Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts nationwide, including on college campuses.

William Brangham recently traveled to Ohio, where a new state law is also targeting DEI programs, leaving students and faculty on both sides of the issue bracing for change.

It's part of our series,

Rethinking College.

At Ohio University in Athens, spring semester is winding down. Students are getting ready

for graduation and prepping for finals.

One, two, three, four, junior Kylie Bridgman, one of more than 16,000 undergrads here,

heads a black student organization, which helped organize this year-end 5K.

But students have not been able to outrun a controversy over a recently passed law known as SB1, which eliminates all diversity,

equity, and inclusion programs on all public colleges and universities in the state.

I think that for a lot of students, it'll change nearly everything. And for some students,

it won't change that much at all. But I think that it's just

really going to impact people, even if they don't recognize that it will, because people

don't realize just how much they benefit from DEI. It is about eliminating what has become,

in my view, institutional discrimination through the establishment and economic support of DEI programs.

Republican State Senator Jerry Serino sponsored SB1, which, among other things, also puts limits

on scholarships that have DEI requirements, mandates that schools create a system where students

can complain about the lack of intellectual diversity and bans faculty strikes.

What's important today and what's important at Ohio University is our stories, our legacies, our experience, and what we go through.

In February, Bridgman helped organize a class walkout and march to protest SB1.

It was a really powerful display of unity because DEI encompasses a lot more people than they realize.

And the crowd demonstrated that.

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