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Landmark Victory! Kentucky Eliminates DEI from Public Universities

March 28, 2025

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) is going down across the country as Americans reject the hatred and discrimination that hides behind feel-good buzzwords.   

Kentucky is the latest state to eliminate DEI from public colleges and universities. Overriding the veto of Governor Andy Beshear, the Kentucky legislature recently passed House Bill 4 into law. This legislation, based on Goldwater Institute reforms, eliminates a broad range of discriminatory DEI policies that waste taxpayer money and transform college campuses into centers of ideological activism.  

This victory over DEI follows a Goldwater report revealing the corruption of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE), a powerful bureaucracy that sets policies for all public institutions in the Bluegrass State. CPE forced schools to adopt targets for the racial makeup of students and staff and to implement other discriminatory DEI policies. HB 4 removes this power from CPE, eliminating the top-down implementation of DEI in Kentucky.  

With this landmark legislation, Kentucky is joining states across the nation that are recognizing the incompatibility of DEI with the purposes of public universities: the pursuit of knowledge and the education of citizens. Goldwater will continue to advocate for our reforms that will eliminate the DEI scourge for good.  

Find out more about Goldwater’s work to defeat DEI here. 

Timothy K. Minella is a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy.  

 

 

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