The Republican Ohio senator who introduced a bill aimed at tackling "cancel culture" in public universities said it would be a course correction for the state's public universities and push back on liberal bias.
Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) said he introduced Senate Bill 83 in March because the problems in Ohio's universities are out of hand. He said universities cannot be trusted to address liberal bias and achieve true intellectual diversity.
"We need to be graduating students who have been trained how to think critically and develop their own views on things. Not to be spoon fed one side of issues, which is a great deal of what has been going on here for a long time," Cirino said.
Cirino and University of Cincinnati political science professor Steve Mockabee talked about the bill on Wednesday's edition of All Sides with Ann Fisher. Mockabee opposes the bill.
"We see this bill as an erosion of academic freedom, which gives faculty the ability to teach, research and speak without interference and without fear of reprisal," Mockabee said.
The bill would ban strikes by employees, end required diversity training and bar ideological litmus tests in hiring or admissions. It would also halt new contracts for partnerships or programs with Chinese institutions, including research.
Cirino said there is no question that there is an orthodoxy at many universities that is contrary to the idea of diversity of opinion and free speech.
"We want to make sure we are teaching our students, our future business people, future teachers, etc., how to think not what to think," Cirino said.
Mockabee also spoke about the provision of the bill which bans strikes by employees and said it hurts employees' ability to collectively bargain. Faculty at New Jersey's flagship university, Rutgers, began striking for the first time in the university's 200-year history two days ago.
"I like to say that if we didn't have the threat of a strike, collective bargaining becomes collective begging. And so I think that it's important that we maintain that fundamental right," he said.
Mockabee is the chair of the Communications and Political Engagement Committee at the University of Cincinnati Chapter of the American Association of University Professors.
Cirino said faculty striking disrupts the instruction process that students have already paid for.
"I'm not against organized labor at our universities, certainly, but I am against the using students instruction as pawns in a negotiation process," Cirino said.
Mockabee said that while he shares some of Cirino's goals with this bill, the bill does not let campuses be open and free for people to express different viewpoints.
"(This bill) will create confusion and chaos, more bureaucracy and more lawsuits, and it will diminish the quality of education we can provide our students," Mockabee said.
The bill is still in the Ohio Senate's Workforce and Higher Education Committee, which Cirino chairs.
