How are Ky. universities implementing anti-DEI law?
+ help get Olivia to Fancy Farm!
Can I write this edition of The Gallery Pass before I lose power again? Let’s see.
Make Fancy Farm Hot Again!
Kentucky’s premier political speaking event is in two weeks, and we have some critical no-shows.
Once again this year, not a lot of Dems made the speaking invitation list (and that’s their own fault for not holding many statewide seats) and the Dems that did get invited don’t want to go.
Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman said no, basically saying (despite decades of tradition to have sitting state constitutional officers speak at the event) she doesn’t think people not running for office should speak.
And then House Minority Leader Pam Stevenson, who is running as a Dem to replace McConnell, said no, too. I didn’t see a reason for her.
Gov. Andy Beshear is still a ???, but please remember he skipped the event last year to go to a Savannah Bananas game.
And a big no-show this year is KET. Yes, I’m serious. They announced Thursday that due to federal budget cuts to public broadcasting, they’re simply canceling coverage of Fancy Farm. Which, as a Fancy Farm stan, is particularly devastating.
So, that said, I’d like to avoid another critical no-show and crowdfund my journey to Fancy Farm 2025.
If everyone reading this gave me literally, like, a quarter, the trip would be covered. I’m serious. I’m not like jetsetting around the world; I’m just trying to stand in the WKY sun and cover a critical political event.
Please let’s make it happen, y’all. My Venmo is here/should just be @oliviakrauth. You can also sign up for a paid subscription to The Gallery Pass and I’ll use those proceeds to cover my quest out west.
Yee-haw, please and thank you!
Does he even go here?
A few updates in the 2026 Kentucky elections world, y’all.
Some folks rumored to be running for the KY-06 Congressional seat are officially official. On the GOP side, Ralph Alvarado is back. The former state senator and running mate of Matt Bevin quit his job in Tennessee so he can run for Congress, but he claims in his announcement that he still lives in Clark County with his family. Still confused about that, but he is in the race.
On the Dems side, we have former federal prosecutor Zach Dembo. His name has been circulating for a hot sec, and now he’s officially here.
I’m going to try and have an up-to-date, exhaustive list of everyone filed to run thus far in an upcoming newsletter, for those asking for it.
Also, fresh fundraising numbers are in, and Congressman Andy Barr is ahead in the U.S. Senate race to replace McConnell.
How HB 4 is going in Ky. colleges
Earlier this week, university officials testified about how Kentucky’s public colleges and universities are implementing House Bill 4 — that big, sweeping ban on anything diversity, equity and inclusion related.
I watched their testimonies and read all of their prepared materials, and here are my top takeaways.
Before I really get going, I want to make it clear that a campus culture of fear and chilled speech and confusion was not going to be captured with these questions or the responses from the universities’ legal, PR, gov relations and executive teams. So, keep that in mind.
Also, they didn’t give a lot of details and lawmakers didn’t ask for many specifics. So.
Everyone basically thinks they’re compliant, but what changed?
Schools either think they’re fully implementing the law or they’re close to it. But some of ‘em didn’t really need to change much.
Some of the schools were lowkey like we actually never had a DEI office, so we didn’t have anything to get rid of.
And others had head starts. UK and NKU made headlines last year when they preemptively dissolved their DEI offices before the law even got filed. And Kentucky State, an HBCU, said they got rid of such roles years ago.
Plenty said they made tweaks to wording on their websites and stuff like that. Some of the KCTCS campuses reworded bits of their mission statements, but it wasn’t like suddenly celebrating a lack of diversity, if that makes sense.
But it seemed no one actually lost their job directly because of this law. Either folks retired/resigned and no one was hired to replace them, or people were moved to new positions elsewhere in the university.
Lowkey rebrand, but not a rebrand?
So, one of the things GOP lawmakers were looking for was if someone in a DEI-focused role got reassigned, did they just go to a role with similar responsibilities but under new words. And same for if a DEI office closed — was it just reopening under a new name.
A few things I know after covering education: They love everchanging jargon, and they love a meaningless rebrand. And the universities were kinda giving that energy.
Out: Diversity, equity, inclusion. In: Belonging, access, opportunity, engagement.
But it did seem like these shifts are tied to a refocus on student support for all students, instead of designated support for certain groups or protected classes. Which is kinda what DEI set out to do, and what education does in general: Make sure every student gets the help they need to learn and then succeed.
In Tuesday’s meeting with lawmakers, no one really got challenged on this shift. I’ll be interested to see how all of this plays out and 1. If schools still end up focusing on where the highest need is, which could make them still appear to be focused on equity/diversity and 2. What lawmakers will say about it (especially ahead of a critical budget year).
GOP might’ve overestimated how much is spent on DEI
One of the questions every school got asked was how much they had saved by implementing HB 4 and the answers were … interesting.
Some of the schools were like we didn’t save anything because we weren’t spending much to begin with.
UK declined to answer, which at least one lawmaker didn’t love. KCTCS said they weren’t “saving” anything because any of that money was being redirected to other resources to support students.
And U of L sat there and was like actually, we’ve been inundated with so many legal questions about HB 4, that we had to *spend money* and hire another attorney. Sen. Steve Rawlings, one of the subcommittee’s co-chairs, was not particularly pleased with that.
(Mind you, the set of questions sent to universities only asked how much schools *saved* and mentioned nothing about if they’d actually *spent* more.)
This is not over
Tuesday’s meeting was a lil too quiet. There were limited questions, save one key one from Rep. Shane Baker about the language of a course description at UK (which was confusing because HB 4 has a lot of wording to not infringe on academic freedom).
But between the GOP’s ongoing interest in this, ongoing federal education changes, and the 2026 budget cycle, I’d be stunned if this was the last time we discussed HB 4.
We hustled, we didn’t lose power, I am ready to call it a night, y’all.
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