An Ohio college secretly picks 'election-denying' GOP rep as new leader despite 'resounding boos'

05 December 2023

Students, faculty and community members are calling on Youngstown State University's board of trustees to reverse its "secretive" decision to select US Representative Bill Johnson (R-OH) as its next president during an unexpected "emergency meeting," The Daily Beast reports.

Per the report, the board's 8-1 vote went against "resounding boos and shouts of 'Shame!'" in response to the right-wing lawmaker's "anti-abortion, election-denying, [ex-President Donald] Trump-endorsing" reputation.

"Everybody's got their hair on fire because they think I’m going to bring my politics here," Johnson said during a November press conference, according to the Daily Beast. "But if everybody else is allowed to bring their politics and ideology here and I'm not, how is that fair?"

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The report notes he also recently told local CBS affiliate WKBN, "People say that I'm this, that, or the other, and there's no foundation of truth in any of that. If they would just sit down and talk to me first, and then draw their conclusion, I think we'd be a lot further down the road."

However, YSU board member Molly Seals, who voted against the congressman, told The Daily Beast that she's "gravely concerned about the way Johnson talks about 'liberal' indoctrination on college campuses being responsible for declining enrollment, and hears echoes of 'some of the language and words we've heard in… political agendas' when he speaks."

She added, "What I as a board member would like to see is a step back, and to go through this process again in an appropriate way," because according to Seals, "the community response has been 'very significant,'" as "alumni, students, past board members and trustees" believe Johnson was selected "for other [reasons] than what is in the best interest of the university."

The Beast notes, "The optics didn't help: three trustees appointed by GOP Gov. Mike DeWine had given tens of thousands of dollars to Johnson's congressional campaigns, and the entire affair to this point had been conducted almost completely behind closed doors."

Top university donors, according to the report, have already "pulled their financial support in response" to the GOP lawmaker's appointment, "and actor and YSU alum Ed O'Neill, star of the classic sitcom Married… with Children,has vowed to return the honorary doctorate the university awarded him in 2013."

Additionally, "A group of YSU alumni, including the university's only Rhodes Scholar, penned an open letter asking the trustees to revisit the procedure and conduct a more transparent search for a new president. And although it garnered more than 2,000 signatures, as did a petition on Change.org, the request for trustees to revisit the procedure and conduct a transparent search for a new president has so far fallen on deaf ears."

The Beast emphasizes, as "one of the largest employers in the area," a drop in YSU's donations could significantly "depress the wider regional economy."

Seals told the news outlet, "I wish I knew what would happen next. I don't know what will happen next."

The Daily Beast's full report is available here (subscription required).

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