OHIO LEGISLATIVE SERVICE COMMISSION
Office of Research Legislative Budget
www.lsc.ohio.gov and Drafting Office
S.B. 83 Bill Analysis
135th General Assembly
Click here for S.B. 83’s Fiscal Note
Version: As Reported by House Higher Education
Primary Sponsor: Sen. Cirino
Effective date:
Mike Niemi, Research Analyst
SUMMARY
STATE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), intellectual diversity, and
other concepts
Policy
 Requires state institutions of higher education to adopt and enforce a policy requiring
the institution to:
 Prohibit any mandatory orientation or training courses regarding DEI, unless the
state institution determines the orientation or course is required for certain
specified purposes;
 Affirm and declare a primary function to the pursuit of knowledge;
 Affirm and declare that the institution will ensure full intellectual diversity;
 Demonstrate intellectual diversity for course approval, approval of general
education courses, student course evaluations, common reading programs, annual
reviews, strategic goals for each department, and student learning outcomes;
 Seek out invited speakers who have diverse ideological and political views;
 Post a complete list of all speaker fees, honoraria, and other emoluments in excess
of $500 that are sponsored by the state institution prominently on its website.
 Requires each state institution’s policy to affirm and declare that the state institution
will not:
 Endorse or oppose, as an institution, any controversial beliefs or policies, except on
matters that directly impact the institution’s funding or mission of discovery,
improvement, or dissemination of knowledge;
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 Influence or require students, faculty, or administrators to endorse or express a
given ideology, political stance, or view of a social policy;
 Require a student to endorse or express a given ideology, political stance, or view to
obtain an undergraduate or post-graduate degree;
 Use political and ideological litmus tests in any hiring, promotion, and admissions
decisions, including diversity statements and other requirements that applicants
describe commitment to any ideology, principle, concept, or formulation that
requires commitment to a controversial belief or policy;
 Influence or require students, faculty, or administrators to endorse or express a
given ideology or political stance in any hiring, promotion, or admissions process or
decision;
 Use a diversity statement or any other assessment of an applicant’s political or
ideological views in any hiring, promotions, or admissions process or decision;
 Influence or require students, faculty, or administrators to endorse or express a
given ideology or political stance in any process or decision regulating conditions of
work or study.
Exemptions
 Exempts mandatory orientation or training courses if the orientation or course is
required for certain specified purposes such as complying with state and federal laws or
regulations or complying with professional licensure requirements.
DEI programming and training report
 Requires each state institution to prepare a report summarizing all mandatory DEI
programming at the institution and submit the report to the Chancellor of Higher
Education in accordance with guidelines established by the Chancellor.
Student and faculty policy complaints
 Requires each state institution to respond to complaints from any student, student
group, or faculty member about an alleged violation of the requirements and
prohibitions given in the DEI Policy (above) using the same process as for free speech
policy complaints under continuing law.
Intellectual diversity protections and disciplinary sanctions
 Requires each state institution to do all of the following:
 Respond to complaints regarding any administrator, faculty member, staff, or
student who interferes with the intellectual diversity rights of another using the
same process as for free speech policy complaints under continuing law;
 Inform all students and employees of their intellectual diversity protections and any
applicable policies adopted by the state institution to put the protections into
practice;
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 Comply with reporting guidelines established by the Chancellor regarding violations
of the intellectual diversity rights by any individual under the institution’s jurisdiction
and any consequent disciplinary sanctions issued.
Statements of commitment
 Requires each state institution to incorporate statements into a statement of
commitment declaring commitment to free and open intellectual inquiry, independence
of thought, tolerance of differing viewpoints, and equality of opportunity.
Affirmations and policies on equal opportunity
 Requires state institutions to do both of the following with regard to every position,
policy, program, and activity:
 Treat all faculty, staff, and students as individuals, hold all individuals to equal
standards, and provide every individual with equality of opportunity with regard to
those individuals’ race, ethnicity, religion, or sex;
 Provide no advantage or disadvantage to faculty, staff, or students on the basis of
race, ethnicity, religion, or sex in admissions, hiring, promotion, tenuring, or
workplace conditions.
Prohibition on support and training for certain concepts
 Prohibits state institutions from providing or requiring training for any administrator,
teacher, or staff member that advocates or promotes certain prescribed concepts
regarding race and sex.
 Requires state institutions to implement a range of disciplinary sanctions for any
administrator, teacher, staff member, or employee who authorizes or engages in a
training that violates the above prohibitions.
 Requires state institutions to issue a report regarding violations of the above disciplinary
sanctions and statistics on the academic qualifications of accepted and matriculating
students, disaggregated by race and sex.
Segregation prohibition
 Requires state institutions to prohibit all policies designed explicitly to segregate faculty,
staff, or students based on those individuals’ race, ethnicity, religion, or sex in credit-
earning classroom settings, formal orientation ceremonies, and formal graduation
ceremonies.
Complaint process
 Requires state institutions to establish a process for a student, student group, or faculty
member to submit a complaint about violations of the prohibitions and requirements
immediately above.
 Requires the institution to investigate alleged violations and conduct a fair and impartial
hearing on the matter.
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 Requires the board of trustees to determine a resolution to address the violation and
prevent future violations of the institution’s policy if the hearing determines that a
violation occurred.
Faculty evaluations
Student and peer evaluations
 Requires the Chancellor to develop a minimum set of standard questions to be used in
student evaluations, including a question about whether a faculty member creates a
classroom atmosphere free of bias.
 Requires each state institution to establish a written system of faculty evaluations
completed by students that uses the minimum set of standard questions developed by
the Chancellor.
 Requires state institutions to establish a written system of peer evaluations for faculty
members with a focus on professional development regarding the faculty member’s
teaching responsibilities.
Faculty annual performance evaluations
 Requires state institutions to adopt and, every five years, submit to the Chancellor of
Higher Education a faculty annual performance evaluation policy containing an appeals
process for faculty to appeal the final evaluation.
 Requires state institutions to conduct an annual evaluation for each full-time faculty
member directly compensated by the state institution.
Post-tenure review policies
 Requires state institutions with tenured faculty to adopt and, every five years, submit to
the Chancellor a post-tenure review policy containing an appeals process for faculty to
appeal the final evaluation.
 Requires state institutions with tenured faculty to adopt and, every five years, submit to
the Chancellor policies on tenure and retrenchment.
Collective bargaining
 Expands the current law prohibition against collectively bargaining faculty workload
policies, and the requirement that the policies prevail over conflicting collective
bargaining agreements, to include all state institutions of higher education and not just
state universities.
 Prohibits state institution of higher education employees from collectively bargaining
with the institution regarding faculty evaluation policies and systems, post-tenure
review policies, and policies on tenure, and specifies the policies and systems prevail
over conflicting collective bargaining agreements.
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 Allows a state institution of higher education with a collective bargaining agreement in
effect on the bill’s effective date containing a provision on retrenchment to continue
bargaining retrenchment policies, but only with respect to faculty with 30 to 35 years of
service in a public retirement system at the time of a retrenchment determination.
Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act
 Establishes the scope and procedures for a civil action when a state institution of higher
education violates a restriction in a qualified endowment agreement.
 Permits the Attorney General, the person who signed a qualified endowment
agreement as donor, or that person’s benefactor representative to file a complaint for
breach of a qualified endowment agreement.
 Permits the Attorney General and any party to a qualified endowment agreement,
including the recipient state institution of higher education, to file a complaint to obtain
a declaration of rights and duties under the agreement.
 Requires complaints to be filed within six years of discovering the violation, but in no
event later than 25 years after the first transfer of property under the qualified
endowment agreement.
 Limits application to breaches of qualified endowment agreements that occur on or
after the bill’s effective date.
Other changes
Five-year institutional cost summaries
 Requires state institutions to submit, in accordance with guidelines established by the
Chancellor, a rolling five-year summary of institutional costs to be considered by the
General Assembly when evaluating operating and capital project funding for each
biennial main operating appropriations bill and capital appropriations bill.
 Requires the Chancellor to submit a report to the General Assembly including all state
institutions’ five-year institutional cost summaries.
 Requires that the president of each state institution or the Chancellor have the
opportunity to present in the appropriate hearings conducted by committees
considering higher education legislation regarding the institutions’ five-year summaries.
 Requires the Chancellor, prior to the enactment of each main operating appropriations
and capital appropriations bill, to create and present a report to the General Assembly
including the total institutional costs for state universities and community colleges
separately.
Faculty workload policy
 Requires each state institution to take formal action to adopt a faculty workload policy
consistent with standards adopted by the Chancellor, review and update its policy on
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faculty tenure, require multiple pathways to tenure to receive certain state funds, and
update its faculty workload policy every five years.
 Requires each state institution to include in its faculty workload policy a teaching
workload expectation based on credit hours, a definition of all faculty workload
elements in terms of credit hours including a full-time minimum standard established by
the board of trustees, justifiable credit hour equivalents, and any administrative action
that the state institution may take if a faculty member fails to comply with the policy’s
requirements.
American government or history course requirement
 Requires each state institution to develop a three credit hour course in the subject of
American government or American history with mandatory reading assignments
including the United States Constitution, Declaration of Independence, five essays from
the Federalist Papers, the Emancipation Proclamation, Gettysburg Address, and Letter
from Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 Requires each board of trustees to adopt a resolution approving a plan to offer the
course described above, which must be submitted to, reviewed by, and approved by the
Chancellor.
 Permits the Chancellor to require an institution to revise the plan and the course before
approval.
 Requires state institutions to require all students seeking a bachelor’s degree to take the
course or receive an exemption, beginning with students who graduate in the spring of
the 2028-2029 academic year.
 Permits a state institution’s president or the president’s designee to exempt a student
from the course requirement if the student completed a qualifying course or passed an
examination developed by the Chancellor.
 Permits state institutions to offer the course under the College Credit Plus Program.
Syllabus requirements
 Requires each state institution to create a syllabus, using specific requirements
established in the bill, for each course offered for undergraduate credit and to provide
for the syllabus posting on its publicly accessible website in accordance with the bill’s
website posting requirements.
 Requires each state institution and the Chancellor to prepare reports regarding state
institution compliance with syllabus posting requirements.
Interactions with the People’s Republic of China
 Prohibits, with certain exceptions, state institutions from accepting gifts, donations, or
contributions from the People’s Republic of China or any organization that the
institution reasonably suspects is acting on behalf of the People’s Republic of China.
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 Requires state institutions to submit to the Chancellor a copy of the foreign gifts report
it sends to the United States Department of Education.
 Requires state institutions to notify the Chancellor of any new or renewed academic
partnership with an academic or research institution located in China.
 Prohibits state institutions from entering into new or renewed academic partnerships
with an academic or research institution located in China unless the institution
maintains sufficient structural safeg