Growing up, higher education was always on the table for Dr. Ronald Domen. Though his father’s formal education ended at ninth grade, he was adamant: Domen and his younger brother were going to college.
Domen, now 75, always liked adventures, and California seemed full of them. He was drawn to the University of California, Berkeley.
But the highly selective university was too expensive and too far from his home in Warren, Ohio. His dad said the family could cover tuition at Youngstown State University, the regional public university located about 20 miles away. Domen said his tuition cost $450 a year when he began there in 1968 – or about $4,165 in today’s dollars.
Youngstown State gave him an “excellent” education, he said. His time there served as a launch pad for his eventual career as an accomplished medical researcher and professor.
Those warm feelings are why he’s donated, by his estimates, a few thousand dollars over the past five decades.
Domen said he planned to give back in a bigger way by making a bequest of about $100,000. The money would establish an annual scholarship fund, one that he wanted to help students with what he called “real financial needs” who hailed from the area where he grew up. More than a third of Youngstown State undergraduates receive Pell Grants, federal money set aside for families earning less than $50,000 a year.
“It really doesn’t matter a lot where you go to college,” he said. “It matters what you do when you get there.”
His nostalgia soured this summer. Domen, who now lives in Pennsylvania, Googled Youngstown State on a whim. That’s how he learned about Senate Bill 1, a controversial new state law overhauling how public higher education works in Ohio.
That changed everything. The more he read, he said, “the madder I got.” Domen decided his donation was off.
The ripple effect of Senate Bill 1
Domen said he knows that he is just one person making just one choice. But his decision to withdraw a six-figure donation reveals how the sweeping changes lawmakers made with Senate Bill 1 created a wide-reaching ripple effect, impacting classrooms, campus cultures and fundraising offices in unexpected ways.
The law overhauls how all public colleges and universities work in the state, including by gutting diversity, equity and inclusion (or DEI) work and requiring faculty members to publicly post their class syllabi.
Domen said one of the things that angered him the most was that he didn’t find any public opposition from Youngstown State’s leadership. As Signal Ohio previously reported, Ohio’s public university presidents remained largely silent as the bill advanced.
In late September, Domen sent a letter to leaders of the Youngstown State University Foundation, which manages gifts from donors, along with the university’s president, the chair of its board of trustees and the leader of the union representing faculty members. He told them all that his planned gift was off.
“I cannot, in clear conscience, support YSU as long as commitment to DEI, science, facts, the search for truth, unadulterated critical thinking skills, free speech, and the rights of faculty, staff, and students to organize and negotiate and strike (if necessary), are under political siege,” he wrote to foundation leaders, per a copy Domen provided to Signal.
Foundation leaders did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Signal Ohio. The university also denied the bulk of related public records requests Signal submitted, saying state law doesn’t require universities to share information related to donors.
Ohio’s political shifts predate Senate Bill 1
Senate Bill 1 was one of the most polarizing pieces of legislation proposed at the Ohio Statehouse this year. State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, brought the bill forward to combat what he and other Republicans saw as a longstanding liberal agenda at the state’s public colleges and universities.
Though opponents testified against the bill in record numbers, it easily passed along party lines and went into effect in June.
Domen acknowledges some might see his change of plans as politically motivated. He’s a lifelong Democrat. So, too, was just about everyone he knew growing up in the Mahoning Valley in the 1960s, he said.
The area – and its blue-collar, majority-white voters – used to be a Democratic stronghold. But that has shifted in recent years. Voters there supported Donald Trump in both the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections. Youngstown State President Bill Johnson is a former longtime Republican U.S. Congressman.
Domen said his anger isn’t rooted in partisan politics but instead in what he sees as “one group of people running around telling another group how to learn things and how to be educated and what books they can read.”
He said he couldn’t believe the “depth” of Senate Bill 1, including the requirement that educators allow students to draw their own conclusions about “controversial beliefs and policies.” Climate change, immigration and abortion are all topics that fall under the law’s wide-ranging definition.
Still, Domen said he’s conflicted. He knows withdrawing his donation could mean fewer students get help paying for college.
“But then, on the other hand, what kind of an opportunity are they getting if … I’m sending my money there to support them getting an education that’s not a quality education like it would have been,” he said.
Youngstown State’s endowment trails behind Ohio State, Toledo
One hundred thousand dollars can go a long way at Youngstown State. The university’s annual listed tuition and fees – about $11,375 – puts it among the lowest of Ohio’s four-year universities.
Its $368.8 million endowment is smaller, too. That’s far less than Ohio State University’s $7.9 billion, Ohio University’s $779.5 million and the University of Toledo’s $625 million, according to the most recent data compiled by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.
Youngstown State’s foundation reports it gives out about $11 million in scholarships to students each year. That money’s powered in part by gifts such as the one Domen planned to make.
Donors can endow a scholarship by giving at least $20,000, according to the foundation’s website. They can choose the award’s criteria, though, technically, only state attorneys general can enforce those restrictions.
Domen said a foundation leader called him after receiving the letter rescinding his donation. According to Domen, the official reiterated that the foundation is an independent organization operating outside of the university. He said the conversation lasted only about five minutes.
Donor relationships are nuanced, according to Seth Perlman, managing partner at Perlman and Perlman, a New York law firm focusing on philanthropy.
He described those who give money to a college as typically having a “very intimate connection” to the institution. That puts university fundraisers in a tough spot, he said. The institutions they represent – especially those at public institutions – are forced to comply with increasing federal and state rules, potentially alienating donors on either side of the political spectrum.
“You have to try to take the middle ground to preserve the affinity that your alumni have for your institution,” he said. “And that’s a difficult proposition for schools.”
What comes next
Domen’s now considering donating the funds to places such as Penn State University, where he worked for years in the university’s medical school. He doubts he’ll change his mind and establish a scholarship at Youngstown State – unless Senate Bill 1 gets repealed, he said.
That’s unlikely. A statewide effort to do just that, spearheaded by a group of Youngstown State professors, failed earlier this year after organizers didn’t get enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot. Institutions across the state have already made big changes to comply with the law, though the full rollout could take years.
Domen ended his letter to university and foundation leaders by writing that he feels “sorry, disappointed and outraged.” He didn’t send it expecting a return gesture in response to his note, he said. He just wanted to feel heard.
Still, he said he wonders if other people are rethinking potential donations of their own. No information shared publicly by the foundation indicates whether Domen is one of one or one of many.
“I just hope people aren’t rolling over and giving up on this,” he said. “I think it’s a critical time and a critical situation.”