Timothy Messer-Kruse
Chronicle of Higher Education
In the summer of 2023, Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill into law that created “civics institutes” at five of Ohio’s public universities. Over the last two budgets, the state has poured $59 million into their operations.
So far, the evidence suggests that Ohio’s push for civics is more about squelching viewpoints the state opposes than it is about widening the marketplace of ideas. Consider the official statement of Wright State University’s Center for Civics, Culture, and Workforce Development, which offers a dense compilation of conservative shibboleths: “The Civics program educates students for virtuous citizenship by: Examining the American experiment in ordered liberty by reestablishing the transcendent as a legitimate starting point for intellectual inquiry, while embedding freedom in natural law and the formative institutions, traditions, and customs of Western civilization.”
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