Senator used “ad hominem” attacks to defend bill that would kill college programs| Opinion

Timothy Messer-Kruse is a professor of Ethnic Studies at Bowling Green State University.

Sen. Jerry Cirino complains of my “hysteria and hyperbolic screams of anguish” in pointing out that Senate Bill 83 will abolish my ethnic studies department.

Cirino charges that my claims are false and that “The bill won't do anything like that.” He then engages in what we professors call “ad hominem” by asking why I didn’t do “a bare minimum of research” and wondering “what in the world he is teaching his students.” Let me present the facts and let readers decide who is closer to the truth.

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How bill will kill my department

There are several ways that Senate Bill 83 will force the closure of my department.

First, there is Sec. 3345.0217 (5) that bars any state university from requiring “any mandatory programs or training courses regarding diversity, equity, or inclusion.”

This clause would cover the university’s cultural diversity courses that are required as part of its general education program. Currently, the ethnic studies department teaches most of the students who must take these courses. Were it to be canceled there will be little need for the department that provides them.

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Then there is Sec. 3345.87 (E) that specifically prohibits universities from hiring any teacher to teach anything related to eight prohibited concepts.

Look to the concepts

These concepts describe many of the theories and problems that ethnic studies students debate.

This is especially true of #2 that restricts consideration that an “individual, by virtue of his race or sex, is inherently racist…whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Psychologists have been studying the unconscious mind for well over a century and hundreds of laboratory experiments have documented how hidden, implicit biases operate.

Likewise, concept #4 prohibits discussion of how colorblindness may actually perpetuate racism by censoring the idea that “members of one race cannot nor should not attempt to treat others without respect to race.”

Concept #5, that “an individual’s moral standing…is necessarily determined by the individual’s race or sex” will bar any discussion of collective responsibility for historic crimes.

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Do the innocent victims of genocide have a higher moral standing than their murderers? Such ethical questions, the subject of deeply considered essays by Hannah Arendt and other philosophers will be put off limits.

Concept #8 will prohibit all research into the job inequities, of inheritance, or home ownership by canceling any courses that consider whether “meritocracy” or the “work ethic” serve as justifications for unearned advantages.

Clearly, were Senate Bill 83 to pass, the ethnic studies department would be abolished because this law prohibits hiring any faculty to serve in it. Moreover, no educator in their right mind would volunteer to do so as they will face investigation and punishments including dismissal.

Freedom of speech

Notably, this list of censored ideas has already been found to be in violation of the First Amendment.

A federal court in Florida recently granted an injunction suspending operation of the law that Senate Bill 83 is modeled upon because it censors speech that supports affirmative action while allowing speech that condemns it.

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This is the substance of Senate Bill 83 concept #3 prohibiting classroom consideration that “An individual should…receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of the individual’s race.”

Senate Bill 83 also threatens the department of ethnic studies by making it easier for the state to end its funding.

Sec. 3345.80 mandates that all costs for spending on “diversity, equity, and inclusion, or related subjects” be accounted for on a separate budget. The purpose of this requirement is clear: it exists merely to target cuts for academic programs like those provided by BGSU’s Ethnic Studies department.

Finally, risk-averse administrators may interpret Sec. 3345.87 (I) that prohibits “all policies designed to explicitly to segregate faculty, staff, or students by group identities such as race…in majors” as applying to a department whose name is literally “Ethnic Studies”.

Sen. Cirino misrepresents his own bill which he claims “is quite simple: It ensures free expression on campus.”

If that were the case, then there would be no reason for Senate Bill 83 at all, as Cirino passed a bill that protects free speech rights on campus last year.

Where Senate Bill 83 to simply consist of Sec. 3345.0217 (5, B, 4) that guarantees that “faculty and staff shall allow and encourage students to reach their own conclusions about all controversial matters and shall not seek to inculcate any social, political, or religious point of view” I would support it.

Instead, Cirino has written a law outlawing the concepts he doesn’t like and doesn’t want to be thought about in our universities.

Timothy Messer-Kruse is a professor of Ethnic Studies at Bowling Green State University.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Don't believe Cirino' “hysteria and hyperbolic' about Senate Bill 83