Transcription: Ted Carter, president of Ohio State University, on

The next is the transcription of an interview with Ted Carter, the president of the State University of Ohio, who issued “to face the nation with Margaret Brennan” on July 27, 2025.

Margaret Brennan: We are now to Columbus, Ohio and the president of the State University of Ohio, Ted Carter. President Carter, welcome to ‘Fac the Nation’.

President of the State University of Ohio Ted Carter: Margaret, it is good to be with you this Sunday from Columbus, Ohio.

Margaret Brennan: I wanted to ask you very directly about these statements of the Trump administration that Ohio State is one of the 60 universities that they consider to have anti -Semitic practices and policies on the campus. They say that it is being investigated for them and for not ending diversity policies, which could be a violation of the Civil Rights Law. What is the state of the probes? And how much pressure are you low?

Carter: To be quite frank, I don’t feel much pressure. Our understanding is that we are in those lists because we had previously been in those lists under the Biden administration. We had been working with the civil rights office during that administration, and I think it was mainly a remnant. We are more than happy to talk to any of the civil rights office. We are behind our actions. We know how we act during the time of the protests. We never had a camp here in the state of Ohio. We had some attempts that we did not allow that, and those are our rules of long data in the oval, which is the centerpiece of our campus. So I am sure that as this develops forward, we will be fine.

Margaret Brennan: The Trump administration published the state of Ohio in the list of universities that Sindea, and when it observes some of the problems they have raised in other places, observes the result of freezing $ 3 billion in Harvard contracts, $ 1 billion in Cornell, hundreds of millions of dollars of research funds in universities such as Brown. Do you worry that your federal funds may be in danger of this?

Carter: Well, as I always tell my staff and my people, if we do the right things for the right reasons, everything will be developed. And we have been doing it that way since I have been here since January 1, 2024. Our research funds here in Ohio State have grown jumps and limits in the last two years. Actually, we are in the 11th position in the country, ahead of Harvard, ahead of Unc Chapel Hill. Our revenues last year were $ 1.6 billion, 775 million of those that come from the federal government, largely in NIH and NSF. While we sat here today, we have had some affected research grants, but in the dozens of millions of dollars, nothing like you are seeing it in our Ivy League colleagues, and much of that is still in litigation. So I can’t even tell you what is the amount of dollars we can lose, but against $ 1.6 billion it is quite small, although it has had some impact on some of our researchers. Unlike some of our counterparts, we have a significant research arm here, 14,000 teachers, post DOC students, who do the research here. And it is significant. It goes far beyond numbers and dollars. It is what he is doing for the community, what he is doing to extend and save and change lives, and what he is doing in agriculture, what he is doing for our police force. So, what I would say is that, at this time, even compared to where we were last year, we are still in our research income around 7% where we were last year, and we are, we are proceeding to ask for more subsidies so that we can be a world free of cancer here in our lives.

Margaret Brennan: Well, we all expect that future, Lord, but it sounds for not worrying. But I read that before when you had the Buckeyes football team at the White House at the beginning of the year, and that was well covered, the Wall Street Journal said they told President Trump and Vice President Vance that he quotes, the state of Ohio is not the enemy. Why did you feel that you had to say that? What did you mean?

Carter: Well, that could have taken a bit out of context. I said that jokingly, a little for the vice president, when I had the opportunity to meet him, and we had a long conversation. It was a very productive conversation. I will not enter all the details, but the point is that they know that Ohio State is doing the right things for the right reasons. I have said publicly that I believe that the future of higher education will go through the great emblematic institutions of public land subsidies such as the Ohio State University, I look at what we are doing today, and yes, like many other universities, there is a lot of concern about the future, what comes out of the federal government, even what comes out of our state government here in Ohio. But at this time, I feel that we can still play defense, still understand how to adjust, make sure we are putting our bat in the ball, so to speak, to play defense and protect the dish, but we are also seeing how we can play the offensive. This is a time when institutions like Ohio State, we are very safely. We are really looking to invest in ourselves. I only reflect on the graduation ceremony that we have just had last May. We produce around 18,000 in graduates per year. But in that ceremony, we graduate 12,400, all of them, by the way, obtained their diploma that day they won. And 90% of those students, 90% already had a job or went to another higher academic effort. And 70% of those undergraduate students stay in the state of Ohio. 66% of the doctorate and the teachers stay in the state of Ohio. This is a wonderful workforce development program. That is what is increasing the confidence of Ohioans and the American public in higher education, and that is beginning to change.

Margaret Brennan: Vice President Vance was in this program several times, and one of them when he was still a senator. I told him about his views about higher education. He is a student of the state of Ohio, a university student, and said he believes that universities were not talking about yours, but said that universities are “controlled by the bases of the left”, and are in the wrong direction. Do you think it has a point?

Carter: I think that higher education has begun to build that reputation. And you can even see that in Gallup-Lumina surveys. You know, I was the Superintendent of the Naval Academy from 2014 to 2019, and that Gallup survey in 2015 said that almost 60% of Americans had great confidence in post -secondary education. Now go ahead and only move that needle nine years forward and, nevertheless, two out of three Americans said they had no confidence in higher education. That is a really bad brand. The Americans said that higher education costs too much. They said that the return on investment was difficult to prove. They were even saying that some of the investigations that are carried out may not affect them or their families. And yes, there was this conversation about the possible indoctrination of the students, or that the institutions inclined very liberal. You know, we, as higher education administrators, perhaps we should listen to the American public and say, maybe we have not always done well. So I’m here to say, here at Ohio State University, we have paid attention to that. We are making efforts to make affordability a key topic for students. I mentioned that the graduation class, 57% of these university students went with zero debt. Zero debt. And the other 43% who went with debt was less than $ 24,000. And while we look through our hiring practices, I have 8,500 teachers. It is the best faculty group with which I have worked in my 12 years of leading in Higher and that is enough to say. I will tell you that while we hire the future, we are looking for the political spectrum to whom we hire.

Margaret Brennan: At that point, you talked about what happened at the state level. The Republican state -controlled state legislature approved a law that eliminates diversity programs, does several things. But also requires that teachers publish the program of studies of their online course and their contact information. Do you think this is intended to intimidate? Are you worried? Is your power worried about the approach to what they are doing?

Carter: Yes, I have spoken with our faculty through the Senate of our faculty and our leadership. There are some concerns, of course, because we have not done that before. We have some time before implementing that. We have put all the pieces of the Senate bill 1, which is the bill of the General Assembly here in the State of Ohio, in the implementation phase. We are still working through some of the details, but allow me to tell you the principles of academic freedom, what is taught in the classroom, the movement towards academic search, the research we do here in the state of Ohio, those are things that still passionate, and I know that we will continue that work and, however, we will follow the law. We will still follow some of the federal policies that are coming out. We are ready and prepared to do all that.

Margaret Brennan: Until that time, he saw what Columbia University did this week when paying the fine of $ 200 million to resolve his dispute with the Trump administration, they also agreed an external monitor to ensure that the school complies with the sealing of diversity programs. Does this precedent bother you? I mean, would you take such a deal?

Carter: Well, I can’t talk to those institutions because I’m not leading them. I know that both President Shipman and some of the other presidents of the Ivy League are colleagues, and they have to do it, I think what I would call would be in survival mode. Frankly, we are not going through any of that here in the state of Ohio, and I don’t think we will do it. I mean, obviously we have a new state law. We are a public institution, which means that we are going to be transparent and take out everything we do so that the state of Ohio, people and the whole country can see it.

Margaret Brennan: We’ll see to see what happens. Good luck, sir. We will return.