‘It used to be a place of great joy:’ Professors cautious in the classroom following SB1

By Lauren Cohen and Joe Malbin/Kent State NewsLab

When Kent State University President Todd Diacon addressed the Faculty Senate at its March 16 meeting, he said professors aren’t the only ones struggling to adjust to the policy, procedure and law changes in higher education.

“I can only imagine how anxious you feel as professors right now,” Diacon said. “For what it’s worth, I’m pretty much feeling anxious 24/7.”

Ohio’s Senate Bill 1, the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, took effect in June 2025.

The bill aimed to eliminate “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” from public universities. It also enacts an “intellectual diversity” mandate, which requires faculty to allow students to reach their own conclusions on controversial topics, among many other changes.

In February 2025, more than 1,000 people testified against SB1, including students, faculty and citizens.

Supporters of the law say it protects freedom of expression and intellectual diversity on campuses. Opponents believe the opposite and say the vague language and very nature of the law have led to many professors changing their teaching for fear of retribution.

The university has responded by providing training for faculty on how to act in accordance with the law.

“Faculty are already censoring what they cover in their classes, and students aren’t getting the broad kind of education that exposes them to different cultures, different perspectives that are things employers say they want out of graduates,” said Deborah Smith, speaking on behalf of the Kent State United Faculty Association, for which she is president. “We are providing less of that because faculty are afraid.”

In spring 2026, students in Kent State’s Advanced Magazine Writing class conducted two campus-wide surveys gauging faculty and student feelings surrounding free speech on campus post-SB1.

Sixty-one percent of faculty members said they feel the bill has affected their academic freedom, and 81% felt it will have long-term effects on higher education in the future.

“There’s some disenchantment, frustration and betrayal felt from students by the university and faculty at the state law,” one faculty respondent from the College of the Arts said. “Trust is harder to gain. I’d love to see the whole thing turned around.”

What is “intellectual diversity”?

Preserving intellectual diversity is a serious issue in contemporary American higher education, said Steven McGuire, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni fellow in campus freedom. The organization is a nonprofit known for its conservative approach to education reform.

SB1 defines intellectual diversity as “multiple, divergent and varied perspectives on an extensive range of public policy issues.”

The bill says that it does not prohibit faculty or students from classroom discussion, instruction or debate as long as faculty members do not indoctrinate students to take on a specific social, political or religious point of view.

“If there’s a need to encourage professors to act responsibly in that regard, to ensure that they are, in fact, giving students a wide variety of readings, giving them the freedom to express a variety of views and explore different arguments and different questions in class, I think there is a legitimate problem there, and there is some need for correction,” McGuire said.

George Dent, director of the National Association of Scholars, a nonprofit, conservative education advocacy organization, said he feels that some people may be mistakenly intimidated by SB1. He hopes the law will encourage everyone to speak their minds.

“The question is whether [a professor] goes over the line into indoctrination by telling students, ‘This is the right answer, and this is what you have to believe,’ and so forth, and, ‘If you say anything different, you’re going to be in trouble,’” said Dent, who is also a professor emeritus of law at Case Western Reserve University.

Sue Clement, speaking on behalf of her position as president of the Kent State United Faculty Association’s Non-Tenure Track Unit, said she believes SB1 stems from a misconception about college campuses among lawmakers.

“Those that have never been to a college class think we’re standing up at our podiums, dictating exactly what the fear is, and that can’t be further from the truth,” Clement said.

She pointed out that most college students are adults over 18. She said students have the right to believe what they want to believe, and they always have.

“Honestly, where better a place to have conversations about controversial topics?” Clement asked.

How the bill affects academic freedom

The vagueness of the bill’s language has left faculty confused and fearful, especially surrounding what counts as a controversial topic. The spring 2026 survey found that 24% of professors have changed what they teach to comply with the law, and 37% said they have changed how they teach. Further, 26% of faculty members feared a student would file an SB1 complaint against them.

“Any student at any time can report what I was doing in the classroom,” a faculty member from the College of Public Health said. “They can record me secretly.”

Smith said faculty who teach topics related to gender and ethnicity are “terrified.”

“It used to be a place of great joy,” Smith said. “It used to be a place where they felt a community, and they really loved providing this information to their students, and now, it is a place they dread to be… and that impacts the experience of the students in those classes.”

She believes real learning can’t happen if everyone doesn’t feel comfortable speaking in their classes.

“What good is it being able to learn from an expert if that expert can’t share their expertise with you out of fear that it’ll be secretly recorded, taken out of context and weaponized to try to get them?” Smith asked.

Ambre Emory-Maier, a former KSU tenure-track dance professor, said professors’ fear will contribute to a narrower education for Ohio students.

“If you are feeling concerned about teaching certain topics, using certain readings, if you feel like it could be controversial, a professor might decide to not use those,” she said. “That then eliminates the students’ access to that part of their education.”

Emory-Maier left KSU because the dance degree program is being discontinued due to the SB1 course sunsetting requirements.

“I wasn’t interested in staying with a dying program and being a tenure-track professor having nowhere to tenure into,” she said.

Now at The Ohio State University, teaching in the graduate program as a lecturer, Emory-Maier said she feels more comfortable in the new environment.

“I can’t say that I feel like I have more academic freedom, but I also feel like I’m in a situation where dialogue is encouraged in the dance department around issues that come up around social justice,” she said.

Smith said she is aware of several faculty members taking jobs elsewhere or actively looking for jobs out of state.

“It’s sort of ironic because it was presented as a bill that would help maximize free speech and freedom of diversity of opinions about a wide range of things,” Smith said. “But it is not having that effect.”

How KSU administration has responded

Clement said the union has done a lot of work to educate faculty on the bill, and the university has held information sessions.

Kevin West, associate provost for faculty affairs, said the university understands the anxiety faculty may feel surrounding SB1 and its new policies.

“Oftentimes, when we have new legislation or new policies, there’s always kind of a ratcheting up of the anxiety, trying to figure out what it means, what the process is going to be, how that’s going to work,” he said.

By providing training and additional faculty support, he said, KSU’s administration hopes that this anxiety lessens.

In the fall 2025 semester, he said there was an academic affairs retreat where a significant amount of time was focused on SB1. He said they discussed modifications to classroom discussions, message boards and more to align with the bill’s requirements.

“I think it’s just a reminder for all of our faculty who are engaged in that process to just be thoughtful about the opportunities in the classroom that faculty afford to students to decide [their viewpoints] for themselves,” West said.

At the March 16 Faculty Senate meeting, Diacon read the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. He told professors that following the statement is the best way to protect themselves when going about their work during these “tumultuous times.”

The statement says college teachers are citizens and officers of an educational institution. When they speak as citizens, they are free from institutional censorship, but their position in the community means they must indicate they are not speaking for the institution.

Responding to Diacon’s AAUP 1940 statement reading, West said it reminds everyone that faculty members still have academic freedom, but to be cautious.

Smith said she hopes students know they can still talk to their professors about what’s on their minds.

“We’re in the position where we have to be brave, but it’s hard to be brave,” Smith said. “It’s a terrifying situation, but we have to be the big people here and do what’s right.”

This story was originally published by the Kent State NewsLab, a collaborative news outlet publishing journalism by Kent State students.