A group of Cleveland State students, staff and faculty met April 1 to discuss the potential impact of Senate Bill 1 on the CSU community, and how to mobilize against it.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed SB1 into law March 28, two days after the Ohio senate voted 20-11 in favor of the bill.

Signature of the controversial bill has resulted in college students statewide coming together to express their disapproval of the decision.

Sean Abbott-Klafter, a member of Cleveland Jewish Voice for Peace and Cleveland Palestine Advocacy Community, opened the CSU meeting with a presentation on SB1, SB53 and SB87. He described the current Ohio legislation as “designed to attack” Ohio college institutions.

Cleveland State University is a key inner-city college in Ohio. Cleveland is a majority Black city with a large white population and a wide range of other ethnic groups and non-binary gender-based residents of all ethnicities. Given its smorgasbord of cultural, religious and gender identities and vibrant international student community, , CSU could be particularly hard hit.

Members of the CSU faculty had various reactions about the policies they might have to adopt because of SB1, in part due to the vague language  of the bill itself.

“The law is so poorly written, my four-year-olds could have written it,” one faculty member said.

Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, sponsored the bill, a rehash of his SB83 from 2023, which even Republicans at the time would not touch. The new bill leaves many questions unanswered.

Among other provisions, SB1 bans civic and institutional rights initiatives to foster diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and limits the ability of students and faculty to discuss “controversial” topics. Abbott-Klafter related SB1 to SB53 and SB87, pointing out that the latter are more attempts to limit how people express themselves on controversial issues.

As an example, Abbott-Klafter noted that in the context of the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, SB87 seeks to adopt the contested definition of antisemitism developed by the IHRA into state law, tying it to the crime of “ethnic intimidation” and expanding it to include riot and aggravated riot so that the bill's advocates and supporters can criminalize pro-Palestine protests.

Similarly, SB53 is a bill that aims to allow anyone who believes they have suffered injury or loss due to ethnic intimidation from protesters to file a civil action against the offender as well any person or organization that provided “material support."

Critics of the bills at the meeting said they were an attempt to further suppress the voices of Ohio students, as college communities such as Cleveland State have always been a source of social change.

Despite the legislation's targeting of college students and the movements they support, acting SJP President Ruby Darwish believes that the Cleveland State community can make a difference through unity.

“Getting involved in your community and getting involved in organizing is probably the biggest thing you could do right now,” Darwish said during her presentation.
 

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Darwish called on the attendees to email house members and DeWine, and encouraged students to get involved with community organizing, providing everyone with community-based resources to look into. She emphasized that persistence is what will lead to change. 

“We just have to keep it sustainable, we have to keep it going,” Darwish said. “We have to be consistent because without consistency, they can easily just stomp on us and crumble everything that we've done."

For those interested in organizing and building solidarity with others on campus, CSU SJP & New Era Scholars are hosting a political prisoner and abolition workshop on April 15 from 3:30-4:30 p.m. in Berkman Hall room 135.