Ohio Budget Bill Could Enact Even More Higher Ed Changes

The latest version of an Ohio state budget bill includes numerous provisions that could impact public colleges and universities—including a line saying that, in curricular decisions, all feedback by a faculty senate, “or comparable representative body, is advisory.”

House Bill 96 stresses that institutions’ boards of trustees would have the “final, overriding authority to approve or reject any establishment or modification” of any “courses, general education requirements, and degree programs.” It also stresses that boards would have “unilateral and ultimate authority to establish new academic programs, schools, colleges, institutes, departments, and centers.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported earlier on these provisions. They come after Ohio’s Republican-controlled General Assembly already passed sweeping changes to public higher education last month in the form of Senate Bill 1, which reduced faculty’s tenure protections; banned full-time faculty from striking; prohibited various diversity, equity and inclusion activities; and more.

Sara Kilpatrick, executive director of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors, said it’s already “ultimately under the boards’ responsibilities to have the final say in really anything.” But, she said, “I think that this is specifically language that’s designed to sideline faculty and to potentially politicize program and curriculum offerings.”

The proposed budget bill would also impact Ohio’s “intellectual diversity centers,” which the General Assembly voted in 2023 to establish at five universities, including Ohio State University. HB 96 says the centers’ directors would have the power to approve the centers’ courses that meet gen ed requirements.

Kilpatrick surmised that some of the bill’s provisions stem from the rejection by Ohio State’s Senate of the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society, the intellectual diversity center at that institution. Even though the University Senate didn’t have real power in whether the center was established, Kilpatrick said, “I think that it ruffled some feathers, and I think that there is now this attempt to try to ensure that university senates and faculty senates don’t actually have any real power.”