While Senate Bill 6 stops short of prohibiting schools from having DEI offices or policies, it also would not compel any university or individual to sign on to the programs. The reasoning? Bill backers worry about the promotion of concepts they regard as "divisive."
Read the full list of concepts here.
Thursday, Kentucky lawmakers heard from not just from policy advocates but teachers and students. Kim Frierson, an associate professor in the school of social work at Spalding University, told the panel DEI should serve as an open to more honest and fruitful exchanges.
"A lot of DEI is how to handle difficult conversations, how do you hold different perspectives in your head, how do I understand that my perspective is not the only one but they're both valid," she told legislators. "Those are the things that we should be doing in DEI."
Skeptics also stressed the need for viewpoint diversity, but they argued the DEI programs themselves have actively stifled dissent.
Rebekah Keith described her experience interviewing for an RA position at the University of Kentucky as a freshmen, saying she encountered a backlash against those who didn’t adopt the language of DEI.
"This is the natural endpoint for DEI. Instead of just doing service work and treating everyone equally, you will look at people through the lens of race, ethnicity, sex, and then you will have to prove to UK how much you care about those categories instead of how much you care about those people as individuals," she said.
Supporters and detractors both spoke to the importance of freedom of speech and diversity but disagreed on whether DEI programs sometimes pit those values against one another.
"There's been a mission creep," Sen. Lindsey Tichenor argued. "We have not allowed for diversity of thought and we've chilled free speech because of that."
SB 6 is only one of several proposals targeting DEI programs, and others go further. Senate Bill 93, for example, would ban all local K-12 school districts from spending any money or resources on DEI programs or trainings.
The debate carries echoes of previous clashes over a number of ideas and priorities often loosely linked under the heading of "critical race theory." Council on Postsecondary Education President Aaron Thompson warned against painting all programs with a broad brush.
"In my opinion, as far as DEI, sometimes we're trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater and include every single thing there is into one pot, and say it's because of that... that's what's creating the issue," he said during Thursday's hearing.
One change to SB 6 would remove the right of individuals to sue over violations – a provision that drew objections from universities — shifting that authority to the attorney general.
