Students, faculty gather on campus in protest of Ohio State’s compliance with Senate Bill 1

Over 100 students, faculty and community members gathered near the William Oxley Thompson statue in the Oval on Friday to protest Ohio State’s compliance with Senate Bill 1, despite the rainy weather.

Senate Bill 1, a bill that bans diversity, equity and inclusion measures, as well as faculty striking and the requirement of syllabi to be published online, has been a center of controversy for students and staff after its passage back in March, per prior Lantern reporting.

The protest was organized by Ohio Student Association, a student political organization, and began at noon, focusing on current issues like the university’s chalking ban, the Trump higher education compact, the Palestine-Gaza conflict and changes to Ohio State’s land acknowledgement policy. 

Throughout the protest, chants such as “Tell me what democracy looks like,” responded with “This is what democracy looks like,” and “The people united will never be defeated.”

There were no counter protesters. Chris Booker, a university spokesperson, said Ohio State supports students’ free speech rights.

“Ohio State has an unwavering commitment to free speech and freedom of expression. We respect the rights of our students, faculty and staff to express their views about issues that are important to them,” Booker said in an email.

Various organizations, including Students for Justice in Palestine, the Black x Bold Magazine and the American Association of University Professors, participated in the protest.

One of the first statements to the crowd was from Brielle Shorter, a fourth-year in psychology and vice president of Ohio State’s chapter of Ohio Student Association, a political organization on campus, calling the university to reject President Donald J. Trump’s higher education compact, which would give preferential funding treatment if the signed university complies with the set policies.

Shorter started off the protest by reading out a letter to University President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr. and the Board of Trustees, asking for a pledge to reject Trump’s demands on universities.

“If adopted, it would force our schools to restrict enrollment for international students, further restrict our protests and demand that schools pledge ideological loyalty to the Trump administration,” Shorter said.

Molly Hornberger, a fourth-year in public management, leadership and policy, sociology, and African American and African studies, and a part of OSA, described the association’s demands.

“We demand that President Carter, the Board of Trustees and the university administration implement the following changes for the purpose of protecting and improving upon free speech rights and ending the university shift towards repression, abandonment and blatant disregard of the Buckeye community that OSU has made since he assumed the position of university president,” Hornberger said.

These demands include the university publicly rejecting Trump’s compact, retracting Guy Christensen’s expulsion from Ohio State, publicly affirm that Ohio State will not assist law enforcement agencies from enforcing immigration law and to allow professors to have land acknowledgements within their syllabi. In addition, the association wants Ohio State to stop policing student dress and speech, reinstate allowing students to use amplified sound, sidewalk chalk and decorating dorm halls with non-Ohio State-related themes.

Booker explained in an email the reason why Ohio State banned chalking.

“It’s important to remember, university signage standards changed due to continued complaints regarding chalking on campus and the significant amount of administrative time spent evaluating chalking,” Booker said.

One of the most prominent speeches was from Pranav Jani, an English professor and former president of The American Association of University Professors, who spoke on calling for the restoration of land acknowledgements on class syllabi.

“When OSU puts restrictions on land acknowledgements, it puts restrictions on genuine academic debate, on academic freedom and on intellectual diversity,” Jani said. “The ban has to go, so we can actually have real dialogue and stop the erasure of native people.”

Jani first described what land acknowledgements are and that Ohio State occupies the territories of multiple indigenous tribes.

“Doing a land acknowledgement helps you understand what it means, that word they keep tossing around: land grant university,” Jani said.

Prohibiting land acknowledgements to be on syllabi is political, despite the university’s reasoning, Jani said.

“We actually want knowledge. We actually want to go deeper into the question [of] these laws preventing us from getting into the complicated discussion about land acknowledgements,” Jani said.

He concluded by questioning how the university is handling diverse courses like Black and Indian studies.

“I think we should say, ‘Yes, we are political,’ we’re drawing out the imperfections of the way U.S. history is taught,” Jani said.

Indivisible Central Ohio, an organization meant to fight for human rights issues, partnered with OSA and held various signs. David Dorskey, a member of the group, held up a sign displaying “Using Secret Police,” and below, “This is Fascism.”

Katey Borland, a faculty member with the Department of Comparative Studies and the president of the AAUP, said the association is participating in the protest to send a message to Ohio State’s administration, Ohio representatives and the national government. 

“We will teach what we believe in teaching, and we will learn what we want to learn, and we will read what we want to read, and we will say what we want to say,” Borland said. “No matter what they say to us, no matter how they try to shut us down.”

The public protest ended around 1:30 p.m. as the group chanted repeated messages while marching to Denney Hall to continue discussions on the issue.