Ohio State has revised its policy on land acknowledgements twice since the passage of Senate Bill 1. Credit: Lantern File Photo
Ohio State has revised its policy regarding land acknowledgements in compliance with Senate Bill 1 after speaking with faculty leaders.
The university twice revised several areas of policy as a part of its initial round of compliance with the SB 1 — a bill banning diversity, equity and inclusion programming on campus — faculty striking and requiring the publication of syllabi online, following its June 27 implementation.
Land acknowledgements are a statement that indigenous people and their communities were the original stewards of land occupied by land-grant universities, including Ohio State, according to prior Lantern reporting.
Prior to Sept. 29, university guidance in compliance with SB 1 said that “land acknowledgements should not be used in written class materials or stated verbally unless there is a direct tie to the subject of the course.”
However, the policy stated that Ohio State would “continue to engage in research, academic scholarship, conversations and opportunities to honor [state and university] history,” according to an archived version of the University Guidance page from the SB 1 Implementation Committee.
“After speaking to faculty leaders, we made some revisions to make clear that Ohio State remains committed to academic freedom and the university’s academic freedom and responsibility rules have not changed,” Chris Booker, university spokesperson, said in an email.
The revised policy now reads that “Such land acknowledgement statements cannot be issued on behalf of a unit, college, department, etc., or placed on university channels or resources such as websites, social media posts, signage, meeting agendas and event programs unless they are factual statements directly related to the subject matter at hand.”
The page also states that this policy applies to “other statements by the university on controversial beliefs or policies pursuant to the provisions in SB 1.”
Elissa Washuta, program director of American Indian Studies and Associate Professor in the Department of English, said in an email that she was glad that the SB 1 Implementation Committee understood faculty concerns.
“I was glad that the SB1 implementation committee had taken another pass at the guidance, glad they understood that faculty have had serious concerns [and] appreciated that they wanted to get it right,” Washuta said.
Washuta said that land acknowledgement restrictions disproportionately affect scholars that work in indigenous studies, due to it being the only subject-specific area of restriction on the updated University Guidance page.
“As I see it, the most alarming problem with the restrictions is how much speech they could be applied to beyond what many people think of as a recognizable land acknowledgment, which, to be clear, I think we need to have the freedom to choose to say or not say,” Washuta said.
Washuta said that the revisions read as “articulating a commitment to respecting faculty’s academic freedom in the classroom,” which she called an improvement from the previous version.
“Sometimes it’s easier to just not say the thing at all than to do the work of figuring out whether it’s allowed, sometimes preferable not to risk being wrong in our assessment,” Washuta said. “The fear of repercussions can lead people to avoid open discourse about certain topics.”
Booker said that the guidance doesn’t categorically prohibit land acknowledgements, and is still aligned with the faculty rules on academic freedom and responsibility and the university’s philosophy on institutional and leadership statements.
Ohio State’s Newark Earthworks Center maintains a page regarding land acknowledgements and states that the page is only online as an archive of past grant work and that it “does not reflect The Ohio State University’s position and views at this time.”
The university center researches the cultures of midwestern indigenous peoples.
“The Native and Indigenous community at OSU is absolutely tiny—we are severely underrepresented, even compared to demographics in the state of Ohio—and I fear that the chilling effect will make us even more invisible than we have been as such a tiny minority group in such a large community,” Washuta said. “I am heartened that our colleagues are committed to our work as everyone figures out how we talk about that work in light of SB1’s prohibitions.”
