Lawmakers respond to protests on college campuses

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio lawmakers are responding to the protests seen on college campuses here in Ohio and across the country in a new bill filed Thursday afternoon.

The eight-page bill, called the “CAMPUS Act,” is a bi-partisan effort, sponsored by Representatives Dontavius Jarrells (D-Columbus) and Justin Pizzulli (R-Scioto County). 

The bill’s sponsors worked with the Jewish Caucus on the legislation; Representative Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) is one of the members and a supporter of the new bill. 

“We are just trying to respond to what has been a hard and difficult time on campus for a lot of students,” Isaacsohn said. “We spent months talking to students, community leaders, folks on campus, trying to figure out what a bill could do to make life better for them.” 

The bill would apply to both public and private colleges, and would do things like:

• Require all Ohio colleges to adopt and enforce a policy regarding racial, religious and ethnic bias and harassment.
• Require training for all faculty on how to respond to hate incidents.
• Require policies on time, place, and manner restrictions to be public to students to ensure enforcement of protests and free speech is viewpoint neutral and reasonable.

“Which means you can’t say ‘we are going to give you 30 seconds to speak,’ because that’s not reasonable,” Isaacsohn said.  “And we can’t say ‘we’re going to give everyone an hour to speak, except this group we are only going to give them ten minutes,’ that’s not viewpoint neutral.” 

Despite this being a bipartisan effort at the statehouse, when NBC4 asked Gov. Mike DeWine whether he sees the need for the legislation in the area, not specifically about this bill, he said no, because “schools in Ohio have handled this very well.” 

“I don’t see a compelling need for legislation. What I see is schools that have been successful in articulating clearly what the rules are,” DeWine said. “Respecting the First Amendment, saying ‘you can continue to demonstrate but there are certain things you can’t do on campus because these are our rules, and we apply this to absolutely everyone.’ I think it’s worked.”

Isaacsohn said most colleges already publish their policies, and he does not anticipate that being an issue, but they are “trying to make it very explicit.” He said the big picture of the bill is about making sure that now, and in the future, students feel safe and protected by their school and empowered to exercise their First Amendment right. 

“That [students] feel like the university is both acting on and following up on issues that arise that are related to antisemitism, islamophobia, other forms of ethnic or religious bias or prejudice, and that there’s some investment in the longer term of campus culture,” he said. “The idea is hopefully that will help us avoid some of the situations we’ve seen over the last few weeks and months.” 

The legislation would also require a yearly report of allegations of hate incidents to be sent to the chancellor, attorney general and United States Attorneys for the Northern and Southern districts of Ohio. 

Isaacsohn said “a lot of the bill has to do with transparency,” and this is one way to address it. 

“The data can be anonymized and shared in an aggregate form, but it should be something that students and frankly family and community members are able to see, and so those reports would be shared with the state in a public way,” he said. “Students should know ‘this is a campus that takes this seriously, this is how they deal with it, here are the policies, this is how many times it’s been addressed over the last five years, ten years, and here are the outcomes.’” 

The bill also allocates $4 million from the state.

• $2 million would go towards ramping up campus security in instances when it is needed.
• $1 million will go towards the “Campus Student Safety Grant Program,” to help cover costs of safety on and off campus.
• The remaining $1 million is to go to the “Campus Community Grant Program. 

Isaacsohn said students told him that investment helps take things in the right direction.  

“The bulk of the bill is focused on ‘how can we invest in the types of things that students have said would be really helpful for them in feeling safe and protected on campus?’” Isaacsohn said.

In a statement, not specifically about this new bill, but about whether any legislation in the area is needed, a spokesperson for Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) said “The Speaker believes that there is no place for antisemitism anywhere and that the safety of all students is a top priority. Any legislation will be assigned to a committee and will go through the process.” 

The bill awaits a number and committee assignment.