A group of Youngstown State University professors working to repeal Senate Bill 1, the Republican-backed anti-DEI law aimed at college campuses, had until Thursday to collect the hundreds of thousands of voter signatures to put the measure up for a statewide vote in November.

The group missed the deadline despite collecting nearly 200,000 signatures, meaning SB1 will go into effect on Friday.

The SB1 repeal campaign had been collecting signatures for months to put the bill to a statewide vote in November. It had planned to deliver dozens of boxes of signatures to the Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose on Thursday afternoon.

But the repeal campaign contacted LaRose’s office Thursday morning and canceled the appointment, according to office spokesperson Ben Kindel. Campaign officials said they realized at 2 p.m. on Thursday they would fall short.

Under state law, the anti-SB1 campaign needed 248,092 valid voter signatures to trigger a repeal effort. In addition to the the overall number, state law also requires repeal campaigns to collect a set number of signatures from 44 of 88 counties. The deadline to submit the signatures fell on Thursday, which marked the 90th day since Gov. Mike DeWine signed SB1 into law.

The repeal campaign was organized by the faculty union at Youngstown State University. The effort appears to largely be a grassroots political effort though, with large labor unions, which are among the state groups capable of organizing petition campaigns, generally staying on the sidelines. This included the Ohio Education Association, a large teacher’s union that’s the state affiliate of the YSU professor union.

Details from the repeal campaign

The SB1 repeal campaign collected at least 194,981 signatures and met the state’s minimum signature threshold in 33 counties, according to campaign officials. That’s still well short of the state’s legal requirements.

‘It was a matter of not having enough time,” said Mandy Fehlbaum, a YSU professor who helped lead the campaign. Fehlbaum said the campaign wasted time it could have been collecting signatures by waiting for another larger group to potentially get involved.

The group also was hobbled by a lack of money, though. Some groups were reluctant to contribute financially, she said, because of a recently passed state law that bans non-U.S. citizens from supporting ballot issue campaigns. The law caused some political groups to completely reorganize their finances, Fehlbaum said.

“They were rebuilding their coffers from scratch, essentially, from what I understand. So that makes them reluctant to do the sort of funding that perhaps they would have otherwise done,” Fehlbaum said.

Felbaum the campaign collected $45,000 in small-dollar donations, with the largest individual amount being $1,000, and enlisted 1,7000 volunteers.

Hiring a company to collect the signatures would have cost between $3.7 million and $5.1 million, according to a quote the group got, Fehlbaum said.

What about all those signatures?

An email Fehlbaum sent to supporters on Thursday hinted at bitterness at other left-leaning groups for not doing more to support the effort.

The SB1 campaign will shred the petitions it collected, rather than sharing them with other campaign groups, the email said. The petitions contain valuable data, since it could be used to identify potentially sympathetic and engaged voters.

“I know there are groups — notably those that did not provide full-throated support — that are salivating at the idea of getting the names and addresses of those who signed,” the email said.

Repeal campaign leaders told reporters on Thursday the campaign felt sharing the data would be a violation of the privacy of the people who signed the petitions. Other groups requested to use their data for unrelated ballot issue campaigns. They declined to name them, saying they didn’t want to burn bridges in case they need their help in the future.

The repeal campaign’s leaders have a project in mind. They plan to tap into their network of 1,700 volunteers for some kind of ballot issue campaign in the future. Unlike the repeal process, state law sets no time limit for citizens groups proposing a pro-active law change.

Reaction from the bill’s sponsor

In an interview, state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a Geauga County Republican who sponsored SB1, said he’s “glad” the repeal campaign failed. He said he wasn’t expecting the campaign to be able to gather the needed signatures within 30 days, but was prepared to be involved with defending the law if they had. He said he’s been in touch with university board members, and said universities already have been making plans to comply with the law.

“I think it’s a great day for higher education in Ohio and it’s going to serve us very well in the near future,” Cirino said.

Cirino said he didn’t make much of the fact that the campaign said it had collected signatures from nearly 200,000 people, pointing out that elections officials often disqualify petition signatures for irregularities.

“There are almost 12 million people in Ohio. I think you could probably get a couple hundred thousand signatures on just about anything,” Cirino said.

More about Senate Bill 1

SB1 has been a longtime priority for state Republicans, who view it as necessary to combatting liberal bias on college campuses.

Some of the changes in SB1 include requiring the ending diversity, equity and inclusion (or DEI) programming at college campuses, requiring an American civics course for graduation, and axing faculty members’ right to strike. The bill also requires faculty to publicly post their syllabi online.

Critics say the measure will stifle academic freedom and hamper the state’s universities, and also describe it as an attack on labor rights. Since the bill passed, some universities have taken steps like closing DEI offices, taking down online LGBTQ resources and terminating majors with low enrollment numbers. Administrators have cited both the state law and similar federal policies under President Donald Trump when making the moves.