Wright State University trustees announced they would eliminate several offices earlier this month.
“These actions include the discontinuation of Wright State’s Division of Inclusive Excellence and five cultural and identity centers: the Asian and Native American Center, the Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center, the Latino Center, the LGBTQA Center, and the Women’s Center,” Wright State officials said in a statement published to the university’s website.
The WSU statement says that as a result, staff positions in those operations are being eliminated. The Disability and Neurodivergence Center will move to the Office of Disability Services from the Division of Inclusive Excellence.
Miami University announced plans in April to eliminate three divisions related to DEI, including the Office of Transformational and Inclusive Excellence (OTIE), Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion (CSDI), and Miami Regionals Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion over the summer.
The space previously occupied by the cultural and identity centers and the Division of Inclusive Excellence will be added to existing spaces for Student Involvement and Leadership, Wright State said.
A spokesman for Wright State said six positions were eliminated.
In March, Miami told this news outlet there were six departments that do work related to DEI at its main campus and branch campuses in Hamilton and Middletown.
These offices have a combined budget of $3.7 million and 52 staff members, many of whom are student assistants, Miami officials said. A spokesman noted that the entire budget does not go towards DEI but is simply tied to the offices involved in DEI work.
A Miami spokesman said 11 positions were eliminated due to the new law and said all of the people impacted have been communicated with and offered opportunities elsewhere in the university.
Previous reporting from this news outlet found Wright State’s Division of Inclusive Excellence has a budget of roughly $650,000.
Central State University said in March it has no departments related to diversity or inclusion. CSU updated its statement of commitment and some of the language on its website to comply with the law.
What is Senate Bill 1?
Senate Bill 1, or the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, was passed and signed into state law earlier this year. The act includes the following provisions:
- Banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on public college and university campuses without offering a definition of what a “DEI” initiative is;
- Allows the state to hold back state funds to ensure higher education institutions are following the law;
- Requiring universities to “Affirm and declare that the state institution will not encourage, discourage, require or forbid students, faculty, or administrators to endorse, assent to, or publicly express a given ideology, political stance, or view of a social policy, nor will the institution require students to do any of those things to obtain an undergraduate or post-graduate degree”;
- Requiring all students to take an American civics course to graduate with an undergraduate degree;
- Eliminating any degree program with fewer than five awardees on a three-year rolling average;
- Prohibiting full-time faculty from striking; and
- University trustees are now required to undergo state training, and their terms have been reduced from nine years to six.
S.B. 1’s intent
State Senator Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, the primary sponsor of Senate Bill 1, previously told this news outlet the law is focused on offices that are discriminatory.
Asked specifically in a March interview about whether programs like WSU’s Bolinga Center, LGBTQA Center, and Latino Center would be considered prohibited DEI under S.B. 1, Cirino said, “No.”
“We’re not talking about clubs or groups or things that help students out. That’s fine,” he said. “We’re talking about the admissions, the hiring practices of our universities. We’re talking about doing things, even scholarships, that strictly differentiate based on race and gender.”
Cirino said in an interview this week he did not remember that specific conversation but said the intent of the law is still to be anti-discriminatory. He said offering a scholarship to Black students in Cleveland to attend a public university would still be allowed, just not through the university itself.
“I think, what the presidents of the universities and the boards are doing is, they’re erring on the side of extra caution,” Cirino said.
He added, “I would say that Senate Bill 1 needs to eliminate what has turned out to become institutional discrimination of a number of sorts and that’s what I would assume they’re looking to do by dismantling some of these organization or changing their mission to be more inclusive.”
Cirino said he is “very pleased” with the changes being made in the state.
“Friday was a great day for the state of Ohio and for the enhancement of higher education in our state,” he said.
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