Identity of Speakers
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Ohio General Assembly
Unaffiliated
OtherState legislature of the Ohio.
Resources
Additional Information
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Incident Nature:
Rally or protest
Course Content
Other
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Incident Political Orientation:
Right wing -
Incident Responses:
University administration invoked formal speech code in response
University administration changed university policy as a consequence
State Campus Free Speech Act
Title IX or other federal statute
Other
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Incident Status:
No litigation
- Was Speech Code incident
Summary
Ohio Senate Bill 1 (SB1), titled the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, was introduced in the Ohio General Assembly on January 22, 2025. During February and early March 2025, committee hearings were held in both chambers, during which more than 700 students, faculty, and community members submitted opposition testimony. The Ohio Senate passed SB1, and on March 19, 2025, the Ohio House of Representatives approved the bill. Governor Mike DeWine signed SB1 into law on March 28, 2025, with the statute scheduled to take effect 90 days after signing.
SB1’s provisions restricted public higher education institutions by banning most diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programming, offices, training, and related expenditures. The law prohibited DEI‑oriented scholarships, training courses, and contracts that prioritized DEI outcomes. It also required institutions to remain neutral on “controversial beliefs and policies,” prevented faculty from seeking to indoctrinate students, prohibited faculty strikes, and expanded post‑tenure review and annual evaluations to include questions on classroom neutrality. Universities were instructed to publicly post course syllabi and faculty qualifications, adjust admissions and hiring practices to eliminate DEI criteria, and report student demographics. Public universities were warned they could face reductions in state funding for noncompliance.
A petition drive to place a referendum on the November 2025 ballot did not collect enough signatures by the required deadline, and SB1 took effect on June 27, 2025. After the law’s effective date, public colleges and universities implemented SB1’s requirements, disbanding DEI offices, revising institutional policies, and adopting new nondiscrimination and intellectual‑diversity statements. In early September 2025, Ohio State University issued a policy restricting most land acknowledgments in official materials unless directly tied to coursework, while other institutions maintained existing acknowledgments as they interpreted the law.
On February 12, 2026, a Republican state representative introduced House Bill 698, the SB1 Compliance Supplemental Appropriation Act, to link certain state funding to compliance with SB1 requirements; as of February 2026, the bill had been introduced and had its first committee hearing but had not been enacted.
