Dear Editor
The innovations that have made America great were not created in a vacuum. In the 1950s and 60s, the United States was the gold standard for university education. State universities provided affordable state colleges for nearly everyone who wanted to attend.
They also supported research that benefitted their communities. This research led to the US putting a man on the moon, to the eradication of diseases like polio, smallpox, and measles, and to the development of computers, smartphones, and AI.
What made American universities great was academic freedom, which allowed instructors to teach and do research where their interests took them, even though it might not seem immediately useful. It is this pure research, which leads to the break throughs that result in innovation.
For the last 50 years the Republican Party has chipped away at institutions of higher learning, clawing back state funding, making colleges more expensive, forcing 18-year-olds to secure exploitative loans.
Senate Bill 1, recently passed by Republicans in the Ohio legislature, will destroy college and universities in Ohio. It is a blatantly unconstitutional law, censoring what faculty can teach and what students can learn.
The bill replaces diversity, equity, and inclusion, with homogenous conformity, inequality, and exclusion.
It restricts the teaching of “controversial subjects” (how else does one learn how to think?) And it will gut academic programs, ensuring that students do not have the knowledge or skills to function in the professions of their choice. It is the purest form of censorship and it will destroy an institution that has been foundational to America’s position as a world leader.
It is important to remember that colleges are deeply interconnected with their communities. In many small towns, such as those in Knox county, colleges are one of the top employers. They are drivers of culture, innovation, and growth.
If you care about free speech and academic freedom, make sure to sign the petition to put Senate Bill 1 on the ballot so that voters can decide for themselves what kind of higher education they want.
Laurie Finke
Gambier, Ohio