Ohio Senate Bill 1 of 2025, the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, prohibits state colleges and universities from mandating diversity, equity, and inclusion training, while affirming that these institutions must provide equal opportunity regardless of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. For more information see the Ohio Department of Higher Education Senate Bill 1 Information page.
The plaintiff-appellant was an employee of Totes/Isotoner Corporation. For two weeks, she had taken breaks to lactate without her employer’s knowledge. After the defendant-employer fired her “for her failure to follow directions,” the plaintiff filed suit alleging wrongful termination on the basis of her pregnancy. The Butler County Court of Common Pleas granted summary judgment in favor of her employer, and the Court of Appeals of Ohio affirmed.
Two former employees of the defendant were subjected to repeated instances of sexual harassment by the clinic’s patients. The employees alleged that they complained to the defendant about the conduct, but he failed to take any corrective action. They filed suit in the Clark County Court of Common Pleas alleging sexual harassment. The court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant, holding that Ohio law did not recognize such a claim based on the conduct of non-employees. In Anania v. Daubenspeck Chiropractic, 129 Ohio App.
Ohio House Bill 531 (2025), known as Braden’s Law, criminalizes sexual extortion, defined as threatening to release or distribute private images, as a third-degree felony, subject to enhancement to a first-degree felony under certain aggravating circumstances. The law also requires courts to consider parental requests for access to the phones of deceased minors.
Capital Care is a medical facility that offers abortion services. It had been licensed for years to operate as an ambulatory surgical facility. An Ohio statute was passed that required all abortion providers to have a license from the Director of the Ohio Department of Health, and such licenses required providers to have a written transfer agreement with a local hospital. Capital Care could not obtain a transfer agreement with a local hospital, but had such an agreement with a nearby hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, yet was denied a license.
In Edwards v. Ohio Institute of Cardiac Care, 170 Ohio App.3d 619 (2007), the plaintiff, a scheduler, received frequent inappropriate emails and physical contact from her supervisor, including touching on the shoulder and lower back. After she reported the behavior, she began receiving tardiness notices and was terminated, allegedly for changing clothes at work before the Fourth of July weekend. She sued for sexual harassment and retaliation in the Greene County Court of Common Pleas. A jury found in her favor on harassment but for the employer on retaliation.
The plaintiff-appellant was the “head golf professional” at the Congress Lake Golf Club. Despite her formidable golfing pedigree, the club’s board of directors requested her resignation, ostensibly because of her inability to manage various golf programs. She sued the defendant for sex discrimination in the Stark County Court of Common Pleas.
In Felton v. Felton, 79 Ohio St.3d 34 (1997), the Supreme Court of Ohio upheld the issuance of a civil protective order based on testimony describing violent behavior by the appellant’s husband, which led her to fear for her life. After she filed criminal domestic violence charges, the county court granted a temporary protection order. The Court held that testimony about the husband’s past violence supported the issuance of the order and that a prior dissolution decree prohibiting harassment did not prevent further protective relief.
The plaintiffs worked at a restaurant operated by GZK. They alleged that a cook who worked with them repeatedly made lewd and sexually violent comments toward them, as well as touched them inappropriately without consent. The plaintiffs also alleged that a supervisor also made inappropriate sexual comments and groped them as he pretended to accidentally brush against them. They testified that they had brought this behavior to the attention of the management.
In the case In re Jane Doe, a juvenile filed a petition in the Columbiana County Court of Common Pleas, Juvenile Division, seeking a judicial bypass to obtain an abortion without parental notification. The trial court denied the request, finding that she lacked sufficient maturity and information to make the decision independently.
