The AHA has shared the following action alert with our Ohio members. SB 1 is currently before the Ohio Senate Higher Education Committee. We encourage constituents to reach out to their elected representatives to urge them to vote against the bill.
The AHA registers strong concerns about Ohio Senate Bill 1, which is currently before the Ohio Senate Higher Education Committee.
SB 1 is a revised version of Senate Bill 83 that stalled in last year’s legislative cycle in the Ohio House of Representatives. The AHA wrote two separate letters to state legislators expressing concerns about the new mechanisms SB 83 would create to overrule the professional judgment and academic expertise of faculty and departments.
The same unwise provisions are included in SB 1. The AHA applauds many of the bill’s stated goals: free inquiry, true intellectual diversity, and vigorous debate. We have grave doubts, however, about the utility of SB 1’s heavy-handed interventions in both history education and university administration.
We encourage you to contact your elected representatives in the Ohio House and Senate and draw their attention to the dangerous consequences of SB 1, including:
- Defining “intellectual diversity” in a manner that undercuts the free exchange of ideas. The bill’s definition evaluates both students and faculty on the degree to which they display “multiple, divergent, and varied perspectives on an extensive range of public policy issues,” especially those that are the “subject of political controversy.” History students and faculty should be evaluated on the quality of their work and not where they stand on matters of public policy.
- Authorizing state boards of regents and state officials to overrule professional judgment, to reject the “consensus or foundational beliefs of an academic discipline,” and to censure or terminate faculty (regardless of tenure) if they deem them to have violated vague standards of “intellectual diversity.”
- Requiring public colleges and universities to investigate complaints about what students say and do in the classroom and on campus.
- Mandating colleges to post detailed course syllabi, including class schedules, on public-facing websites with keyword searches to facilitate public surveillance.
- Establishing overly prescriptive requirements—including 11 required texts and a cumulative final exam—for a new “American civic literacy” course, mandatory for graduation from any public college or university, with significant implications for history departments.
Faculty already teach foundational texts in an array of courses. SB 1 adds three mandatory credit hours to student degree plans that will likely slow students down in their progress toward graduation. There are far more productive ways for policymakers and university administrators to encourage student learning in history and civics.
If you live in Ohio, it is crucial that you contact your state legislators as soon as possible and encourage them to oppose this troubling bill. You might also wish to testify, either in writing or in person, before one of the state legislative committees set to discuss this measure.
It can be helpful to reference the opposition of the AHA and other professional associations to this bill. You should feel free to quote or paraphrase our observations. At this stage in the process, it is most important for legislators to hear personal narratives about the specific consequences of this bill directly from their constituents. This includes students, parents, faculty, staff, administrators, and Ohioans invested in history education.
Thank you for your participation in the democratic process. We can’t do this work effectively without that participation.
If you have any questions about this proposed legislation or would like to request updates about its status, please feel free to reach out directly to Brendan Gillis, director of teaching and learning at the AHA (bgillis@historians.org).
The AHA, its members, and other historians find ourselves on the front lines of a conflict over understandings of America’s past, confronting radical activists who are promoting ignorance in the name of unity. Please visit our Teaching History with Integrity site for the most up-to-date information about AHA efforts to combat these bills and for resources and expressions of support for history educators. We hope that you will distribute widely our short videos on Teaching with Integrity: Historians Speak.
The AHA’s advocacy work is more critical now than perhaps ever before. If you believe in the importance of honest history education, please donate to the AHA’s Advocacy Fund to support this advocacy work.