A bill that conservatives say is needed to combat what they view as liberal ideology in higher education didn鈥檛 get through the last session of the legislature. It passed the Senate, and its sponsor said it had the votes to move in the House.
But the outgoing speaker is pushing back on that.
Rep. Jason Stephens (R-Kitts Hill) said though Republicans have a supermajority in the House, there wasn鈥檛 enough support to pass Senate Bill 83, which would ban most campus diversity training and require so-called 鈥渋ntellectual diversity鈥� on controversial topics such as electoral politics and marriage.
Stephens said he didn鈥檛 block the bill, but that it didn鈥檛 have the votes to pass, because it had too many requirements and specific that he said shouldn鈥檛 have been included.
鈥淚 think it was very mandate-oriented, it was very particular. I mean, it was going in and saying universities had to within three clicks, get to the syllabus. It was very particular on that,鈥� Stephens said. 鈥淭here were some other carve-outs for some special interests that didn't really, in my opinion, need to be in there.鈥�
鈥淎nd it was interesting - even within our caucus ideologically, whether you're a little more conservative or whatever, there just wasn't the support for it,鈥� Stephens added.
SB 83鈥檚 sponsor Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtlamd) has promised the bill will be back. Outgoing Senate President Matt Huffman (R-Lima) was a supporter of the bill, and he鈥檒l be speaker when the new session starts.
