Higher education leaders told legislators Tuesday that each of the Commonwealth’s public schools is complying with a new law eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at those schools. However, lawmakers had concerns for some of the schools – including Murray State University and the University of Kentucky – about whether they were fully in line with the new legislation.
House Bill 4, which passed earlier this year, ordered colleges to eliminate DEI offices and officers and bars affirmative action practices in admissions and hiring. It also bans scholarship eligibility based on a person’s race, sex, religion, and national origin. The bill set a June 30 deadline for institutions to comply.
Each of the Commonwealth’s universities and KCTCS have been taking steps to comply with the law since it passed in March. For example, Murray State rebranded its Women’s Center and Pride Center to the Oakley Resource Center and Student Lounge in April. UK canceled on-campus graduation celebrations for minority students the same month. And, last week, University of Louisville announced to its faculty that it would be disbanding multiple faculty support groups including the Black, Hispanic and Latino, and LGBTQ+ faculty/staff associations and the UofL Women’s Network.
Additionally, universities are instructed to provide students, faculty, and staff with a survey in the fall to “assess intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity.” The Council on Postsecondary Education is planning to develop and publish the survey in October.
Murray State University President Ron K. Patterson told lawmakers that his institution had restructured existing offices and staff positions to “better reflect their responsibilities” in response to HB 4.
“The university does not …have an office or employee whose duties reflect or include providing training that encompass the promotion of discriminatory practices,” Patterson said.
Republican Sen. Steve Rawlings of Burlington, who co-chairs the Budget Review Subcommittee on Education, asked Patterson to clarify comments he made shortly after he was hired as the university’s next president regarding the future of DEI initiatives at the far western Kentucky institution.
“DEI is going to look different,” Patterson said at a campus welcoming event in May. “The title and name may be different but, as an institution of 103 years old, we’re going to always be here for our students.”
Rawlings said he found Patterson’s response to be “a little concerning.” Patterson reiterated his support for the student body of Murray State.
“Our institution has been there for 103 years, providing strong support for student services to the western portion of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and we’ll continue, again, to uphold and enhance their efforts, their student experience, to support their success, and that’s what that statement means,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting.
Republican Rep. Shane Baker of Somerset had concerns about a course that is listed in UK’s Gender and Women’s Studies program and asked if the class was going to be offered in the upcoming fall semester. The description reads, in part: “The 14th Amendment of the Constitution guarantees equal protection under the laws, but as Black Lives Matter and other protest movements indicate, this promise remains unfulfilled.”
UK Provost and Co-Executive Vice President for Health Affairs Robert DiPaola told the legislative committee he was unaware of the current status of that particular course but added his university’s website was still in the process of being updated.
“Could you check on that and let us know if those are still offered,” Baker said, “Help us understand the value of those and why the taxpayer dollars should be expended on those things?”
The course is currently being listed for Fall 2025. Most of Kentucky’s public universities offer similar gender studies courses. However, HB4 does not necessarily regulate those class offerings. For existing university programs, the law does not apply to what can be taught in previously existing academic programs or courses. It does, however, restrict what courses students can be required to take.
Lawmakers were also interested in whether the consequences of HB 4 resulted in post-secondary education institutions saving any funds in regards to canceling DEI initiatives, which the White House has labeled as “radical and wasteful.”
Western Kentucky University officials said the school has saved around $13,000 annually by eliminating DEI-related training and conferences. Leaders with the Kentucky Community and Technical College System said it’s projecting to save around $2.5 million annually by cutting its DEI programs, but Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Todd Kilburn said that much of those dollars were redirected to support general student success.
University of Louisville was an outlier among the universities, deciding to hire a new legal counselor to assist implementing HB 4 across their multiple offices and programs. UofL Chief Legal Counsel Angela Curry said members of her office have spent more than half of their time every day working to reorganize the university to comply with HB 4. This proved a struggle for a legal team attempting to uphold their other occupational responsibilities.
“We wanted to make sure that we had an attorney squarely positioned to answer any questions, scenarios or other ongoing compliance concerns that would come up,” Curry said.
Rawlings said he was “disappointed” in University of Louisville’s decision to expand its staff.
“I think in a business sense, when the division isn't doing well, you cut them and they're gone… but instead, you've added positions because of House Bill 4,” the Republican co-chair said.
Michael Frazier, executive director of the Kentucky Student Rights Coalition, said his group backed HB 4 as it moved through the legislative process earlier this year. He said that, no matter one’s thoughts on the new law, there are still goals needed to be reached in improving higher education accessibility — especially for low-income and marginalized students. Frazier still praised HB 4 for making Kentucky a leader in academic neutrality.
“That promotes academic freedom, ensures that professors can speak freely, and students feel comfortable to disagree, to argue and to engage in important issues today on our university's campus,” Frazier said.
Toward the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Rawlings said DEI efforts had not delivered “measurable benefits” for Kentucky students.
“What began with good intentions has evolved into a multi billion dollar industry, rife with tokenism, lacking clear metrics and producing no meaningful improvement in student outcomes,” Rawlings said. “It's time for higher education to return to what works — accountability, transparent results, and evidence-based policies… Kentucky's kids deserve real solutions, not ideology or rhetoric.”
