State Rep. Tom Young (R-Washington Twp.) has introduced HB 698 titled the S.B. 1 Compliance Supplemental Appropriation Act. The bill is another attack on higher education, academic freedom, tenure, shared governance, and worker protections.

The purpose of this legislative alert is to share the OCAAUP’s initial analysis and actions and also encourage members and supporters and let their legislators know they are opposed to HB 698. We ask that you also sign the petition calling on legislators to reject HB 698 and help amplify it by sharing it with your networks.

HB 698 requires the governor to include a set aside portion of the state share of instruction in his budget recommendations in all operating budgets moving forward as a means to enforce compliance with the provisions of SB 1 as well as the new provisions around DEI employees, retrenchment, and workload policies that are contained in the new bill.

OCAAUP is working with its partners to build a coalition to defeat HB 698. OCAAUP presented an initial analysis of the legislation to the Ohio Faculty Council last week, developed a petition and began circulating it on Feb. 22, and released a media statement strongly opposing the legislation in juxtaposition to Rep. Young’s news conference on HB 698 today, We have also been working with the media on background as well as several on the record interviews over the past ten days.

HB 698 received sponsor testimony in the House Workforce & Higher Education Committee today, Tuesday, Feb. 24 following a poorly attended news conference in which Rep. Young repeatedly misstated what the bill actually does. His inaccuracies led Cleveland Plain Dealer Statehouse Reporter Laura Hancock, who mysteriously had been well educated on the provisions of the bill and OCAAUP’s concerns, to bluntly ask Rep. Young if “he had even read the bill.” While it was a joke of a news conference, OCAAUP is taking this bill very seriously.

The bill was introduced without any co-sponsors which could be an example of Rep. Young just doing his own thing. But, it may also indicate there is not a strong appetite for another higher ed bill among rank and file members during this General Assembly. However, the bill does appear to have the support of House leadership. House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) told reporters he feels action is necessary after Rep. Young told him “some universities are simply ignoring the law.” Huffman went on to say, “something needs to happen to incentivize complying with the law.” Regardless, OCAAUP is engaging, organizing, and acting to defeat HB 698.

It’s important to note that Rep. Young continues to falsely claim HB 698 is only the compliance piece of SB 1 and does not go further than SB 1 in terms of retrenchment, tenure, or collective bargaining. However, the bill contains nearly five pages of new language on retrenchment and a page and a half on workload and all of the provisions go further than SB 1. OCAAUP has conducted an initial analysis of the legislation and included it below.  It breaks the legislation down into five main buckets of funding, compliance, retrenchment, workload, and DEI.

FUNDING

HB 698 requires the governor to “ensure” the governor’s budget includes recommendations to set aside a portion of the state share of instruction in all future budgets for compliance. This immediately raises concerns around the separation of powers as the legislature is instructing the governor on his budget recommendations.

If the legislature wishes to set aside or compartmentalize funding for colleges and universities and tie it to some type of compliance requirement, it could do so in the standard legislative process for the state operating budget. While the Constitution requires the governor to submit a budget, the General Assembly holds the ultimate “power of the purse” to amend and pass the final appropriations bills.

• In FY 2027, $75 million in SSI was set aside in the state budget (HB 96) for SB 1 Compliance. HB 698 creates additional compliance requirements, specifies the process for determining compliance, and grants determination and investigatory authority to the chancellor.
• The amount of SSI funding set aside in future years would be determined by the legislature through the biennial budget process.

COMPLIANCE 

Each state institution must certify compliance within 90 days of enactment of the bill and by July 1 of each year thereafter. It seems as if the sponsor wants colleges and universities to fail to comply with the bill given the short time frame in which the institutions must certify compliance.

• If an institution fails to file a compliance bill, the chancellor must withhold that institution’s portion of SSI in the set aside for that fiscal year and they will not receive those funds for that fiscal year even if they become compliant.

• The chancellor may audit institutional records, require documentation, and conduct reviews to verify a state institution’s certification.

• If the chancellor believes an institution’s compliance report is recklessly false or fraudulent, any withheld funds cannot be released even if that is remedied and the institution or responsible offers may face civil penalties.

• Even after the chancellor determines a college or university is compliant, the chancellor can investigate any suspected subsequent non-compliance and make a determination about funding. In those situations, funding can be withheld beginning with the first disbursement that occurs after that finding is made.

RETRENCHMENT

HB 698 is very prescriptive and specific around the retrenchment process—going well beyond SB 1. While SB 1 made retrenchment a prohibited topic in collective bargaining, which was a major blow to worker rights; it did not dictate the retrenchment process. HB 698 speaks in absolutes in identifying who can be involved in retrenchment and their authorities. Unsurprisingly, faculty are not identified as having any role or authority in any part of this section, further eroding shared governance.

• The bill requires the BoTs to adopt the retrenchment policy within 90 days of enactment and specifies what must be included in the policy. In essence, the bill creates a model policy that is terrible for faculty. It also specifies that the legislation only sets minimum requirements and that the BoTs can exercise their authority to do even more damage.
• HB 698 specifies that BoTs have absolute authority to initiate retrenchment though they can delegate it to the president or provost. A dean or comparable academic officer may recommend retrenchment but not unilaterally initiate it. The provost, in consultation with the president, shall administer and complete the process within any parameters the BoTs have imposed. The chancellor is charged with reviewing each policy and determining compliance. Non-compliant policies will be remanded back to the BoTs who will have 60 days to correct it.
• HB 698 also greatly expands the triggers for retrenchment including a broad umbrella of allowing it to be “initiated for any lawful academic or operational reason determined by the board of trustees,” but then going on to list examples. The list includes:
• Enrollment stagnation or decline,
• Program reduction or discontinuation,
• Organizational restructuring,
• Business necessity,
• Institutional strategic alignment,
• Financial emergency, or
• Other lawful reason.
• All of the items on this list are very broad; giving BoTs nearly unchecked power in initiating retrenchment. They can find a reason to do so if that is what they want to accomplish. Enrollment stagnation is particularly concerning because a program that maintains its current number of students could be considered stagnant if the term is interpreted to simply mean the absence of growth. The standard under SB 1 was declining enrollment which likely would have required a decrease in the number of students over a multi-year period. Stagnant would not. Organizational restructuring is also exceptionally broad and could open the door for administrators to argue that any change they make could be considered restructuring.
• HB 698 also specifies that seniority, tenure, rank, and length of service (outside of the 30/35 years of service provision that is maintained) do not confer the right of retention and that a faculty member whose position is selected for retrenchment may not displace or bump another faculty member. It also specifies that retrenchment is not performance based and that a history of exceptional performance cannot be considered or a reason to retain someone. In essence, colleges and universities could retrench a tenured professor who is an expert in a certain field for no valid reason and there is no place in the university that professor could go regardless of the expertise that would be lost.
• Faculty whose position is selected for retrenchment shall receive procedural protections which are substantially similar to those historically provided by the institution, but the term “historically” is not quantified by a specific number of years or otherwise defined. The review or appeal process is limited to whether the institution “materially” complied with its policy and the bill. Materiality is often a determination as to whether the purpose of a policy was achieved rather than each specific provision was met. This interpretation gives BoTs tremendous leeway to ignore most of the provisions of the policy as long as it results in retrenchment.
• Buyouts and other voluntary separation agreements are an option open to the BoTs but the bill specifies those arrangements need to be cost effective or in the best financial or operational interests of the institution. Here again the language allows the BoTs to use these broad, undefined and unquantified provisions to forgo utilizing any type of negotiated separation agreement.

WORKLOAD

HB 698’s workload provisions are much more damaging than SB 1. Like SB 1, it allows workload policies to be used as way to terminate faculty including tenured professors. However, HB 698 removes the ability for the chancellor or individual institutions to have any flexibility to create policies that meet their unique needs.

• Faculty who are not meeting the workload policies can be censured, receive remedial training, and terminated for cause—regardless of tenure status.
• HB 698 removes any flexibility in workload policies that the Chancellor of the Board of Higher Education (chancellor) currently has. Under SB 1, the chancellor, jointly with colleges and universities, is charged with developing instructional workloads for full and part-time faculty. HB 698 eliminates the provision that gave the chancellor any authority. It gives boards of trustees (BoTs) at each institution absolute authority to develop workload policies.
• Currently, the jointly-developed standards have to contain “clear guidelines” for institutions to determine “a range of acceptable undergraduate teaching by faculty.” HB 698 removes that provision and specifies that each institution’s instructional workload policies cannot establish a minimum workload that is below the current standards. It also prohibits the chancellor from developing alternative ranges for minimum standards.
• SB 1 requires that a “special emphasis” be placed on the undergraduate learning experience, which in turn became the ODHE Standards for Instructional Workloads. These standards are written in a way that provides for some flexibility and indicates allowances could be made for other activities such as research. Because these standards do not appear to be codified, currently the chancellor can be more nimble in addressing issues that may arise because changes to instructional workload standards would not need to go through the legislative or rule-making process.
• In contrast, HB 698 requires each state institution to adopt an instructional workload policy for full and part-time faculty that maintains a “primary emphasis” on undergraduate instruction and specifically prohibits the chancellor from having “alternative ranges or minimum standards” for instructional workload policies. The phrase “primary emphasis” is another red flag as it could be considered to have a legal definition when used in reference to time whereas “special emphasis” does not. A common legal rule of thumb for “primary” is more than 50% of the time.

DEI

It’s clear that Rep. Young believes colleges and universities are covertly conducting DEI related activities. Under HB 698, institutions can’t reassign, reclassify, or otherwise disguise any position to continue diversity, equity, and inclusion functions. Institutions are required to prepare an inventory of all employees who, on January 1, 2025, performed diversity, equity, and inclusion functions and who were reassigned on or before September 25, 2025. The related egregious provisions could constitute barriers to reemployment of those displaced under the DEI provisions of SB 1. The bill’s reporting requirement also could subject these employees to harassment.

• OCAAUP believes the targeting, tracking, and scrutiny of certain categories of employees is very troubling and raises a red flag about potential violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Historically, many of the individuals who were working in DEI-related positions were from minority and underrepresented communities. Treating an employee differently due to race or other protected characteristics in regard to hiring, firing, discipline, or work conditions could be a potential violation.
• It could also be argued the extremely burdensome DEI employee requirements in HB 698 intentionally disincentivize colleges and universities from re-assigning former DEI employees. The reporting requirements could make it difficult for them to obtain a new position within the institution or to retaining it. The DEI employee compliance provisions are extremely burdensome and labor intensive. It would be very difficult for colleges and universities to provide the employment related information required for compliance year after year throughout an individuals employment.

The required information includes the following:

• Employee name, title, and unit;
• Prior duties related to diversity, equity, and inclusion;
• Reassignment details;
• Salary changes;
• New duties;
• Attestation of accuracy by the chief human resources officer and general counsel and
• A justification report for each employee to include:
• A narrative explanation of the employee’s reassignment;
• Proof that the employee’s reassignment consists of substantially different duties from diversity, equity, and inclusion functions; and
• Side-by-side job comparisons;
• Attestation of accuracy by the institution’s general counsel;
• Itemized compensation breakdown; and
• A compliance plan for ongoing review;
• The president of the institution and chair of the board of trustees must sign this employee “inventory” to attest to their compliance.
• The Chancellor is tasked with determining if the institution’s justification report sufficiently establishes that an employee’s new duties are substantially different from DEI functions using a preponderance of evidence standard.

EMPLOYEE TRACKING

HB 698 adds state institution of higher education employees to the searchable state and school employee salary and employment information in the state and local government expenditure database a.k.a. the Ohio Checkbook.

Resolution to Express Solidarity with Immigrants and to Oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement Activities on the campus of the University of Cincinnati

WHEREAS: The University of Cincinnati welcomes and supports students without regard to their citizenship or immigration status and is committed to providing an environment in which all admitted students can succeed;
WHEREAS: Ensuring that the University of Cincinnati campuses are safe and inviting for all students and their families will facilitate the physical safety and emotional well-being of all students in the University, and is paramount to students’ ability to achieve;
WHEREAS: This safe and inviting environment, as well as the learning environment and educational setting, would be disrupted by the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) agents or other immigration agents who come onto university property or conduct activities in and around university campuses;
WHEREAS: Recent immigration enforcement activities violate court orders, constitutional rights, human dignity, and cause physical and emotional harm and even deprivation of life;
WHEREAS: Recent immigration enforcement activities create hardships that affect health and present barriers to educational attainment, as well as a pervasive climate of fear, conflict and stress that affects all in our university, regardless of their background or status, such that community members whose family members, friends, or classmates may be at risk of deportation, as well as community members who could face deportation themselves, are all at risk;
WHEREAS: Involving campus police in enforcing federal civil immigration law will create the perception that they are immigration agents and decrease the likelihood of members of the university community cooperating with campus police based on fears that this would lead to their deportation or the deportation of family members;
WHEREAS: Primary jurisdiction over federal immigration laws does not rest with campus police or any other state or local law enforcement agency;
WHEREAS: Some cities, counties, schools, and higher education institutions have adopted policies that limit entanglement with ICE or any other immigration enforcement agency and resist any government action that may lead to the discovery of a person’s immigration status;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: That the American Association of University Professors, University of Cincinnati chapter hereby affirms solidarity with migrants on our campus and in our city, state, and nation;
RESOLVED FURTHER: That the American Association of University Professors University of Cincinnati chapter hereby declares that the University of Cincinnati is a safe place for its students, staff, and faculty and their families to seek help, assistance, and information if faced with fear and anxiety about immigration enforcement efforts;
RESOLVED FURTHER: That the American Association of University Professors, University of Cincinnati chapter calls upon the University of Cincinnati to develop a policy concerning the presence of ICE or any other immigration enforcement agency on campus that acknowledges the following: 1. Campus police have no authority to enforce federal immigration law. 2. Campus police will not participate in immigration enforcement efforts of federal authorities. 3. UC will not support illegal, warrantless, entry into spaces such as classrooms, dormitories, and faculty offices;
RESOLVED FURTHER: That the American Association of University Professors, University of Cincinnati chapter calls upon the University of Cincinnati to refrain from sharing information about faculty, staff, and students that would support ICE’s or any other agency’s illegal activities on campus.

Dr. Jodi Whitted, assistant professor educator at the School of Social Work, has been a member of UC since fall 2022 and a member of AAUP from her start of joining the faculty. Whitted recently took a leave of absence to serve as the State Representative for District 28 for an 8-month term. She was unable to seek election into the position permanently due to gerrymandering of districts but continues to be involved in politics. She will begin a term on Madeira City Council on December 1st.

When asked about her decision to join AAUP, Whitted cites her family’s history, stating that “my grandparents frequently discussed… working in the coal mines. My great grandparents immigrated to this country and took those jobs, even with poor pay and poor access to healthcare. Hearing their stories and thinking about the conditions faced by working class people are some of my first memories identifying social injustice,” Whitted stated. “The right to unionize is a cornerstone of our democracy and crucial in the protection of workers’ rights.” Whitted said that her grandparents’ discussions about unions led her to study the history of the social work profession’s attempts to unionize and to her academic interest in political social work. During the past year, we have seen the impact of politics on academia and Whitted states, “At a time when political vitriol is a real threat to so many in academia, AAUP has led the charge in opposing this legislation. We will continue to see attacks on higher education and union membership and protections are important now more than ever.” Additionally, Whitted adds that “As an AAUP member, you are afforded protections under the collective bargaining agreement that you might not otherwise have.”

Whitted observed that the union movement can be mysterious for faculty who did not grow up in a union-supportive environment as she did. She suggests that faculty who are unsure about joining AAUP do some quick and simple research or reach out to their associate to find out more about the benefits of joining. She approached the UC AAUP office herself last fall when she was struggling to understand her own rights and found the staff supportive, responsive, and knowledgeable. “I am forever grateful to them,” she said. “If it weren’t for my involvement with AAUP and the collective bargaining agreement, I don’t know if I would be in my position today.”

Whereas the Trump administration has proposed a Compact for Excellence in Higher Education (hereafter “the Compact”) with the quid pro quo of increased federal funding in return for agreeing to a list of policies;

Whereas the Compact has several provisions that would undermine academic freedom and the independence of universities, including ideological litmus tests in admissions and hiring, restrictions on students’ freedom of expression and assembly, mandates to disproportionately fund students in the “hard” sciences, and pledges to abolish departments and programs that are perceived as being contrary to “conservative ideas” by discussing the existence of systemic inequity;

Whereas the Compact was initially offered to nine institutions of higher education, but was later opened to all institutions in a social media post by President Trump; and

Whereas the national AAUP, AFT, and the Ohio Conference AAUP have made clear statements of opposition to the Compact;

Be it therefore resolved that the AAUP-UC Chapter declares its strong opposition to the Compact;

Be it further resolved that the AAUP-UC Chapter calls on President Pinto and the Board of Trustees to reject the Compact publicly; and

Be it further resolved that the AAUP-UC chapter encourages the UC Faculty Senate to consider a similar resolution.