By Nicarlyle Hanchard / The Jambar
Though many tenets of Ohio Senate Bill 1 will take effect in 2026, Youngstown State University has already taken steps to navigate the legislation.
The Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, signed into law by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in March, requires public universities to make a statement of commitment and an affirmation statement that outlines its support for open and judgement-free intellectual inquiry. YSU posted its Statement of Commitment on the school’s website.
Additionally, the bill prohibits Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training and programs, and emphasizes the need for an intellectually diverse space for students. It also outlines faculty evaluations and training that the board of trustees must undergo.
Jennifer Pintar, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs, along with her office, created a guideline for classroom and course conduct based on the statement of commitment and the affirmation statement.
She said the office guidelines were not a provision of the law, but her team believed it was important to share with professors.
“I had a group of faculty that worked with me called the Provost Leadership Group that recommended that it would be a good idea to share with faculty how we would look at complaints coming in from students,” Pintar said.
Pintar said the complaints would first be reviewed by the Office of Title IX and Equal Opportunity, then sent to the Office of Academic Affairs. She said the guidelines will determine how she evaluates complaints to dictate whether or not they are a violation.
Mark Vopat, professor of philosophy and president of the YSU chapter of the Ohio Education Association, said though he still believes the bill’s language is vague, he appreciates the university’s attempts at clarification.
“On one hand, it’s good that the university is attempting to put out some sort of guidelines,” Vopat said. “On the other [hand], it’s also very disturbing that this is where we are now with this law, that the university feels the need to protect itself from the state, in a way that it has to put out speech guidelines.”
Vopat said though the guidelines are important, he is concerned about the effect it may have on faculty and classroom discussion.
“Whether instructors [or] professors are so concerned about saying the ‘wrong thing’ or possibly being interpreted as saying the wrong thing, whatever that is, that they’re self-censoring,” Vopat said.
Pintar highlighted the bill’s intention is to create an environment where instructors present facts, and students can openly share their opinions on those facts.
“The goal of the bill is that faculty have given the students all the information, all the facts that are needed [and] students then can take those facts and develop their own opinions,” Pintar said. “What the bill doesn’t want to see happen is that faculty squash students’ opinions because it does not align with their own political beliefs.”
Pintar and Vopat both said students should always be free to express their views in a respectable and open environment.
