With its new institutes of civics and culture, Ohio has become a leader not just for the restoration of civics education but also for traditional humanities in American higher education.
These centers were established in large part because of National Association of Scholars (NAS) President Peter Wood, NAS Research Director David Randall, and President of the NAS Ohio affiliate, Case Western Reserve emeritus law professor George Dent, all of whom either advocated, lobbied, or testified in favor of the legislation that created them.
Will other states follow suit? Let’s hope so.
A few years ago, reports of embarrassing civics illiteracy prompted concern from Ohio legislator Jerry Cirino. College graduates routinely cannot name a single foundational American document, such as the Declaration of Independence; cannot date the Civil War; and cannot name the three branches of government. This ignorance is arguably a result of politicized course content that displaces factual content as well as the leftist conformity of views among professors. As one law professor in Washington, DC, put it, “the ideological median” of the vast majority of faculty is “not just left of center, but closer to the left edge of the Democratic Party.” Republicans and Conservatives are not just underrepresented, but in many disciplines, they are almost nonexistent.
Cirino responded by introducing the “Advance Ohio Higher Education Act,” which became law and authorized the establishment of civic engagement centers and required students at Ohio’s state universities to take at least one class in basic civics. The Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society at the Ohio State University is already up and running under the leadership of law professor Lee Strang; it seeks professors from a broad array of disciplines and intellectual backgrounds to avoid the ideological conformity stifling thought in most of the rest of American higher education.
Virginia’s George Mason University (GMU) has actually already benefited from the scholarship at Ohio’s Chase Center with a lecture by Professor Jacob Hall on Saturday, September 27, 2025. Professor Hall addressed a full classroom of GMU economics students about European political and economic developments from 1400 to 1700, explaining how both feudalism and status symbols changed from military manpower to diamond buckles, hence, “Why the Lords Went for Luxuries.” The lecture was part of GMU’s Adam Smith Program run by GMU Economics Professor Dan Klein, also a founding member of the NAS Virginia affiliate, the Virginia Association of Scholars. (VAS).
I, VAS’s President and NAS Policy Director, am pleased that both NAS and VAS are supporting and benefiting from Ohio’s work. “Let’s hope more states see the wisdom of these institutes not just for students but for all citizens.”
Image by Manuel Mata on Adobe; Asset ID#: 337984701
