On January 22, the Ohio Student Association disrupted Ohio Senator Jerry Cirino’s press conference announcing SB 1, a regurgitated version of the widely unpopular SB 83. OSA members showed up loud and proud on day one at the Ohio Statehouse to defy this attempt to dismantle Ohio’s higher education system. The re-introduced bill aims to centralize control over Ohio’s public higher education system, threatens academic free speech, and the state’s ability to attract and retain top students and educators.

Students gathered in the atrium holding signs and graduation caps reading “Listen to Students” and “R.I.P. my degree” before marching to the hallway outside the Harding Press Room. Students chanted as incoming Chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee, Kristina Roegner, took the stage, her speech overshadowed by the booming chanting of college students: “Higher ed will be dead”. 

A stammering Cirino then took the mic. “I always dreamed of hearing my name yelled in the hallways… this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” he said, from then on spitefully referring back at every possible moment to the college students positioned just outside the pressroom door.  “Maybe we’ve been blessed with a reprieve here,” he joked. Students then roared back into chanting “Higher ed will be dead,” leaving Cirino stumbling through his speech.

“I was excited to come to Ohio State, but this bill threatens to undermine the value of my degree and goes against what our university stands for,” said Brielle Shorter, a third-year student studying psychology at the Ohio State University. “Let professors teach, let students learn. This bill is extremist, unnecessary, and in the wrong direction for Ohio higher education.”

“We have been listening to the opposition. It’s highly likely that the students here protesting are getting extra credit for being here,” sneered Cirino. After failing for two straight years to pass the most opposed bill in recent history and witnessing a record of over 500 pieces of opposition testimony, you’d think Cirino would understand by now that the students of Ohio are bright enough to draw their own conclusions.