COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Should Ohio schools at all levels have any components of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)? That is a question that is being debated at the Ohio Statehouse right now.  “It is a distraction from the work and the real issues that we are facing in higher education, t hat we are facing in K through 12,” Ohio House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) said.  Some Statehouse leaders call universal meal program at schools wasteful “I think, generally speaking, that the dam is broken on the issue,” Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said. “People realize that often that subject matter was really used as a political cudgel to beat down your opponents or to intimidate people.”  Senate Bill 1, poised to pass the Ohio House this week, makes sweeping changes to higher education, including the elimination of DEI; in some cases, the bill threatens to pull funding for noncompliance. Opponents of the bill point out that DEI practices support more than some people realize and not just Black Americans.  “But also, with veterans, with those that are disabled, there's lots of lots of areas of support regarding DEI,” State Sen. Hearcel Craig (D-Columbus) said.  “If it's people of color, women, people from the LGBTQ community, veterans, people with different abilities, who's left that is supposed to be getting everything? Who’s left,” Ohio House Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) said.  If Senate Bill 1 does pass the statehouse this week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said while he reserves the right to wait and see the final version, he plans to sign it. Ohio Statehouse revives bill to ban anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy, as cities take action In addition, Senate Bill 113 and its identical House Bill 155 would eliminate the practice in K-12 public schools. Huffman said it is about making sure that Ohio students’ values align with their parents.  “We need to make sure that parents and families are the primary informers to their children, of the way they think life should be,” he said. “All of those, again, are nuanced answers and interactions when your kids go off to school for 6 hours a day.”     “I think it's a witch hunt like it was at the upper levels,” Antonio said. “We're still fighting some kind of weird hate culture war and now using words like diversity, which is part of the foundational beliefs of our society to be inclusive, include everybody in.”  Huffman said while, in general, he believes in local control and allowing school boards to make their own decisions in areas like DEI, “sometimes rights of individuals are trampled upon by local governments” and that is when it is up to the state to step in and make a change like this.     As Republicans work to eliminate DEI, some Democrats are fighting to preserve it. House Bill 165, for example, creates a new implicit bias course for teachers and allows for reimbursement for taking it. Where and when 17-year cicadas are expected to invade Ohio this spring Implicit bias is a large part of DEI training, and the course, under this bill, would cover the following, at least: a definition of implicit bias, examples of implicit bias in action and a method of identifying susceptibility to unwanted bias.  That bill was just introduced last week, so has yet to have a hearing.  ...read more read less