Current:Home > NewsDiversity, equity and inclusion initiatives limited at Kentucky colleges under Senate bill-InfoLens
Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives limited at Kentucky colleges under Senate bill
View Date:2024-12-23 16:23:24
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — 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.
The bill cleared the Senate on a 26-7 vote after a nearly two-hour debate, sending the proposal to the House. The GOP has supermajorities in both chambers. One Democratic lawmaker, predicting a legal challenge, said the final arbiters could be the courts.
Debates revolving around initiatives on diversity, equity and inclusion — known as DEI — are playing out in statehouses across the country. So far this year, GOP lawmakers have proposed about 50 bills in 20 states that would restrict DEI initiatives or require their public disclosure, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural. Meanwhile, Democrats have filed about two dozen bills in 11 states that would require or promote DEI initiatives.
In Kentucky, opponents warned the proposed restrictions on campuses could roll back gains in minority enrollments and stifle campus discussions on topics dealing with past discrimination.
The legislation, among other things, would bar public colleges and universities from providing preferential treatment based on a person’s political ideology. It would prohibit the schools from requiring people to state specific ideologies or beliefs when seeking admission, employment or promotions.
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.
“Diversity of thought should be welcomed in our universities and higher education,” Wilson said. “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.
“The richness of our diversity and our differences, that’s what makes us strong,” said Thomas, who is Black. “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. Another is meant to keep people from feeling guilt or discomfort solely because of their race or gender.
The state attorney general’s office would be allowed to take legal action to compel a school’s compliance.
Other senators opposing the bill warned that its restrictions could have a chilling effect on what’s taught on college campuses. They pointed to the women’s suffrage movement and the landmark Supreme Court ruling that outlawed segregation of public schools as possible examples of topics that could be excluded.
In supporting the bill, GOP Sen. Phillip Wheeler said it’s important for students to delve into the past and learn about the struggles of people. The bill attempts to “get to a balance, to where we’re no longer looked at as the oppressors and the oppressees, that we are each judged on our own merit,” he said.
“I think that some of the vitriol that occurs on the campuses, some of the topics, have really done more to divide us than unite us,” he added.
The Supreme Court’s June decision ending affirmative action at universities has created a new legal landscape around diversity programs in the workplace and civil society.
On Tuesday, one of the most emotional moments of the Kentucky Senate debate came when Republican Sen. Donald Douglas talked about his own life experiences, recalling that some classmates believed he got into medical school because he was a Black athlete, despite his academic achievements.
“You know how embarrassed I was?” Douglas said in supporting the bill. “How embarrassed I was to tell them I had an academic scholarship to medical school and I had to explain, as a Black man, how I got a scholarship to medical school?”
The changes proposed in the bill would be painful for some people, Douglas acknowledged. But he predicted that most affected students will “succeed with vigor and they will succeed with a sense that they are responsible for their success and not just the system.”
___
The legislation is Senate Bill 6.
veryGood! (34)
Related
- Stock market today: Asian shares mostly decline, shrugging off Wall Street’s overnight rally
- Winners and losers of Thursday Night Football: Lamar Jackson leads Ravens to thrilling win
- Liam Payne’s Friend Says He “Never Abandoned” Him After 3 People Are Charged in Connection to Case
- Whoopi Goldberg Details Making “Shift” for Sister Act 3 After Maggie Smith’s Death
- Tennessee suspect in dozens of rapes is convicted of producing images of child sex abuse
- 3 dead, including the suspect, after shooting in Pennsylvania apartment and 40-mile police chase
- What does it mean to ‘crash out’? A look at the phrase and why it’s rising in popularity
- 'Everything on sale': American Freight closing all stores amid parent company's bankruptcy
- Love Is Blind’s Chelsea Blackwell Reacts to Megan Fox’s Baby News
- Gold medalist Noah Lyles beats popular streamer IShowSpeed in 50m race
Ranking
- Pedro Pascal's Sister Lux Pascal Debuts Daring Slit on Red Carpet at Gladiator II Premiere
- Investigation into Liam Payne's death prompts 3 arrests, Argentinian authorities say
- Gold medalist Noah Lyles beats popular streamer IShowSpeed in 50m race
- Man accused of illegally killing 15-point buck then entering it into Louisiana deer hunting contest
- Republican Scott Baugh concedes to Democrat Dave Min in critical California House race
- Winners and losers of Thursday Night Football: Lamar Jackson leads Ravens to thrilling win
- Does Florida keeping Billy Napier signal how college football will handle coaching changes?
- These Chunky Chic Jewelry Styles From Frank Darling Are Fall’s Must-Have Fashion Staple to Wear on Repeat
Recommendation
-
Trump on Day 1: Begin deportation push, pardon Jan. 6 rioters and make his criminal cases vanish
-
Mexico appears to abandon its ‘hugs, not bullets’ strategy as bloodshed plagues the country
-
A voter-approved Maine limit on PAC contributions sets the stage for a legal challenge
-
Martha Stewart’s Ex-Husband Andy Stewart Calls Out Her Claims in Sensationalized Documentary
-
AIT Community Introduce
-
California air regulators to vote on contentious climate program to cut emissions
-
New Hampshire rejects allowing judges to serve until age 75
-
Federal judge hears arguments in Shilo Sanders' bankruptcy case