Ohio passes bill creating “intellectual diversity centers”

Ohio is spending $24 million to create “intellectual diversity centers” at five of the state’s public institutions of higher education, according to The Ohio Capital Journal. The centers will be independent academic units all centered on the U.S. Constitution, law and history.

State lawmakers had earlier proposed the centers at just Ohio State University and the University of Toledo, the latter of which was proposed back in 2019 and will operate out of the university’s law school. Provisions for centers at Cleveland State University, the University of Cincinnati and Miami University were only added at the end of June, shortly before the Senate voted. Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, signed the $191 million budget shortly after.

Faculty at the affected universities are largely opposed to the centers, telling the Journal that their creation amounts to “state overreach” and a waste of funds, as well as a slight to shared governance.

The tension echoes other attempts by Republican legislatures and their appointees in other states to establish similar centers in an effort to combat what they see as left-wing ideological bias in higher education, especially in the field of American history. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees drew the ire of faculty and campus leaders when it pushed to fast-track an already-controversial Center for Civic Life and Leadership this past winter.