Ohio lawmaker waging nasty war on educators, librarians and drag queens despite real problems

As Gov. Mike DeWine pushes the "science of reading" — a method that teaches kids to break words down into their phonemes or sounds — some Republican legislators are stoking unfounded public fears of progressive boogeymen who use books to implant deviant and subversive thoughts in the minds of students at all levels of education.

The disingenuous campaign is dangerous and comes at a critical time in the state's history.

As illustrated by the Annie E. Casey Foundation's 2024 Kids Count Data Book, Ohio like much of post-pandemic America has major issues to tackle when it comes to education.

The annual national and state-level study on the well-being of children and families found that the number of Ohio eighth-grade students not proficient in math rose to 71% in 2022 from 62% in 2019. The percentage of Ohio fourth graders not proficient in reading also increased to 65% from 64% during that time period.

Instead of tackling the people's very real problems — the General Assembly passed the fewest laws last year since Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration — Ohio lawmakers are focused on a costly culture war with new legislation.

These bills reject truth and threaten children and young people's understanding of our rapidly evolving world, and ability to think for themselves — ironically the stated goal of Senate Bill 83, one of Ohio's most dangerous vaguely worded pieces of pending legislation.

The targets of this culture war: librarians, teachers, professors and performers dressed like fairy princesses.

Ohio's war on librarians and books

Pen America has indexed a list of 1,557 books banned from schools around the nation during the 2022-2023 school year, an increase of 33% from the 2021-22 school year. They include books about and touching on religion, history, sexuality, racism, race and gender.

House Bill 556 would take book banning to the extreme here.

School librarians and some teachers who allow books, movies and other materials deemed obscene to be available to students in K-12 schools could be subject to a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to 6-12 months in prison.

Classic books once thought innocuous could land librarians and teachers in hot water, a fact not lost on the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

"We are concerned with the vagueness of the bill and the ability for it to be weaponized by bad faith actors who are focused on attacking public schools and libraries, not on protecting children," Melissa Cropper, that organization's president, told theUSA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau. "We also question whether there is a need for this new bill or if existing laws can address the concerns behind HB 556."

Opinion:Ohio politicians turning librarians into criminals as part of culture wars

In another example of a solution in search of a problem, libraries that do not hide "harmful" materials from kids would risk losing state funding if House Bill 622 is approved.

Books and other material that describes or represents "nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sado-masochistic abuse in any form" would be targeted if deemed to be patently offensive to the community standards about what is suitable for children and teens and appeal to the prurient interest.

Prurient interest is defined by the U.S. Supreme Court as materials that excite lustful thoughts.

Criminalizing drag in Ohio

Protecting the minds of innocent children from perversion is among the supposed goals of House Bill 245 but like bills targeting libraries, the real intent is censorship and suppression of free will, expression and/or speech.

HB 245 takes aim at Pride parades, LGBTQ bars and nightclubs and drag story times which typically feature drag queens reading to children while dressed in princess or festive attire.

2024 Kids Count Data Book:Ohio students losing ground in math, reading after COVID

That was to be the case in 2022 when armed members of the Proud Boys — a violent neo-fascist organization — caused the cancellation of Holi-drag story time at the private Red Oak Community School in Clintonville.

If the bill is passed, performances by those who use "clothing, makeup, prosthetic or imitation genitals or breasts, or other physical markers" to exhibit a gender identity different to the gender assigned at birth in view of children would be criminal if the performance appeals to prurient interest and offends community standards.

Similar laws have been temporarily blocked by judges in Montana and Florida and ruled unconstitutional in Texas and Tennessee.

Barring discussion, penalizing professors

Approved in May of 2023 by the Ohio Senate but stalled in the Ohio House, misguided Senate Bill 83 would take aim at "indoctrination," faculty tenure and mandatory diversity training while penalizing professors who are found to not have created classrooms free from bias.

Teaching and stances on so-called controversial beliefs that includes "climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion" will be targeted.

Following the bill's approval by the Senate, the Ohio State University Board of Trustees made a rare statement.

It reads in part:

"Academic rigor is at the foundation of a quality education; SB 83 threatens to impair it by proposing limitations on faculty speech not 'favoring or disfavoring' controversial views. Limiting challenging classroom dialogue will diminish the rigor of teaching when, to the contrary, the university should strive to appoint faculty who challenge students to think deeply and analytically. The enforcement provisions for violations of this mandate may push faculty to avoid, rather than encourage, stimulating and challenging classroom discussion, for fear of complaints."

Real problems need real solutions

Student loan debt in the U.S. is about $1.77 trillion with more than 92% of it from federal loans, USA TODAY reported earlier this month.

Last month, Ohio State University Board of Trustees increased tuition for incoming freshmen by 3% for the 2024 fall semester for a cost of $13,244.

The high cost of college and debt — not the mostly manufactured issues addressed in Senate Bill 83 — are the biggest issues in higher education nationally and in Ohio

Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman, a supporter of SB 83 championed by Sen. Jerry C. Cirino, R-Kirtland, acknowledged cost as the number one issue during a 2023 meeting with the Dispatch Editorial Board while referring to his experience helping his daughter during her college search.

"There needs to be a solution. Ohio can't solve the national problem, but we can solve, or we can begin to attempt to solve the Ohio portion of it," Huffman said. "Ohio is a significant state. We have significant private and public universities so we can begin doing that."

We agree with Huffman on that one.

Ohio lawmakers should seek to solve real problems like the cost of higher education and K-12 reading and math proficiency instead of manufacturing ones that distract, divide and thusly hurt this great state.

Children and young people do not deserve to be casualties of such a war.

This piece was written by Dispatch Opinion Editor Amelia Robinson on behalf of the editorial board of The Columbus Dispatch. Editorials are fact-based assessments of issues of importance to the communities we serve. These are not the opinions of our reporting staff members, who strive for neutrality in their reporting.