Ohio State University president on political and financial pressures in higher education

(CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Ohio State University (OSU) President Ted Carter spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the political and financial pressures facing leaders in higher education institutions.

According to Brennan, OSU is one of 60 universities the Trump Administration deemed may have "antisemitic practices and policies on campus.," and the administration says they're being investigated for that as well as failing to end diversity policies, which "could be a violation of the Civil Rights Act."

When asked what the status of the probes are, as well as how much pressure OSU is under, Carter said:

"To be quite frank, I'm not feeling a lot of pressure. Our understanding is we're on those lists because we had been previously on those lists under the Biden administration. We had been working with the Office of Civil Rights during that administration, and I think mostly that was a holdover. We are more than happy to talk to anybody from the Office of Civil Rights. We stand behind our actions. We know how we acted during the time of the protests. We never had an encampment here at Ohio State. We had some attempted we didn't allow that, and that's our long-standing rules on the Oval, which is the centerpiece of our campus. So I'm confident that as this plays out forward, that we're going to be just fine."

Brennan also brought up the Trump Administration freezing $3 billion in contracts at Harvard, $1 million at Cornell and "hundreds of millions of dollars of research funding at universities like Brown" over some of the issues the administration raised.

This prompted her to ask if OSU's funding could be in jeopardy because of it, to which Carter said:

"Like I always say to my staff and my people, if we do the right things for the right reasons, everything will play out. And we've been doing it that way since I've been here since [January 1] of 2024. Our research funding here at Ohio State has grown leaps and bounds over the last couple years. We're actually ranked number 11 in the country, ahead of Harvard, ahead of UNC Chapel Hill. Our revenues last year were $1.6 billion, 775 million of that came from the federal government, largely in NIH and NSF. As we sit here today, we've had some research grants impacted, but in the tens of millions of dollars, nothing like you're seeing at our Ivy League colleagues, and a lot of that is still in litigation. So I can't even tell you what the number of dollars that we may lose, but against the $1.6 billion it's pretty small, even though it's had some impact on some of our researchers. Unlike some of our counterparts, we have a significant research arm here, 14,000 faculty, post doc students, that do the research here. And it is significant. It goes way beyond the numbers and the dollars. It's what it's what it's doing for the community, what it's doing to extend and save and change lives, and what it's doing in agriculture, what it's doing for our police force. So what I would tell you is, at this moment today...even compared to where we were last year, we're still up in our research revenue about 7% from where we were last year, and we're proceeding to ask for more grants so that we can be a cancer-free world here in our lifetime."

During the interview, Brennan and Carter talked about Columbia University paying a $200 million fine to settle their dispute with the Trump Administration while also agreeing to "an outside monitor to assure the school complies with stamping out diversity programs."

When asked if that troubles him, and if he would take a deal like that, Carter said, "I can't speak to those institutions because I'm not leading them. I know both President Shipman and some of the other Ivy League presidents are colleagues, and they're having to do I think what I would call be in survival mode. Quite frankly, we're not going through any of that here at Ohio State, and nor do I think that we will. I mean, obviously we have a new state law. We're a public institution, so that means we're going to be transparent and put out everything that we do so the state of Ohio, the people and the entire country can see it."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Carter, click here.