Beshear criticized UK’s process for appointing new law school dean. How does it work?
Among several criticisms Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear leveled at University of Kentucky leadership Tuesday afternoon was a sharp critique of the school’s process for hiring its new law school dean.
Beshear said in a statement he was “losing confidence and growing increasingly concerned with the management and decision-making” at UK. He specifically noted the hiring of Gregory Van Tatenhove, a federal judge for the Eastern District of Kentucky who will begin July 1 as dean of the J. David Rosenberg College of Law without needing approval from the university’s Board of Trustees.
Beshear said he was concerned the appointment was linked to the partisan influence of university donors. Beshear did not specify which donors, but Van Tatenhove has a documented relationship with the family of Joe and Kelly Craft, who are some of the biggest Republican donors in the country and the largest donors to UK Athletics. Van Tatenhove is also a former legislative aide for Sen. Mitch McConnell.
“I’ve been told that despite previously saying the dean must be approved by UK’s Board of Trustees, the university has shifted and now states that approval is not needed,” Beshear said. “I worry that these actions are related to certain donors pushing partisan and undue outside influence onto the university. I hope students, faculty, trustees and the community attend this week’s board meetings and ask the tough questions that should be answered.”
Beshear was correct that the university said previously, on March 6, that Van Tatenhove’s hiring was pending board approval. But UK spokesperson Jay Blanton clarified Wednesday that under a revised university policy passed in 2024, dean positions like Van Tatenhove — and Phillip Gribble, the new dean of UK’s College of Health Sciences, also starting July 1 — are don’t require board approval.
“In 2024, the Board approved an overhaul of the institution’s Governing Regulations — the ultimate policy authority for the University,” Blanton said in a statement. “Under those revisions, the board approves the terms of the President’s contract as well as appointments involving tenure and appointments of associate and full professors. Dean Van Tatenhove is not seeking tenure nor appointment as an associate or full professor and Dr. Gribble, the new dean of Health Sciences, is a full professor with tenure. As a result, neither appointment requires board approval.”
On Wednesday, Beshear issued another statement criticizing UK again, saying it should be “a nonpartisan university that doesn’t waste taxpayer dollars” and that he’d heard from many people who opposed UK’s recent administrative moves.
“We also deserve real oversight that will tell UK’s administration no when it is making a mistake,” Beshear said.
In his Tuesday statement, Beshear also referenced a $1 million job without defined duties — seemingly referencing athletic director Mitch Barnhart’s new role as executive in residence of a new UK Sport and Workforce Initiative following his retirement later this year.
Similarly, Barnhart’s new salary and role did not go before the board of trustees for approval. Blanton told the Herald-Leader in March that the university president, or a designee of the president, had authority to set salaries and terms for employment.
Beshear called Barnhart’s gig a “new $1 million job that has no defined duties.” It’s drawn sharp criticism, as few specifics about the $950,000 per year role have been released. The university initially said Barnhart’s salary would come from the school’s general fund before backtracking and correcting that it would come from the athletics budget.
Brett Setzer, a prominent booster for UK football, was among the critics, calling the decision “deeply misguided” in a letter to university officials. Setzer posted on social media Tuesday that he would be attending Friday’s board meeting.
“The board meeting is going to be interesting,” Setzer posted, also sharing a screenshot of the board meeting schedule and writing “Show up and express your concerns.”
According to the university’s governing regulations, the board of trustees delegates administrative authority to the university president. And as president, Capilouto can oversee the university’s organizational structure, as well as academic and administrative appointments.
The board approves a list of “personnel actions” presented by Capilouto at nearly every meeting, which includes a lits of appointments, promotions and retirements.
The board “has authority over the president’s contract and employment and appointments involving tenure and appointments of associate and full professors,” Blanton said. Since Van Tatenhove is not seeking tenure or appointment as an associate or full professor, and Gribble is already a professor with tenure at UK, their appointments do not require board approval, Blanton said.
The school’s post announcing Van Tatenhove as the new law school dean has since been updated to say “This article has been updated to reflect that this position is not seeking tenure and does not require approval from the Board of Trustees.”
Van Tatenhove’s relationship with UK donors
While a spokesperson for Beshear’s office didn’t clarify which donors he was referencing in his statement, but Van Tatenhove’s financial disclosures from 2014 to 2019 indicate a clear possibility.
The judge has a documented relationship with Kelly and Joe Craft, a Kentucky philanthropist and coal magnate worth more than $1 billion. Together, they are some of the biggest Republican donors in the country and UK Athletcs’ largest donors. Practive facilities for both the football and men’s basketball teams are named after Joe Craft, and Kelly Craft was previously a member of the UK Board of Trustees.
The Crafts appear repeatedly in Van Tatenhove’s financial disclosures as having provided gifts to the judge and his family or reimbursing him multiple times. The disclosures are publicly available via the U.S. courts system.
The Crafts are on Van Tatenhove’s “permanent recusal list.” The code of conduct for federal judges prohibits judges from hearing cases “in which they have either personal knowledge of the disputed facts, a personal bias concerning a party to the case, earlier involvement in the case as a lawyer, or a financial interest in any party or subject matter of the case.”
Under that rule, federal judges have to step back from cases involving someone on their recusal list.
Herald-Leader reporter Austin Horn contributed to this story.