Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives limited at Kentucky colleges under Senate bill

FRANKFORT, Ky.– A Republican-backed measure to limit diversity, equity and inclusion practices at Kentucky’s public universities won Senate approval Tuesday after an emotional debate that delved into race relations and painted what the bill’s sponsor as the liberal tend toward college campuses.

The bill cleared the Senate on a 26-7 vote after nearly two hours of debate, sending the bill to the House. The Republican Party has a supermajority in both chambers. One Democratic lawmaker predicted a legal challenge, saying the courts could be the final arbiters.

Debates surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives – known as DEI – are playing out in statehouses across the country. So far this year, Republican lawmakers in 20 states have introduced about 50 bills that would limit DEI initiatives or require their disclosure, according to an Associated Press analysis using bill-tracking software Plural. Meanwhile, Democrats in eleven states have introduced about two dozen bills that would require or promote DEI initiatives.

In Kentucky, opponents warned that the proposed restrictions on campuses could reverse gains in minority enrollment and stifle campus discussions on topics related to past discrimination.

The legislation would, among other things, prohibit public colleges and universities from giving preferential treatment based on a person’s political ideology. It would prohibit schools from requiring people to express specific ideologies or beliefs when seeking admission, employment or promotion.

Republican Senator Mike Wilson said he introduced the bill to combat a broader trend in higher education of denying campus jobs or promotions to faculty who refuse to embrace “liberal ideologies that are in vogue at our public universities.” embrace. He said such practices have also extended to students and staff.

“Diversity of thought should be welcomed in our universities and higher education,” Wilson said. “But we have seen a trend in the United States where, in order to stay on the job, teachers are being formally forced to subscribe to a set of beliefs that may be contrary to their own, all of which violate the First Amendment.”

Democratic Sen. Reginald Thomas said the proposed restrictions would jeopardize successes in expanding the number of minority students on Kentucky’s college campuses.

“The richness of our diversity and our differences makes us strong,” says Thomas, who is black. “We are like a quilt here in America.”

Wilson responded that there is nothing in the bill that prohibits colleges from supporting diversity initiatives as long as those efforts do not include “discriminatory concepts.”

The legislation contains many such concepts that would be prohibited, including that a person, based on his race or sex, bears responsibility for past acts committed by other members of the same race or sex. Another aims to prevent people from feeling guilty or uncomfortable solely because of their race or gender.

The attorney general’s office could take legal action to force the school’s compliance.

Other senators who opposed the bill warned that its restrictions could have a chilling effect on what is taught on college campuses. They pointed to the women’s suffrage movement and the landmark Supreme Court decision banning public school segregation as possible examples of topics that could be excluded.

In support of the bill, Republican Sen. Phillip Wheeler said it is important for students to delve into the past and learn about people’s struggles. The bill seeks to “strike a balance so that we are no longer seen as the oppressors and the oppressors, so that we are each judged on our own merits,” he said.

“I think some of the vitriol that’s been happening on campuses, and some of the issues, have really done more to divide us than unite us,” he added.

The Supreme Court’s June decision to end affirmative action in universities has created a new legal landscape around diversity programs in the workplace and in civil society.

One of the most emotional moments of the Senate debate in Kentucky came Tuesday when Republican Sen. Donald Douglas spoke about his own life experiences, recalling that some classmates thought he went to medical school because he was a black athlete, despite his academic performance.

“Do you know how embarrassed I was?” Douglas said in support of the bill. “How embarrassed I was to tell them that I had an academic scholarship to medical school and that as a black man I had to explain how I got a scholarship to medical school. school?”

The changes proposed in the bill would be painful for some people, Douglas acknowledged. But he predicted that most affected students “will succeed with strength and they will succeed with the feeling that they are responsible for their success and not just the system.”

___

The legislation is Senate Bill 6.