WKU Pride Center no longer university-affiliated because of KY’s anti-DEI law
The Pride Center at Western Kentucky University will no longer be affiliated with the university, instead switching to a student-run organization to comply with a Kentucky law aimed at banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses.
WKU’s General Counsel Andrea Anderson announced the change at Tuesday’s Student Government Association meeting, the College Heights Herald first reported.
The anti-DEI law, House Bill 4, passed by Kentucky lawmakers earlier this year, required public universities and the Kentucky Community and Technical College System to dismantle and defund all DEI efforts, including those for the LGBTQ+ community.
The law includes offices, policies and practices “designed or implemented to promote or provide preferential treatment or benefits to individuals on the basis of religion, sex, color, or national origin.”
The Pride Center will no longer have an office in the Downing Student Union, where it has been located since 2018. The Pride Center opened in 2017.
“The university cannot provide any resource, whether that’s human capital, or any type of monetary contribution or money that comes from the foundation or other sources, to fund a DEI initiative,” Anderson said, according to the Herald report.
WKU will no longer provide “support resources — such as dedicated meeting space or financial assistance” to the Pride Center, spokesperson Jace Lux told the Herald-Leader.
“While identity-based student organizations may continue to exist under this legislation, they must now operate independent of university support,” Lux said.
The WKU Sisterhood — a group of women who raise money for student and university organizations — was also impacted by House Bill 4. The group, which has raised more than $900,000 since it was founded in 2009, was told they would need to “diversify or disaffiliate,” the Herald reported earlier this year.
Initially, the university presented two options for WKU Sisterhood: become “inclusive to all genders” or “operate independently” of the university, according to an email sent to the organization in August. Inclusivity meant the Sisterhood would have to diversify membership, change its name, and no longer award funding “based on race, religion, sex, color or national origin of the beneficiaries.”
“The university is currently awaiting additional guidance from the Kentucky Attorney General’s office about the Sisterhood and similar affiliated alumni groups,” Lux said.