard reminding one another to avoid amplified sound due to the university’s space standards, and there were no microphones, sound speakers or makeshift stages present, with speakers instead standing on the steps of the William Oxley Thompson Statue to make their voices heard.
Roughly 10 Ohio State University Police Department officers were scattered around the Oval for safety purposes, Lt. Bruce Allen said. Sydney Ball, one of the event’s student organizers and an OSA leader, informed attendees that medics and a designated “safety team” — adorned with red bandanas on their arms — were present to keep protesters safe.
One of the protest’s speakers, Pranav Jani — president of Ohio State’s chapter of AAUP, program director for Asian American Studies, faculty advisor for Students for Justice in Palestine and a professor in the Department of English — kicked off the protest with an introduction familiar to most in the Ohio State community.
“I’ve done 30 years of this,” Jani said. “What I’m about to say, I’ve never done. I’m going to start with ‘O-H!’”
“‘I-O!’” the crowd responded.
“I’m starting that way because this is not just a gathering of a few people,” Jani said. “This is not just a gathering of some people who think a certain way. This is a gathering of Buckeye Nation.”
Cheers erupted from the crowd.
Other speakers included the president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, an Ohio State House representative, university professors, department chairs and more.
By the end of the afternoon, event organizers and protesters hummed along to “Buckeye Swag” — accompanied by live tuba and trumpet players — and engaged in a call-and-response rendition of “Carmen Ohio,” with lyrics being changed from the traditional “Oh come, let’s sing Ohio’s praise / And songs to Alma Mater raise” and “Time and change will surely show / How firm thy friendship, Ohio.”
Instead, protesters sang, “Oh come lament Ohio’s ill / As Carter caves to Cirino’s will / And our sorrowful tears do flow / For the death of Ohio.”
Attendees then launched into a similarly structured call-and-response chant of “F** Ted Carter.”
The event — which was scheduled to conclude at 4 p.m. — was officially declared over by organizers around 4:30 p.m.
Students, faculty, staff and community members protest Ohio Senate Bill 1 and diversity, equity and inclusion rollbacks in the Oval Tuesday. Credit: Sebastian Petrou Griffith | Lantern Reporter
Tuesday’s timeline and speeches
Shortly after the official 1 p.m. start time — at which point there were around 200 people — Jani took to the Thompson Statue steps to address attendees, with the crowd applauding and cheering as he spoke.
“We’re here to stop Senate Bill 1, we’re here to stop union busting, we’re here to stop the clamp down on academic freedom, we’re here to stop the attack on diversity and we want our voices to carry to the legislators who are gonna vote on this, to the governor who’s going to get it if it goes through the House, but also to our own administration, who has, in a cowardly way, refused to stand up against SB 1,” Jani said.
Jani then launched into the history of student protests at Ohio State. More specifically, he discussed student demonstrations that occurred on campus in the 1970s, many of which centered around racial inequality, gender inequality and opposing the Vietnam War.
These ‘70s protests caused the university to close for nearly two weeks, per prior Lantern reporting.
In addition, Jani referenced the inception of Ohio State’s Black Student Union. According to an October 2019 Lantern article, the BSU was formed in fall 1967 after Black students held a series of summer meetings to fight for better treatment on campus. Its first meeting was held under a group of trees on the Oval called “the five brothers.”
“The Oval is a historic place that’s tied to all the issues we’re talking about,” Jani said. “But you may not know, and I want you to know this, we’re against SB 1 because they’re attacking our future, and they’re attacking our present and I want to tell you they’re also attacking our past.”
Jani then said Ohio State’s history of student activism is “not just an empty history lesson,” calling on attendees to keep advocating for DEI initiatives at the university level.
“When they cancel the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, they are waging a war against our own history, against Black history, against people’s history,” Jani said. “And what we’re doing right now is we’re building it back. We’re remembering that history.”
Around 1:30 p.m., the crowd around the Thompson Statue had grown to nearly 400. Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, addressed the crowd by saying she was at the protest on behalf of the 15,000 members of the OFT and the 1.8 million members of the American Federation of Teachers.
“We’re all fighting to have your back,” Cropper said. “Never, never be silent, and never cede your power, because you do have power. And it does not always feel like it, when you’ve got a Statehouse that ignores almost 1,000 pieces of testimony, it could feel like you don’t have power, but every day, every action that you take, you are chipping away at that power and you are building a better future for others.”
Several flyers were passed around at the gathering, including a “Stop SB 1 Syllabus” — which had an attached QR code linked to Ohio State’s chapter of AAUP’s website — and a petition calling on university President Ted Carter Jr. to bring back the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Center for Belonging and Social Change, which Carter announced were discontinued at Thursday’s University Senate meeting.
Another speaker, Ohio State Rep. Munira Abdullahi (D-Columbus), reminded protesters that this is their state and the public holds power over the legislators.
“It’s so disappointing what’s happening across the state, and we should not comply early,” Abdullahi said. “So, shame on OSU [and] Ted Carter, shame on the universities who are pre-complying to these horrible, horrible bills.”
By 1:45 p.m., the gathering of roughly 600 split into two circles, with speakers alternating from one group to the other so all attendees could hear each address. Event organizers also instructed the crowd to snap instead of clap and cheer to avoid violating the university’s space standards.
Jill Galvan, a professor in the Department of English and executive board member of Ohio State’s chapter of AAUP, spoke to the crowd about a provision of SB 1 that requires professors to post their syllabi — including instructor qualifications and contact information — online for anyone to view them.
“If you pass a law that says to current faculty, ‘We will surveil your courses and allow for easy harassment of you by forcing you to post that information; we don’t believe that you can be trusted to determine the best program, so we’re gonna eliminate that ability from collective bargaining; you’re an expert in your field, but we’re going to control what you can teach by calling certain topics controversial,’ all of those are going to be major disincentives for coming here, and our state is going to be robbed of expertise,” Galvan said.
Boos erupted from the crowd as Galvan mentioned Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland), the primary sponsor of SB 1.
“Sen. Cirino has not been listening when we’ve been trying to communicate with him,” Galvan said. “He’s been hurling insults at students. In one report, he called people who testified for the bill ‘clowns.’”
Mytheli Sreenivas — a chair and designated professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, plus a speaker at the protest — said she feels SB 1 undermines two core elements of Ohio State’s mission: advanced research and teaching.
Sreenivas also urged students and faculty to “challenge the status quo and imagine a new university together.”
“As we all know, this research and teaching is necessarily controversial,” Sreenivas said. “It pushes us; sometimes, it disrupts things. It requires us to debate and to change our ideas when we get new evidence. And this — this work, this research, this teaching — is exactly what SB 1 seeks to ban in its clause on teaching about controversial topics.”
Sam Shim, an Ohio State alum and representative from Honesty for Ohio Education, was another speaker at Tuesday’s rally.
Honesty for Ohio Education is a nonpartisan, statewide coalition that advocates for “honest education, the affirmation of all identities, cultures, and lived experiences, and the rights and safety of all students, families, and educators,” according to its website.
As an alum, Shim said he thinks Ohio State’s decision to eliminate ODI and CBSC is “horrific.”
“I want every professor to know the alumni, we have got your back,” Shim said. “The Black Alumni Society came out right away and issued a statement against what’s going on. We need ODI. We need to stop SB 1. And, you know, right afterwards, the Asian & Pacific Islander Alumni Society followed in solidarity with our Black brothers and sisters.”
Notably, Shim said many alumni are coordinating to fight back against these cuts and SB 1 as a whole.
“There are over 170 clubs and societies at The Ohio State University Alumni Association,” Shim said. “Is that not diversity?”
By 2:30 p.m., the crowd had grown to approximately 900 attendees. Hasan Kwame Jeffries, a professor in the Department of History, addressed the crowd.
“I’m here because you all are here,” Jeffries said. “I’m here because my students are here. I’m here because if it wasn’t for my students fighting for rights back in the ‘60s, I as an African American would not be here as a professor at The Ohio State University.”
Jeffries said he chose to attend Tuesday’s demonstration because he “[knows] what it means to be a Buckeye, and Buckeyes don’t stand for foolishness.”
“And unfortunately, there’s somebody across the street who apparently doesn’t know what it means to be a Buckeye,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries said he was recently featured on a radio program for WOSU, during which he was asked his thoughts on Carter’s decisions regarding SB 1 and DEI.
“I said, ‘The verdict is still out,’” Jeffries said. “I’m not sure if he’s incompetent, I’m not sure if he’s a coward, I’m not sure if he’s complicit. But I think we know now, it’s all three.”
At this, the crowd clapped and burst into cheers.
Jeffries said university administrators and legislators are “afraid of the truth.” He said this is why SB 1 targets what instructors are able to teach in their classrooms — which he said includes topics such as white supremacy, racism, sexism, global oppression and capitalism.
“They don’t even want you to hear what we have to say — that’s why we don’t have any microphones,” Jeffries said. “But you don’t have to hear it, you don’t have to hear the truth, because just you being here tells me that you feel the truth and the truth is who we are.”
Jeffries urged attendees to continue to fight against SB 1 and DEI rollbacks.
“As faculty, we’re preparing you for the future that you deserve, the future that you earn, and they’re trying to rob you of that today, and I’m here to say that s*** ain’t gonna happen,” Jeffries said. “If you wanna fight President Carter, if you want to fight [the] state attorney, if you want to fight [the] governor, if you want to fight [the] president of the United States, then goddamn it, you gotta fight.”
Jeffries ended his address by emphasizing that today is only the beginning of protesters’ action against anti-DEI legislation.
“Let today be the beginning and not the end,” Jeffries said. “We take this from this yard, we take it to the Statehouse, we take it to the White House. This is not over. We are on the right side of history.”
An hour later, around 3:30 p.m., the two groups of protesters rejoined, lining the brick paths of the Oval while songs and chants like “Carmen Ohio” were performed.
Joel Wainwright, a professor in the Department of Geography, addressed the crowd with suggestions on how to convince Republican legislators to veto SB 1. His first piece of advice was to emphasize the negative economic consequences of the bill, which would “make it miserable to be a professor at Ohio State, meaning many of the best faculty here will leave for the private sector, or private universities, or the country of Canada.”
“And if 5 or 10% of our best faculty leave, then guess what? The federal research dollars they bring to this university leave too,” Wainwright said. “This is real. This is real. You don’t have to make it in the hyperbole saying everyone’s gonna leave — no, not everyone’s gonna leave, but even if only 5 or 10% leave, that’s huge. Think of this: Last year, faculty at Ohio State brought in in the neighborhood of $1.3 billion worth of federal research grants. That’s billions, with a ‘B.’ Take 10% of that, and you’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Wainwright’s second tip was informing Republican legislators SB 1 would reduce the quality of undergraduate education at Ohio State, making it more difficult to recruit students.
Protesters began dispersing just after 4 p.m., and Molly Hornberger — an OSA member and third-year in public affairs, sociology and African American and African studies — closed out the event around 4:30 p.m. by encouraging attendees to submit testimonies to Ohio legislators.
“This was an amazing event and an amazing action,” Hornberger said. “We are in a marathon, not a sprint. This will take all of us, not just some of us. The fight will not stop here.”
Attendee interviews
Shelby Vickers, a first-year in microbiology, said seeing the Ohio State community come together to support DEI felt “powerful.”
As a transgender student, Vickers believes DEI is not “an attack on people who aren’t queer or people of color,” but rather a way to ensure students from diverse backgrounds can access equal opportunities in higher education.
“I relied on a lot of DEI things myself because I’m a trans person, and also I’m from Appalachia, and I know a lot of Appalachian people who come here who really just [need] that help because we can’t afford it,” Vickers said. “So, I feel like a lot of really good students wouldn’t get the opportunity they’d need for higher education because they don’t have the opportunities from, you know, inclusivity.”
Nick Kawa, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and a designated safety team member for the protest, said SB 1 would prohibit educators from building spaces where open discussion can thrive.
“I think, for example, with the controversial policies and beliefs, it’ll create a chilling effect in which professors will steer away from vital topics that are extremely important for [societal] debate, such as immigration policy, climate change, marriage,” Kawa said. “I mean, these are things that they’ve specifically identified as controversial, and these are the things that we need to be talking about, especially if they’re things that Ohioans don’t agree about.”
Ryan Skinner, a professor in the School of Music, agreed. He said in order for faculty to teach students responsibly, they must be able to express themselves freely based on their own expertise.
“This protest is about SB 1, which is an attack on academic freedom — I’m holding up a sign, for the record, that says that,” said Skinner, also AAUP’s secretary. “It’s an attack on faculty, it’s an attack on students, it’s an attack on our ability to organize and voice our protest.”
Gloria Chan, a third-year in romance studies and translation and interpretation, said she and her peers have drawn comparisons between Ohio State’s recent DEI cutbacks and the fascist regime of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
According to the Associated Press, Mussolini came to power in 1922, triggering two decades of fascist rule. In her opinion, Chan said the censorship exhibited by the Italian government at the time mirrors the university’s dismissal of students’ concerns today.
“Essentially, we’re seeing a lot of parallels to what’s going on now,” Chan said. “And for people, having studied a lot about the history of Italy and the history of the resistance against fascism, it’s really, really disappointing to see what’s going on now.”
Chan said she hopes if enough Ohio State students and faculty members speak out, the university will not repeat patterns of oppression student activists have seen in the past.
“I know for so many people that when they come to university, this is their place to kind of explore and to hear those counterpoints that maybe, like, growing up in a smaller town in Ohio, they wouldn’t be able to discover,” Chan said. “And this is really dangerous, and it’s kind of just trying to make everyone — make people — not have the tools to think about resistance or to fight against it. I think that’s just really, it’s honestly really shameful to the universities, and I think it’s totally counterproductive to higher education in general.”
