DEAR EDITOR:

In 2023 I wrote a letter questioning Bill Johnson’s fitness to be YSU’s president considering his support for the Jan. 6 insurrection, climate change denial, opposition to gay rights and celebration of immigration bans. He became YSU’s president. Trustee Michael Peterson stated, “Congressman Johnson is a strong, innovative, servant leader who we believe will be well positioned to guide the university as we take charge of our future.” How has Johnson fared? Not well.

Johnson and the board recently approved 3-4% tuition increases for students at YSU. Johnson said this was necessary due to “inflation … cost of supplies, cost of health insurance.” Why would tuition increases be necessary when Johnson promised to bring new revenue streams to YSU? To take charge of YSU’s future, Johnson hired his former campaign staffer Sarah Keeler as vice president of government affairs to raise money. Keeler, Johnson said, was a natural candidate for the job because she had “the tentacles already established, the relationships already established with the legislatures in Columbus and in D.C.” Well, those tentacles haven’t provided YSU any funds from the state, but they did land Keeler a $170,000 a year salary. Additionally, Johnson’s other former staffer Maria Bova also collects a salary from YSU.

Beyond this hypocrisy, Johnson could at least be honest about why universities are struggling: Trump’s war on higher education. Universities are losing funding via cuts to organizations such as the NSF and NEH that provide grant money that universities collect. Trump argues that these institutions must be defunded because they spread “DEI” and other forms of “indoctrination.” Of course, we all know how much that pesky cancer research is a Trojan horse for Marxism. Johnson supported these ideas in Congress. He also parroted the paranoid language of “indoctrination” shortly after being hired at YSU. Never mind that neither Johnson nor Trump can ever point to actual examples of “indoctrination.” I don’t even have room to discuss Trump’s attacks on foreign students (Johnson also supported this in Congress) while Johnson says he would like to increase foreign student enrollment at YSU.

So, Johnson has: provided kickbacks to his former staffers; has attacked higher education and celebrated funding cuts to grant-making institutions, faculty, and universities nationwide; and has previously supported xenophobic policies that harm foreign students. Now he shrugs and blames “inflation” when asked why YSU must increase tuition. A “servant leader” indeed.

KYLE KEELER

Girard