The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.
The first major hurdle to getting a referendum on the November ballot to repeal Ohio’s massive higher education law has been cleared.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost certified the title and summary language for a referendum that would repeal Senate Bill 1, set to take effect at the end of June.
S.B. 1 bans diversity efforts, regulates classroom discussion, prohibits faculty strikes, creates post-tenure reviews, puts diversity scholarships at risk, and creates a retrenchment provision that blocks unions from negotiating on tenure, among other things. The law affects Ohio’s public universities and community colleges.
“My certification of the title and summary… should not be construed as an affirmation of the enforceability and constitutionality of the referendum petition,” Attorney General Dave Yost said in a letter certifying the petition.
Members of the Youngstown State University’s chapter of the Ohio Education Association are behind efforts to get the referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot.
With the title and summary language approval, petitioners can now start gathering signatures. About 248,092 signatures are needed — 6% of the total vote cast for governor during the last gubernatorial election. The signatures must be from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties. The signatures would likely be due at the end of June.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose would then have to verify the signatures before the measure is referred to the Ohio Ballot Board to determine the language that would appear on the November ballot.
The last time a referendum passed in Ohio was 2011, when voters overturned an anti-collective bargaining law.
Some of Ohio’s public universities have started making decisions because of S.B. 1. Ohio University announced it will close the Pride Center, the Women’s Center and the Multicultural Center. The University of Toledo is suspending nine undergraduate programs in response to a controversial new higher education law that is set to take effect this summer.
