The demonstration began as a single protest and letter-writing session planned at the University of Louisville where organizer, Savannah Dowell, is a junior.
"We're really just telling them personal stories about ourselves, our lives, and our education, trying to do a little bit of myth-busting," said Dowell. "These DEI programs, these diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at our universities, they help us, and getting rid of them would be catastrophic for all of our studies, for our support systems at our universities, and more.
Dowell is a founding member of UofL's Student Coalition for DEI, which rallied against last year's anti-DEI bills SB6 and HB9.
"Both of which failed," said Dowell, "But only due to Republican infighting. So, you know, we were like, this is coming back. This is something that we need to watch. We need to prepare in advance so that, hopefully, we can get ahead of it and make sure that there's vocal student opposition coming from everywhere in the state."
Dowell contacted organizations across Kentucky's seven other public universities, proposing a series of concurrent demonstrations. On Friday, February 28, all eight held rallies with a single message - opposition to Kentucky House Bill 4, which would prohibit universities from making considerations on the basis of religion, race, sex, color, or national origin.
A student on UK's campus explained it this way:
"This is a bill that, if it were to pass, would gut funding for bias incident investigations, put inclusive environments like the MLK and LGBTQ+ centers at risk, and solidify the loss of the University of Kentucky's Office of Institutional Diversity and faculty diversity training."
Sierra Harris, president of the Black Student Union at Morehead State University, says that, with institutional diversity programs dissolved, student organizations feel pressure to pick up the slack, but without resources or structural support.
"In the past, DEI legislation and funding was able to fund events and give us things to spread diversity on campus and bring the community together," said Harris. "And since bills came out and we can no longer get that diversity funding, we kind of have to scrap for change as students."
HB 4 would also prohibit the teaching of "discriminatory concepts," a definition which includes discussion of unconscious bias.
Jillian Gabbert, the student who organized the protest on EKU's campus, says this would affect her directly as an education major.
"We will not be properly trained to do our jobs," said Gabbert. "In the state of Kentucky, when you are applying for your teacher's license, you have to check a box that says that you are committed to providing equity for all students in Kentucky. If we are not trained to do that, we will have classrooms where children aren't learning how they need to be learning and aren't being treated with the respect and dignity that they deserve."
Back at UofL, Dowell says she's watched the resources offered by her university dwindle under pressure from the state and federal governments.
"Our Office of Institutional Equity actually gutted its website of everything. All that was left was quick blurbs on the Office of Institutional Equity and Title IX, ADA, and the Disability Resource Center. Everything else was gone.
Though many of those programs have since been restored following reporting by Louisville Public Media, many other universities, like UK and NKU, have dissolved their DEI offices in what Dowell calls a form of preemptive compliance.
"Which, you know, is ultimately exactly what all of this wants out of all of us," said Dowell. "The goal is to get people to get so scared of losing their money so that they'll just act in advance. They'll just abolish everything in advance, and you don't even have to pass anything."
HB 4 had its first reading the same day as the demonstrations. WUKY has reached out to Representative Decker for comment.