Excerpt from the Ohio Capital Journal
Ohio University will close the Pride Center, the Women’s Center and the Multicultural Center in response to a new higher education law banning diversity efforts that takes effect this summer, the university president announced Tuesday.
OU will sunset the Division of Diversity and Inclusion — which includes those three centers — “over the next several weeks,” Ohio University President Lori Stewart Gonzalez said in a statement.
There is no definitive date for when the division or the centers will close, but the centers will not be open beyond when the law takes effect on June 23, according to university spokesperson Dan Pittman.
“Work managed by the division that remains within the law will be moved to other areas of the university,” the university said.
State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, introduced Senate Bill 1 at the end of January, it quickly passed both chambers and Gov. Mike DeWine signed it into law on March 28. Youngstown State University faculty are trying to get a referendum on the November ballot to block S.B. 1. The law affects Ohio’s public universities and community colleges.
The new law will also prohibit faculty strikes, regulate classroom discussion of “controversial” topics, create post-tenure reviews, put diversity scholarships at risk, create a retrenchment provision that blocks unions from negotiating on tenure, shorten university board of trustees terms from nine years down to six years, and require students take an American history course, among other things.
