The College Fix

The chairman of the Ohio Board of Regents plans to urge the trustees of all public universities in Ohio to ban smoking on their campuses, reported the Chronicle of Higher Education:

The chairman of the Ohio Board of Regents plans to introduce a resolution that asks the boards of trustees of the state’s public colleges to ban tobacco use on their campuses, The Plain Dealerreported. The plan has the support of the regents’ chancellor, James M. Petro, who said the state’s 23 community colleges and 14 universities should consider going smoke-free. He smoked daily for 40 years before quitting four years ago. Arkansas, Iowa, and Oklahoma have banned smoking on all state-college campuses, according to the Associated Press, and many colleges in Ohio banned smoking indoors even before a 2007 state law restricted smoking inside most public places. Miami University is the only public university in the state that bans smoking on its campus, according to The Plain Dealer. Trustees of Ohio’s institutions would have to make a decision about imposing such a ban on their campuses.

Campus smoking bans are pedaled at universities everywhere by nanny-stating health administrators who think it’s their job to mandate certain lifestyles for students and faculty. And on many campuses, these policies have the support of most faculty and students, who are perhaps accustomed to the university bureaucracy trampling their rights. Most principled opposition to campus smoking bans comes from student libertarian groups.

Read more from TCF on smoking bans here.

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