Lawmakers Must Protect Free Exchange of Ideas On Campus

For over five years, I served on the faculty of the Lewis Honors College at the University of Kentucky. I was proud to teach and mentor hundreds of wonderful students. I taught my students that real education only happens when students and teachers commit to the pursuit of truth free from dogmas and ideological blinders.

I also saw how many students struggled to afford tuition payments that increased year after year. For these reasons, I strongly believe state lawmakers must act to eliminate a barrier to freedom of inquiry and a major source of wasteful spending: discriminatory “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) initiatives at public colleges and universities.

Although the goals of DEI appear unobjectionable, DEI initiatives promote discrimination, division, and distrust. DEI offices advance a narrow ideology that divides the world into the binary categories of “oppressor” and “oppressed.”

Read the rest of the op-ed at the State Journal.

Timothy K. Minella is a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy. A Kentucky resident, Minella previously served as a faculty member in the Lewis Honors College at the University of Kentucky.