Kentucky's GOP-led legislature passed House Bill 4 earlier this year, eliminating all DEI initiatives at public colleges. The new proposal would do the same in K-12 programs.
In a likely preview of what's to come in 2026, discussion of the bill led to some heated exchanges in an interim education committee meeting Tuesday.
The issue is reemerging amid a changed landscape under the second Trump administration. All but two Kentucky school districts — Fayette and Jefferson — have signed a U.S. Department of Education pledge agreeing not to employ “illegal DEI practices.”
Tichenor said the proposed Kentucky Educational Equality Protection Act is necessary to direct all districts away from "divisive" DEI policies, which she said have not produced any measurable improvements in student performance.
"If you are doing anything... in the classroom that is preferential or differential treatment, based on these things listed as discriminatory concepts, I don't see how that could benefit students in education," Tichenor said.
Rep. Tina Bojanowski, a Louisville Democrat and teacher, argued inclusion is a value schools have an interest in promoting.
"If we cannot have our children see themselves in the curriculum, if we cannot have initiatives that recruit teachers who look like our kids, it will continue to impact student achievement," the lawmaker countered.
Critics also accused DEI opponents of wanting to "whitewash" subjects. Among the exceptions in the bill, according to a summary provided by Tichenor, is a provision saying the bill does not affect "instruction on the historical oppression of a particular group of people."
"Obviously that's our history and we need to learn from our history," Tichenor added.
Read the full summary of the KEEP Act below.
The Kentucky Education Equality Protection Act
2026 Regular Session BR 1149
The KEEP Act prohibits the Department of Education, school districts, public schools, and educational cooperatives from:
- Providing any differential treatment or benefits to an individual based on the individual's religion, race, sex, color, or national origin;
- Prioritizing or providing preferential consideration for vendors, contracts, or other transactions based on religion, race, sex, color, or national origin;
- Expending any resources on DEI offices, officers, training, programing, initiatives, content, or materials or otherwise promoting discriminatory concepts;
- Soliciting any pledge or statement on an applicant's experience with or views on religion, race, sex, color, or national origin;
- Requiring or incentivizing an individual to attend diversity, equity, and inclusion training;
- Disseminating or profiting from any DEI research, work product, or material; and
- Implementing student disciplinary policies that consider religion, race, sex, color, or national origin or otherwise establishing student disciplinary caps or quotas based on religion, race, sex, color, or national origin.
The KEEP Act does not affect:
- Instruction on the historical oppression of a particular group of people;
- Academic research or creative works of students;
- Religious freedom of students and school employees;
- Conduct, speech, and freedom of association of students;
- Mental or physical health services;
- The ability of a school district to establish or maintain a single-sex school;
- Bona fide occupational qualifications and accommodations based on sex; or
- The ability of a school district or public school to comply with a federal mandate, if compliance is narrowly tailored to the express, enforceable provision.
Two methods of enforcement and accountability:
- The Attorney General may bring civil enforcement action to compel compliance; and
- A qualified individual may bring civil action for injunctive relief and reasonable and actual attorney's fees and litigation costs.
Other Notable Provisions:
- Conforming amendments to existing law that remove several current Kentucky DEI mandates;
- School employee salary transparency similar to other executive branch employee salary reporting;
- Discontinue racial data collection of educational certificate holders and targeted minority recruitment mandates for school districts;
- Require certificate holders transferring into Kentucky to be trained in Kentucky-specific educational laws; and
- Require the Kentucky Department of Education to take specific actions, including the creation of specific reports, in implementing the KEEP Act with fidelity