What to know, and what you can do, about the draconian new SB 1 compliance bill.
Last week, Republican Representative Tom Young introduced HB 698 the Enact the S.B. 1 Compliance Supplemental Appropriation Act. This legislation continues the attack on higher education that SB 1 started, implementing a series of regressive policies to go after university employees that had previously been involved in diversity, education and inclusion. In addition, HB 698 imposes even more aggressive retrenchment policies, which would allow university leadership to retrench faculty for basically any reason.
There is a full summary of 698 below, but it is critical that we start contacting our state legislators now to tell them to stop the attack on higher education and to instead commit to improving it. Take a moment now to send the below message to your representatives — or, sign this petition from Ohio AAUP. We need to stand together now. If you aren’t donating to FAM’s political education committee (COPE) it isn’t too late to start (email info@famiami.org to find out how).
Dear Representative/Senator,
As a member of the Faculty Alliance of Miami, I am contacting you today to urge you to oppose the recently introduced HB 698 and to instead invest into Ohio’s future by investing into education.
HB 698 is unnecessary, SB 1 is already the law. HB 698 creates new burdensome reporting requirements that will take university staff and faculty away from working with students. We don’t need more DEI witch hunts. We need to fund and support our universities and colleges.
HB 698 also creates more uncertainty for faculty and staff, setting the bar for the possibility of retrenchment as low as “stagnating enrollment.” How can faculty put together a plan for a four-year college degree if they are constantly wondering if their program will vanish simply because it isn’t growing?
It is time to care about the real problems in higher education in Ohio. Ohio has the 7th lowest per-capita funding for higher education in the country. If we are going to build the future generation we need to first invest in them.
Thank you for your time,
For those living in and around Oxford you can contact:
You can find your state representative here, and your state senator here.
HB 698 Summary
HB 698 is not as long as SB 1 but has several different subsections that are worth summarizing on their own.
SB 1 “Compliance”
HB 698 would require that the governor set aside some of the state share of instruction (SSI) every budget to be used as a threat for any SB 1 compliance issue. Higher ed institutions would have to annually certify their compliance with SB 1 in order to access this funding. The Chancellor of Higher Education would be able to audit records and request additional documentation in order to verify this certification. If an institution is found to be non compliant then funding would be revoked and the institution and its officers might face civil penalties.
Institutions would also have to submit reports about current employees who had been involved in “diversity, equity and inclusion” work on Jan 1 2025. As part of this the employee would have to explain how their current jobs are substantially different from what they were doing. The chancellor can also investigate these and they are public records (which means outside groups could FOIA them).
Retrenchment
HB 698 would put additional parameters around the retrenchment policies that SB 1 already required. In particular, retrenchment may be initiated for any lawful reason “including enrollment stagnation or decline, program reduction or discontinuation, organizational restructuring, business necessity, institutional strategic realignment, financial emergency, or other lawful reasons.” University retrenchment policy also has to state that “seniority, tenure, rank, or length of service do not confer a right of retention” (though length of service has some protection for those between 30 years and 35 years in the state retirement program).
Workload
There are several changes to the workload law. In particular, instructional work load policies would now need to maintain a “primary emphasis” on undergraduate instruction. In addition it states:
An instructional workload policy shall not establish a minimum workload that falls below the prevailing Ohio standards for undergraduate instruction. The chancellor of higher education shall not prescribe alternative ranges or minimum standards for instructional workload policies
Database
As a final note, staff and faculty at institutions of higher education would be added to the “Ohio state and local government expenditure database.” The current database is available at https://checkbook.ohio.gov/ and this would include salary and job title.
Other Education Legislation
Along with HB 698, Representative Jamie Callender has introduced legislation (HB 671) that would cut all funding from any Ohio school district that sued the state. This is a direct attack on local school districts’ ability to check the power of the legislature. SB1 architect Senator Jerry Cirino has announced his support for that bill as well (maybe he should take one of the new state-mandated civics courses?).
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