Ohio lawmakers re-introduce anti-hazing and bullying bill amid alleged BGSU hazing incident

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — Ohio lawmakers have introduced new legislation in the statehouse which directly relates to the alleged hazing incident at Bowling Green State University.

Monday morning, state Rep. Haraz Ghanbari, R-Perrysburg, along with state Rep. Michael Sheehy, D-Oregon, re-introduced a bill in the statehouse formerly known as House Bill 310.

HB 310 was also known as Collin's Law, named for Ohio University student Collin Wiant who died after a hazing incident.

Ghanbari says the death of BGSU Sophomore, Stone Foltz is devastating and it makes the bill that's been introduced more important.

It's an anti-hazing and bullying bill, something Ghanbari says happens across all ages and needs to be stopped.

The former bill, House Bill 310, passed in the House in 2020, but ran out of time in the Senate and never became law.

The new bill that's been introduced is the "as-passed" version from the House and will get an official house bill name, but that hasn't been given yet.

Ghanbari says they have sent out a co-sponsor request and state lawmakers will have until Wednesday to sign on and sponsor the bill.
Then it will get introduced on the house floor at the end of the week.

Ghanbari hopes they can get it to the governor's desk this time around.

"We need to make sure that we have a piece of legislation that the governor will sign so that tragic incidents that we're hearing about out of Bowling Green never happen again," he said.

Once the bill makes it to the Ohio House floor, amendments will be made and voted on.

If passed in the House, it will move to the Senate.

Ghanbari says types of incidents like this one at BGSU, need accountability and this bill, if passed, would do that.