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 approval from the state Senate on Tuesday after an emotional debate that delved into race relations and what the bill’s sponsor portrayed as the liberal bent on college campuses. Republican Sen. Mike Wilson said he filed the bill to counter a broader trend in higher education toward denying campus jobs or promotions to faculty refusing to espouse “liberal ideologies fashionable in our public universities.” He said such practices have extended to students and staff as well. “But we’ve seen a trend across the United States of forcing faculty, in order to remain employed, to formally endorse a set of beliefs that may be contrary to their own, all in violation of the First Amendment.” Democratic Sen. Reginald Thomas said the proposed restrictions would jeopardize successes in expanding the number of minority students on Kentucky’s university campuses. “We are like a quilt here in America.” Wilson responded that there’s nothing in the bill to prohibit colleges from supporting diversity initiatives, as long as those efforts don’t include “discriminatory concepts.” The legislation sets out a host of such concepts that would be prohibited, among them that a person, based on their race or gender, bears responsibility for past actions committed by other members of the same race or gender.