Excerpt from the WOUB website
Among the many last-minute provisions tucked into the Ohio Senate budget bill proposal is one that would significantly alter how higher education institutions deal with diversity, among other things.
This is just one piece of a Republican Senate bill targeting higher education that was pasted into the Senate’s version of the budget bill.
Other provisions lifted from the bill would prohibit universities from endorsing or opposing “any controversial belief” and require that professors promote “intellectual diversity” in the classroom.
This was all part of Senate Bill 83, which passed the Senate in May and has been sitting in a House committee since then. The contents of this bill were among the thousands of pages the Senate added to the budget bill passed by the House.
It remains to be seen whether the provisions from SB 83 remain in the budget bill, House Bill 33. The House rejected the Senate amendments on Wednesday, sending the bill to a conference committee, where members of both chambers will try to iron out their differences.
As SB 83 moved through the Senate, more than 400 opponents testified against the bill in committee hearings. Inserting the bill’s contents into the budget bill bypasses additional committee hearings in the House.
