Ohio student association timeline
This is our shared history, and it is made from the stories of students just like you. The Ohio Student Association is 13 years old and the #1 voice for students and young people in the state: This is how we got here.
2007
Our Parent Organization
The Ohio Organizing Collaborative is founded. It is the largest community organizing organization in the state of Ohio and is dedicated to building transformative relational power with everyday Ohioans for statewide social, racial, and economic justice. We organize alongside our sister organizations:
2012
Hitting the ground running
In the wake of Occupy Wall Street, a group of students at the Ohio State University dreamt of universal access to higher education without the burden of debt; of equal access to quality K-12 education for all of Ohio’s children; and of an end to the criminalization of black and brown youth. These students founded OSA
This year, we also prevented Stand Your Ground from becoming law in Ohio. A Stand Your Ground law in Florida was what allowed George Zimmerman to get away with murdering Trayvon Martin in 2012, and later that year, it was poised to become an Ohio law. OSA helped organize the campaign to stop it, and took direct action in the form of a die-in at the statehouse.
2013
OSA prevented a school board takeover of Columbus City Public Schools. This takeover was an attempt by corporate interests to take away people’s democratic control of the public schools in order to “charterize” the state and profit off of public education
Read more at Columbus Underground | School Issues: Student Perspectives
2014
Justice for John Crawford
When 22-year-old John Crawford was murdered by a police officer in a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio, the crime stood to be buried like so many other police murders of innocent Black people. OSA organized the Journey for John Crawford, an 11 mile march from the Walmart where he was murdered to the courthouse in Xenia, and occupied the Beavercreek police station for a week. Ultimately we were unable to get the justice John Crawford deserved, but we will never give up the fight against white supremacy and police violence.
The Freedom Side
James Hayes, one of the OSA founders, helped to build a network called the Freedom Side, a national network of orgs led by youth of color who organized around police violence and helped launch the Black Lives Matter movement. They were invited to address the Obama administration at the height of the movement to inform his response to the rebellions and unrest. 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer 1964, when the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee recruited white northern college students to register Black people to vote in the heart of Jim Crow Mississippi. OSA had the opportunity to honor the legacy of the past by building the Freedom Side, a national collective of talented young leaders of color from organizations like Dream Defenders and United We Dream. Freedom Side was created to unite local youth-of-color-led organizing so our work on the ground could have larger national implications.
Our GOTV Legacy
We have also researched, designed, and distributed voter guides since 2014, both on a statewide and local level. In 2018 we reached tens of thousands of young voters with our “WTF’s on my ballot?” statewide voter guide, and most recently, we created a 2020 primary voter guide for Cuyahoga County that covered judicial and state rep candidates.
Fellowship for Community Change
Between January and May of 2014 we trained over 50 young leaders from Columbus, Cleveland, Kent, Akron, Toledo, Athens, Dayton and Cincinnati in our first fellowship program. The purpose of the OSA fellowship is to develop shared values, vision and skills for Ohio’s next generation of young progressive leaders. Fellows learned the art and science of community organizing and civic engagement through trainings and workshops. They gained experience and skills through engaging in campaign work. Fellows had the opportunity to choose between two statewide campaigns to work on throughout the duration of the fellowship. The two campaigns were smaller battles in the larger fight for college access and affordability and ending the school-to-prison-pipeline.
We were also banned from Walmart this year.
JOHN CRAWFORD, THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT, and the Ohio student association
On August 5, 2014 John Crawford III was killed by police in a Wal-Mart in Beavercreek, OH for walking around the store with a toy gun that he picked up off the shelf. Four days later, Mike Brown was killed in Ferguson, MO sparking the movement for Black lives. We began organizing immediately to make sure John and his family received justice.
We targeted Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, demanding that he release the Walmart surveillance tape of John’s death. Within 24 hours of our demonstration he allowed the parents and their attorney to see the tape. Dewine also announced that a grand jury would decide whether to indict the shooter, officer Sean Williams.
More than one hundred people joined the Journey for John Crawford, an 11.6 mile pilgrimage from the Wal-Mart where John Crawford was killed to the grand jury courthouse in Xenia, where hundreds more rallied for justice for the three days that the grand jury met. After three days in Xenia, the grand jury decided not to indict officer Williams. We organized a three day occupation of the Beavercreek Police Department with three demands; fire officer Williams, bring charges against 911 caller Ronald Ritchie, and overhaul the active shooter training program. Our occupation drew over 2,000 state and national media stories and brought the story of John Crawford into the national consciousness.
A series of direct actions followed, including a 400 person rally at the Ohio Statehouse, connecting Crawford’s murder at the hands of Ohio’s racist criminal justice system to the dire need to build political power and vote in 2014 to hold our elected officials accountable. We organized a shut down of the Attorney Generals office, Black Friday shut down actions, as well as a shut down action at the Beavercreek mall which resulted in the unjust arrest of 12 OSA members.
By November the whole world was watching as tens of thousands of young people took to the streets to fight for justice, and James Hayes, was invited to a meeting in the Oval Office with President Obama along with six other young movement leaders from around the country. This was a testament to the work OSA and Freedom Side had been leading since the Spring.
2015
Protecting our out-of-state students.
In addition to working to get out the youth vote so we can win on the issues that matter to us, we have also fought to protect and expand voting rights. In 2015, we organized and advocated to prevent student voting restrictions and successfully blocked a budget amendment that would’ve essentially instituted a poll tax on out-of-state students.
Justice for Tamir Rice
We also fought for Justice for Tamir Rice and the defeat of Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty. 12-year-old Tamir Rice was murdered by police in Cleveland while playing at the park. OSA was part of the campaign to get justice for Tamir, and when county prosecutor Tim McGinty refused to charge the police officer who killed him, we helped to successfully oust McGinty in his 2016 bid for reelection. The story is chronicled in the 2017 film Dispatches from Cleveland.
Increasing the Ohio College Opportunity Grant
Finally, we secured an increase for the Ohio College Opportunity Grant: the only need-based source of financial aid in Ohio. Our Drowning in Debt campaign won a $10 million budget increase to OCOG, the largest increase in a decade.
2016
Our #KneeForTyre Movement
On September 14th, 2016, Tyre King was killed by police in Columbus, OH. According to the Columbus Police Department, a police officer shot King multiple times after the boy appeared to pull a handgun from his waistband during an encounter following a report of an armed robbery. The “gun” was later discovered to be an air pistol that fires BBs - small, metal pellets, not bullets. Tyre King was only 13 years-old. We began organizing immediately to make sure Tyre King and his family received justice.
Ohio Student Association along with the People’s Justice Project (PJP) launched the #KneeForTyre campaign. Tyre loved football, and to honor his memory and help bring him justice, we asked people all around the country to take a photo or video of themselves and others taking a #KneeForTyre and to plan local actions.
In Columbus, OSA supported PJP and local activists demanding justice for Tyre King and calling on the city of Columbus to re-prioritize and reinvest in programs that actually keep our communities safe. The campaign called for the end of the “Summer Safety Initiative” - a program that put more non-uniformed police officers in black neighborhoods which led the the death of Henry Green earlier this year. We also called for independent investigations and transparent prosecution for Henry Green, Tyre King, and all future police involved shootings.
On September 26th, along with PJP and local activists, our members shut down the Columbus City Council meeting. Days later, members of the city council met with PJP to open conversations about reinvesting in community programs such as community-based violence prevention strategies, trauma and recovery services, and youth programming.
Ousting the President of the University of Akron
President Scott L. Scarborough was cutting courses and increasing costs, so the Akron OSA chapter ran a campaign to pressure the board of trustees to take action and held a sit-in in the president’s office. Our actions directly impacted the ousting of President Sarborough.
From Huffpost: “The administration tried to make up about $40 million of the university's deficit with unpopular moves such as laying off more than 200 staff members, renegotiating health care plans, cutting the baseball team and raising tuition and fees.”
Read more at Huffpost | University Of Akron President Resigns After Financial Controversies
GOTV Win
This year, we ran the largest youth voter registration program in the state - registering 21,932 young people to vote.
2018
We fought for Issue 1: The Neighborhood Safety, Drug Treatment, and Rehabilitation Amendment. This statewide ballot initiative would have reduced 4th and 5th degree drug possession felonies to misdemeanors, making it possible for tens of thousands of people to apply for release or to have their record cleared; ended mandatory prison sentences for probation violations that are not new criminal offenses; offered earned time off for completing substance abuse treatment or educational programming; and invested the savings into a fund for community-controlled addiction treatment and support programs. We didn’t win, but we did collect the second highest number of petition signatures in Ohio’s history in order to get it on the ballot, and more importantly, we completely changed the conversation around addiction and incarceration in Ohio.
Organizing College Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Between a critical election, an ongoing pandemic, an adjustment to remote learning, and the struggles of trying to afford an education while paying off debt and making ends meet, young people in Ohio had an overwhelming and difficult year. Nonetheless, young people have continued to find ways to organize and fight for the issues that matter most to us. For the OSA team, this has entailed getting out the vote, showing up for racial justice, fighting for criminal justice reform, and more.
2020
Justice Reform
OSA helps lead the fight for justice in Cleveland as a member organization of the Coalition to Stop the Inhumanity at the Cuyahoga County Jail. Over the summer, we organized a “Compassion Over Cages” car caravan and rally at the Justice Center. Our Cleveland chapter also hosted the “Let Them Go!” Virtual Show, a digital fundraiser which raised over $2,000! These funds, in partnership with The Bail Project, were used to help people going through re-entry after being released from the county jail, as well as currently incarcerated people, both communities which have been particularly affected by the coronavirus. The online concert featured speakers David Okpara and Azzurra Crispino, both of whom have been personally impacted by the injustice system, and local musicians, Mikey Silas, Kyle Kidd and Pete Saudek, and Teezy from the Clair.
OSA Cleveland State launched a campaign to ‘ban-the-box,’ aka to remove the criminal record disclosure requirement on the college application as part of a long-term vision to decriminalize education and remove barriers to access for formerly incarcerated folks. Thanks to OSA Cleveland State’s organizing, Cleveland State University’s application now includes a disclaimer acknowledging that “students are more than their record,” and no longer requires applicants to disclose misdemeanors.
Higher Education
Over the summer, OSA members met with Ohio legislature reps from the higher education subcommittee to advocate for an end to universities withholding students’ transcripts due to outstanding debt, as well as eliminating the law requiring public universities to transfer overdue institutional debt to the Ohio Attorney General’s office for collection. OSA member Jarrod Robinson also wrote an op-ed that was published by the Columbus Dispatch, which dealt with their experiences with student debt and the obstacles they faced because of transcript withholding, or the ‘transcript trap.’
2021
Issue 24 and Citizens for a Safer Cleveland
Alongside partners Black Lives Matter Cleveland, the ACLU of Ohio, NAACP Cleveland, and Showing Up For Racial Justice (SURJ) Northeast Ohio, OSA played a key role in the Citizens for a Safer Cleveland campaign, which fought to pass a robust police accountability ballot measure to make Cleveland safer for everyone, regardless of our zipcode or skin color. OSA members spent countless hours helping to collect 15,000+ signatures in order to put the issue on the local ballot, and countless more registering, educating, and turning out student voters on Cleveland State University and Case Western Reserve University’s campuses. All the tireless groundwork and organizing paid off, and on November 2nd Issue 24 passed in a landslide victory, delivering Cleveland the most powerful civilian oversight over police in the country!
The Fight Against Education Debt
In 2021, our members from throughout Ohio met with numerous legislators, including Senator Sherrod Brown and Representative Marcy Kaptur, to express our invested interest in making college accessible to all students, regardless of race or income. Early in the year, Maria Beeler from the University of Cincinnati shared her student debt story over the radio and this past fall even published an op-ed featured in Newsweek! In June, Central State alum and Dayton student organizer Kalesha Scott took part in an Instagram live hosted by the Alliance for Youth Action featuring other young leaders from New Era Colorado and the Virginia Power Network discussing student debt and college affordability as part of the Alliance’s Dreams Not Debt campaign.
The Transcript Trap
Students had to deal with a punitive policy we have dubbed “the transcript trap.” Working alongside coalition partners Policy Matters Ohio, College Now Greater Cleveland, and the Ohio Federation of Teachers, we helped collect and amplify student stories about the transcript trap. Together, we also hosted an informative livestream series, with each installment focusing on a different topic of higher education policy, including the transcript trap, and featuring different guest speakers. Kent State graduate and student organizer Akii Butler presented in-person testimony in front of the Senate Workforce & Higher Ed Committee, sharing his personal experience around the transcript trap and explaining how it sets up students to fail.
Winning a Fair School Funding Plan for Ohio
OSA is passionate about fighting for accessible and affordable education at all levels, including those before college. Through the All In For Ohio Kids (A-OK!) Coalition, also made up of the state’s two largest teachers unions, Ohio Education Association and Ohio Federation of Teachers as well as the think tank Policy Matters Ohio, we have helped pass the Fair School Funding Plan in the 2021-2022 Ohio budget, to keep lawmakers accountable to their promises of supporting fairly and well-funded Ohio schools.
2022
Biden’s student loan debt cancelation (2022)
Stopped censorship bills HB 322, 327, and 616 from passing in 2022 legislative session
Black Student Equity Report
In August, the Ohio Student Association (OSA) released the Ohio Black Student Equity Report, the most comprehensive study to date on the needs, interests, and experiences of Black college students in the state. The report surveyed 361 students, highlighting experiences from over ten Ohio academic institutions. We produced the report in collaboration with education scholars Everrett A. Smith, Ph.D., of the University of Cincinnati, and Antar A. Tichavakunda, Ph.D., of the University of California–Santa Barbara. Our findings were recently covered by Signal Cleveland, the Statehouse News Bureau, Cincinnati CityBeat, and Dayton Daily News, among other news sites.
As reaffirmed by this report, racial justice in higher education also impacts racial justice off campus. Studying how higher education in Ohio serves or does not serve Black students is essential to improving the well-being of Ohio’s Black community. Unfortunately, however, Ohio falls behind the nation in educational attainment for Black students. It must, along with higher education institutions themselves, work on boosting postsecondary accessibility and providing more resources that improve conditions of racial equity.
2023
Protecting Abortion and Legalizing Cannabis
Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, we have seen extreme bans and restrictions attacking abortion access. Extremist politicians here in Ohio have passed some of the most restrictive anti-abortion bans in the country, even delaying or outlawing some abortions where patients' health is at risk. Fortunately, when given the opportunity, Ohioans voted to enshrine abortion rights in the Ohio State Constitution, preventing the extremist ban on abortion from coming into effect. We also passed Issue 2, legalizing recreational cannabis. For both of these issues, we saw our efforts—from canvassing for reproductive freedom to fighting for democracy in the special election and getting out the vote—pay off immensely.
Affordable College
In 2023, education debt continued to climb, and more and more students were trapped in increasingly burdensome and sometimes explicitly predatory loans. Across the country, the student debt crisis ballooned to $1.77 trillion, $63.5 billion owned by Ohioans specifically. Fortunately, largely thanks to the efforts of activists and organizations nationwide, including OSA, 2023 was a monumental year regarding student debt relief. In July, the Department of Education announced a plan that would provide relief to 37K Ohioans through their income-driven repayment plans and cancel $39 billion in federal student debt across the nation.
At the state level, OSA’s advocacy helped deliver concrete concessions in the budget. In July, Governor DeWine signed the biannual operating budget, which appropriated $400 million to the Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG) and committed funds to the Ohio Fair School Funding Plan for public schools. Moreover, we prevented amendments from SB 83—which attacked diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), labor, and academic freedom—from being included in the budget.
Combatting Censorship
In 2023, we saw a continuation of gag-order type legislation, notably including SB 83—the so-called “Higher Education Enhancement Act,” or as we call it, the “Higher Education Destruction Act.” Early drafts of the bill introduced in March explicitly denounced taking any stance on broad concepts such as “sustainability,” “inclusion,” and “allyship” and sought to restrict speech on identity. It also labeled “climate change,” “electoral politics,” and “marriage” as so-called “controversial belief[s] or polic[ies],” similarly restricting their inclusion and discussion in universities. The ramifications of this kind of legislation would mean a system of higher education where classes must teach ‘both sides’ of slavery, and Holocaust deniers and pseudoscientific conspiracists are empowered to believe and maintain any idea in the classroom, regardless of evidence and ethics.
Protecting Citizen-Led initiatives
OSA and our coalition partners successfully protected our 100+ year tradition of citizen-led ballot measures and ensured “One Person, One Vote.” This was a critical juncture in Ohio politics, paving the way for other developments—for instance, by letting us vote on enshrining reproductive freedoms in the November election and the exciting possibility of finally delivering fair maps for Ohio through the “Citizens, Not Politicians” campaign in 2024.
2024
Fought Senate Bill 83
2025
Our history is still being written — to see what we’ve been doing this year, check out our work and follow us online everywhere @ohiostudents.
