Kentucky GOP lawmaker revives her effort to ban DEI offices, spending at public colleges
A Republican state lawmaker has again filed a bill targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs — also known as DEI — in Kentucky higher education.
House Bill 4, filed Wednesday by Rep. Jennifer Decker, R-Waddy, is similar to bills from last year which would have limited DEI trainings and offices in Kentucky’s public colleges and universities.
Both House Bill 9 and Senate Bill 6 from 2024 failed to pass.
HB 4 would prohibit public colleges and universities from spending any money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and require those institutions to close DEI offices and eliminate all related staff by June 30, 2025.
The bill would also block universities from requiring students or staff to sign a diversity statement, attend a DEI training session, or complete an academic course “dedicated to the promotion of differential treatment or benefits conferred to individuals on the basis of religion, race, sex, color or national origin.”
In a written statement Wednesday, Decker said DEI policies on college campuses “prioritize race, gender and identity over individual merit and access to education, contradicting our constitution and undermining true equality.”
Public universities “exist to educate and foster intellectual growth,” she added, ”not to mandate conformity through DEI policies. Higher education must be a marketplace of ideas, a place where merit takes precedence over bureaucratic policies that cost millions and deliver no results.”
To “preserve academic integrity and free expression,” Decker said in the statement, “colleges must eliminate DEI mandates that have made our campuses more divided and more expensive.”
Decker declined to speak with the Herald-Leader about her bill after the House adjourned Wednesday.
This bill — and dozens of others around the country like it — is part of a larger effort among conservatives to target and eliminate DEI initiatives and offices.
Among his first acts after inauguration, President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month directing federal agencies to initiate civil rights compliance investigations of various organizations, saying DEI efforts violate civil rights laws. In one of Trump’s executive orders that dismantles federal DEI offices, he said diversity, equity and inclusion policies have “demonstrated immense public waste,” are “radical and wasteful,” and are “illegal and immoral.”
Three anti-DEI bills in Kentucky were filed in last year’s legislative session, though only one emerged as the front runner.
House Bill 9, also filed by Decker, would have required Kentucky’s public colleges and universities to defund all DEI offices and trainings, eliminate race-based scholarships and teaching of “discriminatory concepts” like white privilege. It was combined with Senate Bill 6 at the end of the session, though it failed to pass at the eleventh hour.
The University of Kentucky publicly opposed the bill.
Decker’s bill this session would require the Council on Postsecondary Education to make annual certifications to prove institutions’ compliance, and to implement an annual survey on intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity on higher education campuses.
The attorney general could go to court to require compliance under the bill, which would also create a “private right of action” allowing individuals to seek compliance through the courts.
Legislation targeting DEI efforts has been proposed in 29 states since 2023, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
UK, NKU dissolved DEI offices last year
Though no law was passed that would have put an end to DEI in 2024, some Kentucky colleges over the summer took action of their own.
The University of Kentucky dissolved its Office of Institutional Diversity in August.
President Eli Capilouto said he received feedback throughout the summer, including meeting with legislators who expressed concerns about the role of DEI at UK — and who said additional bills targeting DEI would again be filed in the 2025 legislative session.
Additionally, Capilouto said he will no longer make statements on political or partisan events or issues.
Capilouto and other university presidents spoke out against the bills targeting DEI during the 2024 session, with Capilouto calling the bills “deeply concerning.”
Shortly after UK dissolved its DEI office, Northern Kentucky University announced it would dissolve its Office of Inclusive Excellence following the resignation of the university’s chief diversity officer.
NKU President Cady Short-Thompson referenced similar concerns as Capilouto about future bills targeting DEI in her announcement of the change.
This story was originally published February 12, 2025 at 4:28 PM.
