The first step is over in the campaign by Ohio educators to overturn the bill that seeks to stop diversity efforts and faculty strikes at public universities. Opponents of Senate Bill 1 will turn in petitions this week from the signature gathering drive they’ve been working on since April, after Republicans passed the law and Gov. Mike DeWine signed it.
It’s an all-volunteer effort to turn back Senate Bill 1, said Mark Vopat, Youngstown State philosophy and religion professor and president of YSU’s faculty union. He said he's not sure how many signatures have been collected across the state, but that organizers think their estimates are low.
"It's unclear what we have mainly because we're finding that our petitions have been undercounted. Most of the people who've been out there collecting petitions haven't submitted their numbers. So now we're finding that it's 50% and 60% more than we actually thought," Vopat said. "Right now it looks very good, but we don't have accurate numbers because now all of a sudden we're getting all the petitions in."
Opponents will turn in their signatures to the secretary of state’s office Thursday. They need 248,092 valid signatures. If they have them, Senate Bill 1 can be blocked from taking effect on Friday. Voters would then decide in November whether to keep or repeal the law. If they come up short, Vopat said they have 10 days to make up the difference.
Senate Bill 1 passed with widespread support among supermajority Republican legislators. No Democrats voted for the bill, and two Republican senators and three House Republicans joined them. Gov. Mike DeWine signed the law less than 48 hours after receiving it. Republicans who backed the bill said it would fight back against "woke" liberal indoctrination they insisted was happening on Ohio's college campuses. Democrats and other opponents said the bill would chill free speech and drive well-qualified faculty and top students away from Ohio.
SB 1 also requires post-tenure performance reviews, a civics course focused on American history and free market capitalism, and "intellectual diversity" in discussion of issues the law describes as controversial.
The effort to repeal Senate Bill 1 has been a nearly-all grassroots effort, with little support from the major teachers unions. The Ohio Education Association had said last month it was focusing resources on other challenges, including litigation, rather than a repeal because of the time and costs in such an effort.
“Without the volunteers this wouldn't have been possible," Vopat said. "We didn't pay anybody to collect signatures; this was a complete volunteer effort. And I was amazed and heartened by the number of groups and individuals who've come forward.”
