Draconian bill a wake-up call: Universities are under attack

Ohio Senate Bill 83, just introduced in the Ohio Senate at the time of this writing, brings Florida to Ohio in terms of the vicious attacks on higher ed: bans on public university strikes, elimination of academic freedom, and restrictions on/prohibitions of ethnic studies, gender studies curricula.

As The Columbus Dispatch put it:

“Changes to classroom rules aimed at bias, an end to diversity training mandates, a ban on partnerships with Chinese universities, and mandatory American history courses are all inside a far-reaching bill to change how students learn and professors teach at Ohio’s public colleges and universities.

Known as the Ohio Higher Education Enhancement Act, Senate Bill 83 would overhaul campus life at Ohio’s 14 public universities and 23 colleges.“

The second shoe has been dropping for a while now, but this specific targeting of universities ought to be a loud enough wake-up call for faculty.

So, let’s get woke, then.

Might as well embrace the term the political right has demonized as a cover for their racist, anti-feminist, anti-trans, homophobic, anti-union, anti-immigrant, fake free speech agenda. Seriously.

You mean to say these people stand for freedom of speech when they openly use the statehouse to dictate what educators and students teach and learn in the classroom?

Why is this happening?

There are many local and specific reasons. Certainly, the issue is the Donald Trump/ Ron Desantis era, part of a deep backlash against Black rebellion against police violence, trans visibility, growing unionization efforts, DEI programs, and other signs that many sections of U.S. society want to take on both structural oppression and its daily manifestations. But the current moment is an expression of a much longer struggle on the part of the (white) conservative movement.

Classes born from protest

The very demand for ethnic studies, Black studies, women’s studies and related fields came from student protests and were deeply linked to the struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, in which Black, Native, Latinx, Asian movements for freedom were linked, sometimes explicitly and sometimes not, to feminist and queer mobilization as well as movements against war and militarism.

In that context, with San Francisco State leading the way, students — increasingly diverse themselves — demanded that their histories, literatures, arts, cultures and languages also be part of the higher education curriculum.

As administrators and the establishment did not simply hand over the keys to the university, it took massive student strikes and building takeovers to win basic changes.

These are the origins of the departments of African American and African studies, and the department of women’s gender, and sexuality studies here at Ohio State University.

Ohio Senate Bill 83 isn’t just trying to roll back a few programs, but an entire legacy of protest and transformation. And by banning strikes at public universities, the bill wants to undercut our very ability to resist such draconian changes in policy.

What can you do to combat Senate Bill 83?

If you’re at Ohio State, join our local American Association of University Professors chapter so we can coordinate and strategize together.

In the wider community, link up with Honesty for Ohio Education, an active and growing coalition of community groups, unions and civil rights groups. Or check out the work of OPAWL and its current efforts on multicultural education.

Wherever you are, connect with others: You do not have to rage alone and you cannot be effective alone. None of us can.

Educators, students, parents, and community members want to move forward, not backward. And yes, we value social justice.

We want to know why there are historic inequalities and exploitation, and what role we can individually and collectively play in putting an end to them. .

The question is: Can we organize and mobilize ourselves to take on these authoritarian bills emanating from our statehouse on a regular basis? We can’t take this lying down. And we will not. Pranav Jani is Director of the Asian American Studies Program and Associate Professor in the Department of English at Ohio State University.