Are Civic Centers the Answer to Help Ohio Students Think?

Last year, Senate Bill 1 went into effect in Ohio to combat diversity, equity, and inclusion. Now state lawmakers are looking to do even more to promote independent thinking on college campuses.

For the anniversary of his bill being signed into law, state Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, announced a new bill he has for civic centers on campus.

Incoming freshmen must take at least one three-credit course in American civic literacy, as mandated by Senate Bill 1. Under Cirino’s new bill, Senate Bill 461, state-established civic centers would be “the exclusive provider” of those courses.

These civic centers, which currently exist on five college campuses, were established and allocated $25 million as part of the state budget for 2023.

In addition to The Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at the Ohio State University, other centers exist at the University of Toledo, Cleveland State University, Wright State University, and Miami University.

Cirino told the Daily Signal that such centers were set up to be “independent.” While they are on university campuses and report to the provost and presidents of their universities, they have their own directors. The faculty, senates, and department chairs “have no purview over anything that they do in terms of curriculum or hiring faculty.” SB 461 gives responsibility, including designing required courses, to the center directors.

“We don’t want to have crazy courses—as has been reported—being set up to satisfy this requirement. We want to make sure that they’re really good American civics and history courses,” Cirino said.

Cirino said he wants the system to also have appropriations “so that future governors and future legislators would have a very difficult time changing what we set up to do here.”

Reporting from NBC 4 references concerns about the centers pushing a certain conservative viewpoint. However, the bill’s text makes no mention of “conservative” or “liberal” politics. The center is to “educate students by means of free, open, and rigorous intellectual inquiry to seek the truth,” and students are expected to “reach their own informed conclusions.”

“It’s actually the opposite [of partisan],” Cirino explained.

“We’re not pushing viewpoints. We want a balance of viewpoints taught on campus. We want the students to figure out whether they like socialism or capitalism. But they have to be exposed to both of them. And let them decide.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has given OSU an F rating in its 2026 College Free Speech Rankings.

Reporting from The College Fix in August 2022 noted that Democrat professors at OSU outnumbered Republican professors about 7 to 1 for the political science, English, history, and philosophy departments.