Ohio Republican lawmakers are sending another message to public colleges and universities, introducing new legislation that takes last year’s sweeping higher education overhaul law a step further by tying institutions’ compliance to their state funding.
Since Senate Bill 1 took effect in June 2025, institutions have been required to submit a host of policies and statements to the state, including a five-year cost summary and plans to end academic programs that enroll few students.
Now, House Bill 698 looks to build on that by creating a formal, annual process where campus leaders must explicitly confirm they are adhering to Senate Bill 1’s rules – or risk losing a portion of their most significant pool of state money. This legislation includes community and technical colleges, a change from the most recent state budget, which included a similar requirement strictly for state universities.
Among other changes, the new legislation would require colleges to produce a “justification report” outlining any employees who continued to work on duties related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) after Senate Bill 1 required institutions to end those efforts.
That was one of many changes under Senate Bill 1, along with mandating that faculty publicly post their course syllabi and requiring students to complete an American civics course before graduating.
Republican leaders said the state needed the overhaul to get rid of what they viewed as colleges’ longstanding liberal bias. Critics, meanwhile, worried the legislation would stifle free speech and make campuses less attractive to prospective students and employees.
The latest proposal, House Bill 698, is authored by State Rep. Tom Young. The Republican from Washington Township, near Dayton, chairs the House Workforce and Higher Education Committee. The bill was assigned to that committee on Feb. 18, marking the first step in the bill potentially moving forward. Â
New legislation proposes tying Senate Bill 1 compliance to state funds
Young was also a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 1. That bill was written by State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, who seemingly laid the groundwork for tying institutions’ funding to their compliance during an April 2025 address at the City Club of Cleveland.
“We’re going to make sure that all the work we’ve done doesn’t go to waste because it’s being ignored,” he said. “We’re going to make sure it happens, and nothing speaks like money.”
House Bill 698 looks to do that by carving out a portion of the biggest pool of state funds that institutions receive. That money, formally known as the State Share of Instruction (or SSI), is determined by funding formulas that weigh several factors, including how many classes students complete at a community college or university.
Under the new legislation, institutions would only have access to that portion of SSI funds if they comply with the rules under Senate Bill 1.
What House Bill 698 says about DEI
One of critics’ biggest concerns of Senate Bill 1 was that it didn’t include a specific definition of what constitutes DEI work, though Cirino rebuffed that during a February 2025 House hearing.
The language in House Bill 698 is much more clear. It says no institution will “reassign, reclassify, or otherwise disguise any position to continue diversity, equity, and inclusion functions.”
The legislation’s “justification report” would require institutions to provide information about any employees who worked in DEI-related offices and got reassigned to new roles between Jan. 1 and Sept. 25, 2025.
These reports would need to include many details, including employees’ names, duties and side-by-side job comparisons. The legislation says universities would need to provide “proof that the employee’s reassignment consists of substantially different duties from diversity, equity, and inclusion functions.”
Colleges and universities were already moving away from DEI-related terminology long before Senate Bill 1. Some established even more distance for their institutions when announcing related closures the law required.
“I want to be clear that the task ahead for all of us is not to look for ways to recreate the same approaches under a different name,” Ohio University President Lori Stewart Gonzalez wrote in an April 2025 email. “Rather, the charge is to invent something new that meets the moment and delivers results for our students.”
 This story was updated to reflect the bill being assigned to a House committee.
