Ohio State University President Ted Carter has an interview transaction, which broadcast on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brain” on 27 July 2025.
Margaret Brainon: We now go to Ted Carter, President of Columbus, Ohio and Ohio State University. President Carter, welcome to ‘face the nation’.
Ohio State University President Ted Carter: Margaret, Ohio’s Columbus is good to stay with you on this Sunday.
Margaret Brainon: I wanted to ask you very directly about the claims of these Trump administration that Ohio State is one of the 60 universities that he believed that they could have antisementary practices and policies in the campus. They say that you are being investigated for them and fail to end diversity policies, which may be a violation of the Civil Rights Act. What is the status of the investigation? And how much pressure are you under?
Carter: To be quite clear, I am not feeling much pressure. Our understanding is that we are on those lists because we were earlier on those lists under the Biden administration. We were working with the office of civil rights during that administration, and I think it was mostly a holdover. We are happy to talk to someone from the office of civil rights. We are standing behind our actions. We know how we worked at the time of protests. We never had it in Ohio State. We had made some attempts, we did not allow it, and this is our long -standing rules on the oval, which is the focal point of our campus. So I believe that as it plays further, we are going to recover.
Margaret Brainon: The Trump administration published the Ohio state in the list of universities that are investigating this, and when you look at some issues raised at other places, you see the results of $ 3 billion in contracts of $ 1 billion in Harvard, $ 1 billion in Cornel, hundreds of dollars in universities like brown. Are you worried that your federal money can be in danger because of this?
Carter: Okay, like I always tell my employees and my people, if we do the right thing for the right reasons, everything will be played out. And we are doing it in that way because I am here since 1 January of 2024. Our research funding in Ohio State has increased the jump and limit over the years. We are actually ranked 11th in the country, beyond Harvard, ahead of UNC Chappell Hill. Last year our revenue was $ 1.6 billion, of which 775 million came from the federal government, roughly in NIH and NSF. As we sit here today, we have influenced some research grants, but in millions of dollars, as you are seeing in our IV League colleagues, as is nothing, and much is still in litigation. So I can’t even tell you what is the number of dollars we can lose, but it is very small against $ 1.6 billion, even if it has some effect on some of our researchers. Unlike some of our counterparts, we have an important research branch here, 14,000 faculty, post doctors students who do research here. And this is important. It goes beyond numbers and dollars. This is what it is doing for the community, what is doing to expand and save and change life, and what is it doing in agriculture, what is it doing for our police force. So what will I tell you, today- even where we were last year, we are about 7% in our research revenue from where we were last year, and we are asking for more grants so that we can become a cancer-free world here during our lifetime.
Margaret Brainon: Okay, we all hope for that future, sir, but you make sounds of not being worried. But I read that earlier when you had a bkele football team in the White House in the year- and it was well covered, Wall Street Journal said that you told President Trump and Vice President Vance that Boli, Ohio state is not enemy. Why did you think you had to say that? What did you mean?
Carter: Okay, that may have been taken out of the reference slightly from the reference. I said in the gesture, a little bit for the Vice President, when I got a chance to meet him, and we had a long conversation. It was a very productive interaction. I will not go into all the details, but the issue is that they know that Ohio State is doing the right thing for the right reasons. I have publicly said that I believe the future of higher education is going to go through a big public land grant flagship institutions like Ohio State University, I see what we are doing today, and yes, like many other universities, there is a lot of concern about the future, what is coming from the federal government, even what is coming from our state government in Ohio. But now, I think we can still play defense, still understand how to adjust, make sure that we are getting our bat on the ball, so to speak, play defense and protect the plate, but we are also seeing how we can commit crime. This is a time where institutions like Ohio State, we are very economically safe. We are really trying to invest in ourselves. I just reflect the graduation ceremony that we had it in the last May. We produce around 18,000 in graduates a year. But at that ceremony, we received 12,400-graduate degree- all of them received their diploma that day that they earned. And 90 % of those students- 90 % already had a job or they were going into another high academic effort. And 70% of those undergraduate students are living in Ohio state. 66% PhD and Masters are living in Ohio state. It is a wonderful workforce development program. This is what is increasing the trust of Ohio and American public in higher education, and it is beginning to change.
Margaret Brainon: Vice President Wanes were several times in the event- and one of them when he was still a senator. I talked to him about his views on higher education. He is an Ohio State Oppose, undergraduate, and he said that universities believe- he was not talking to you, but he said that universities are ‘controlled by the leftist foundation,’ and they are going in the wrong direction. Do you think he has a point?
Carter: I think higher education has started building that reputation. And you can also see that in the Gallup-Lumina pole. You know, I was the Superintendent of the Naval Academy from 2014 to 2019, which you know, and in 2015 Gallup Pol said that about 60% of Americans had high faith in secondary education. Now move forward and just move that needle nine years forward, and yet, two in three Americans said they do not believe in higher education. This is a really bad mark. Americans were saying that the cost of higher education is very high. They were saying that it was difficult to prove a return to investment. They were also saying that some research being done could not affect them or their families. And yes, this conversation took place about the possible dissection of students, or that the institutes were very liberal. You know, we should probably listen to the American public as an administrator of higher education and say, perhaps we have not always done it right. That’s why I am here to say, here at Ohio State University, we have paid attention to it. We are trying to create an important issue for students. I mentioned that graduate class, 57% of them left with zero loan. Zero debt. And the other 43% that left with the loan was less than $ 24,000. And as we see in our recruitment practices, I have 8,500 faculties. It is the best group in the faculty that I have ever worked at my 12 years of high level and it is saying a lot. I will tell you that as we rent the future, we are looking at the entire political spectrum of whom we rent.
Margaret Brainon: At that point, you talked about what happened at the state level. The Republican controlled state legislature passed a law that ends diversity programs, it does many things. But this requires professors to post their course courses- courses online and their contact information. Do you think it’s to scare? are you worried? Do your faculties focus on what they are doing?
Carter: Yes, I have spoken to our faculty through my faculty Senate and our leadership. There are some concerns, of course, because we have not done so before. We have got some time before applying it. We have put all the pieces of Senate Bill 1 which is the bill of the General Assembly in the Ohio state, in the implementation phase. We are still working through some details, but I tell you the principles of educational freedom, what is taught in the classroom, steps towards the discovery of scholars, research that we do here in Ohio kingdom, are things about which we are still very emotional, and I know that we are going to continue that work, and yet we will follow the law. We will still follow some federal policies that are coming out. We are ready and all that is ready to do it.
Margaret Brainon: Until that point, you noticed what Columbia University did in paying a fine of $ 200 million to settle its dispute with the Trump administration this week, they also agreed to an external monitor to assure the school diversity programs to be stamped. Does this example bother you? I mean- will you do this kind of deal?
Carter: Okay, I can’t talk to those institutions because I am not leading them. I know that President Shipman and some other Ivy League President are both colleagues, and they think I think what I would say in survival mode. Very clearly, we are not going through anyone from here in Ohio state, nor do I think we will. I mean, obviously we have a new state law. We are a public institution, so this means that we are going to be transparent and have put everything that we do to Ohio state, people and the whole country.
Margaret Brainon: We will see what happens. Best wishes to you, sir. We will come back right.
