Hoodline Reports on AIM Undercover DEI Videos Putting Cincinnati and Kent State on the Hot Seat
February 26, 2026
Undercover videos released this month are putting the University of Cincinnati and Kent State University under the microscope, with staff caught on hidden camera saying diversity, equity and inclusion still sit at the heart of coursework and teacher training. The footage, posted online by Accuracy in Media, comes nearly a year after Ohio’s Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, or Senate Bill 1, became law and restricted DEI initiatives at public colleges.
The recordings have raised fresh questions from local reporters and the watchdog group about whether Ohio’s public universities are truly in step with the state’s DEI ban. University leaders, for their part, are insisting they follow the law, while how the state might enforce those rules remains very much an open question.
What the videos show
In one of the undercover clips, a University of Cincinnati sociology program director speaks with an investigator posing as a parent and is asked whether a child would still receive an education that includes DEI. The administrator answers, “Yes, and he will,” and describes diversity-related conversations as “baked into” the department’s curriculum, according to Accuracy in Media.
A separate recording at Kent State captures a director in the educator-preparation program describing the school’s teacher-training offerings as “all about diversity, equity and inclusion” and suggesting that critics “want to keep the white men in power,” the group reports. Across the clips, staff members talk about how their departments continue to handle equity and inclusion topics after SB1 took effect, and those conversations have become the heart of the compliance questions now swirling around both campuses.