“College campuses should be places where free speech is encouraged, not limited,” said state Rep. Niraj Antani, R-Miamisburg, in support of the bill on the House floor.
Some Democrats opposed the bill. State Rep. Catherine Ingram, D-Cincinnati, said she fears it will prevent schools from addressing on-campus hate speech.
“Though this looks like a good bill, my fear is it becomes a slippery slope,” she said.
The legislation now goes to the governor for his signature.
An amendment to the House version of the bill extends residency status for in-state tuition rates to people who graduated high school in Ohio, relocated out-of-state and returned to go to college.
Alli Lowe, president of Miami University Students for Life, told lawmakers in testimony in May that her group filed a federal lawsuit against the university in 2017 after being told they had to post warning signs around a display of crosses at the Hamilton campus.
The lawsuit was quickly settled after the university’s general counsel apologized and said the branch campus wasn’t following university policy in requiring the signs.
Lowe also said that last year when her group brought a pro-life speaker to campus their promotional materials were vandalized, destroyed or replaced with pro-choice flyers.
“Every single time my organization chooses to host a display or a campus event, our voices are silenced by our fellow students. And our administration, they simply sit back and watch,” she said.
The FORUM Act would prohibit a state college or university from taking any action that limits or restricts free speech, and says all outdoor areas of such schools are public forums so administrators can’t adopt “free speech zones” to limit expression to certain areas. It also prohibits schools from charging security fees for hosting events.
The bill also removes from state law a provision allowing schools to prohibit use of facilities by members of the communist party, people or groups advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, or people whose presence is “not conducive to the high ethical and moral standards” of the school.
Wright State University years ago did away with the “speakers corner” in the quad and now designates the entire campus a free speech zone. WSU doesn’t require speakers to register before coming to campus and hasn’t denied any group from holding an event in recent years, according to university spokesman Seth Bauguess.
Antani criticized Wright State in 2017 after administrators sent out a campus-wide email warning students of a planned pro-life event.
While those who spoke in support of the FORUM Act in committee testimony tended to be college conservatives, those opposed were groups representing professors and administrators arguing the law would just add bureaucratic rules to ensure rights already protected under the First Amendment.
David Jackson with the American Association of University Professors told lawmakers in November that the legislation seeks to protect students with extreme ideas from criticism — which is also protected speech — and allow groups and speakers intent on generating outrage to create expensive security challenges for schools without helping cover the cost.
“Government gets into thorny territory when it attempts to legislate what free speech is or should be on our colleges and university campuses,” he said. “Very simply, SB 40 is a solution in search of a problem.”
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