Nearly $200 million down the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) drain in Ohio. That’s the massive hidden cost of mandatory DEI coursework at public universities in the Buckeye State—and students and taxpayers are being forced to foot the bill.
The figures represent yet another example of how DEI has dominated the priorities of higher education across the country in recent year. And they highlight the need for Ohio lawmakers to enact Goldwater’s Freedom From Indoctrination Act, a first-in-the-nation law that ensures students are not forced into politicized DEI courses simply to graduate.
Academia’s DEI obsession undermines the core missions of universities and imposes additional costs on students, many of whom already bear time constraints during school and significant debt after graduation. A new Goldwater Institute report reveals that Ohio DEI requirements, often embedded in seemingly benign course titles, are infused with ideologically charged content emphasizing systemic oppression, intersectionality, and identity politics not as controversial topics that should be debated as electives, but rather as foundational to obtaining a degree in higher education.
The report also demonstrates the financial and time burdens imposed by DEI mandates in Ohio. Satisfying Miami University-Oxford’s 2-course requirement in “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” and “Intercultural Consciousness” costs between $47.6 million and $68.5 million over each four-year period in which the student body has to complete the requirement. Satisfying Ohio State’s DEI mandate requires students to take courses focused on “the intersection of…race, gender, and ethnicity” and “complex systems of power” while costing at least $61 million. Ohio University’s DEI mandates likewise cost between $19 million and $25 million, and the University of Cincinnati’s costs at least $33 million. Even DEI mandates at smaller universities, including the University of Akron and the University of Toledo, still cost students and taxpayers at least $10 million apiece.
A proposed law under consideration in the Ohio Legislature, Senate Bill 1, seeks to counter leftwing indoctrination in public universities. It prohibits mandatory DEI training, establishes a three-credit American history graduation requirement focused on foundational documents—such as the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers—and calls for intellectual diversity rather than indoctrination in coursework.
It’s a good start. But with President Donald Trump’s recent anti-DEI executive order rightly carving out “academic instruction” from federal authority, Ohio lawmakers must go even further. They should deploy their state authority to explicitly remove the administrative buttresses that artificially sustain DEI through mandatory course requirements. The Goldwater Institute has provided a clear blueprint for doing so.
Goldwater’s Freedom From Indoctrination Act prohibits public colleges and universities from requiring students to enroll in DEI-based courses to satisfy degree requirements. It likewise protects faculty from mandatory inclusion of such content in their courses or performance evaluations, while emphasizing a respect for academic freedom and the open exchange of ideas.
Likewise, it sets requirements for freshman orientation programs to reinforce the classical liberal values that have underpinned American higher education for centuries, making it the envy of the world. These programs would prioritize free speech education through discussions on the First Amendment and encourage students to engage with diverse perspectives.
Higher education is meant to advance critical thinking to take on challenges, not dictate ideology. By adding these provisions alongside the protections currently advancing in the legislature, Ohio would join trendsetting states who have rid their public universities of mandated ideological indoctrination. Florida successfully eliminated DEI courses from general education catalogue this fall, and several other states, including Iowa, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Arizona, have recently introduced or are advancing legislation to eliminate DEI course requirements at all levels of their degree programs. Ohio leaders should keep this in mind—and act quickly to include the Freedom From Indoctrination Act in their reforms.
You can read more about the Freedom From Indoctrination Act here.
Carl Paulus is a Senior Writer at the Goldwater Institute.
