GOP Kentucky House votes to defund diversity, equity and inclusion offices at public universities
FRANKFORT, Ky.– The Kentucky House voted Friday to defund funding for diversity, equity and inclusion offices at public universities after an impassioned debate in which a Republican lawmaker dismissed DEI efforts as a failure and Democrats defended them as pillars for students from underrepresented groups .
The revised bill passed the House on a 68-18 vote and returned to the Senate, which approved a very different version. Members of the House of Representatives removed the Senate language and inserted a replacement that takes a tougher stance on DEI initiatives on public college campuses. The Senate will decide in the coming days whether to accept the new version. The Republican Party has a supermajority in both chambers.
The effort to roll back DEI initiatives in Kentucky is part of a much broader Republican campaign involving bills in several states that would limit such initiatives or require their disclosure.
In Kentucky, the version passed by the House would ban grants based on race and strip DEI offices and staff positions. It would prohibit the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, which oversees public universities, from approving degrees that require courses that include “discriminatory concepts.”
And it would hold public universities accountable for “dismantling the misguided DEI bureaucracies,” said Republican state Rep. Jennifer Decker, who led the new version to the House of Representatives.
“This bill would end the failed, expensive and discriminatory DEI initiatives in our public postsecondary schools in Kentucky,” Decker said at the start of the hour-long debate.
While she insisted the bill would promote a culture that is “inclusive and welcoming to all,” Democrats said it would harm minority students on campuses. That includes racial minorities and LGBTQ students, but it can also include people with disabilities, from rural areas or from low-income families.
“Diversity, equity and inclusion programs are about creating and sustaining environments that support students and faculty who are traditionally underrepresented on our college campuses, making them feel safe and welcome,” said Democratic state Rep. Nima Kulkarni.
The sweeping bill also threatens to suppress concepts that professors can teach, opponents said.
“It would make impossible the teaching of how oppressive governments create systems of inequality through laws and policies structured to marginalize minority groups,” Kulkarni said. “Our students deserve to know our history. They deserve to fully examine all the progress we make. have made.”
Democrats said opposition to the anti-DEI bill could include economic boycotts, students leaving the state for college and likely hurting efforts by Kentucky universities to recruit Black student-athletes.
In condemning the bill, Democratic state Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson warned that it sends the message to potential recruits that “we don’t want you to learn about your heritage,” but “we are certainly going to use your athletic skills to advance our institutions.” .”
In a recent letter to the NCAA president, the NAACP said black student-athletes should reconsider attending public colleges and universities in Florida. The letter was in response to the University of Florida and other state colleges that have eliminated their diversity, equity and inclusion programs. It was also intended for current and future student-athletes.
“This is not about politics,” the letter read. “It’s about protecting our community, advancing our culture, and most of all, it’s about your education and your future.”
Last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action at universities has created a new legal landscape around diversity programs in the workplace and in civil society.
Republican lawmakers in 20 states have introduced about 50 bills that would limit or require disclosure of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to an Associated Press analysis using bill tracking software Plural.
Tina Bojanowski, a Kentucky Democrat, said such bills pose a threat.
“The threat of authoritarians using terms like ‘evil DEI bureaucracy and indoctrination’ to restrict academic freedom while imposing their worldview on higher education institutions cannot be overstated,” she said. “A cornerstone of democratic societies is the survival of the institution. of higher education, free from political interference and the ideological agenda of autocrats.”