The school is really taking a wrecking ball to everything DEI related. Good for them.
From the Lexington Herald Leader:
UK to eliminate Office of Institutional Diversity months after legislators targeted DEIThe University of Kentucky is dissolving its Office of Institutional Diversity, months after the state legislature tried to pass bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses statewide.The move comes after UK President Eli Capilouto said he received feedback throughout the summer, including meeting with legislators who expressed concerns about the role of diversity, equity and inclusion — referred to as DEI — at UK.Lawmakers failed to pass the bills targeting DEI programs this past spring, but the university expects them to pursue similar bills next spring.In addition to eliminating the Office of Institutional Diversity, several other changes announced Tuesday will take effect in the next few weeks. UK will remove mandatory diversity training throughout the university, and no employees will be required to write a diversity statement to be employed, Capilouto said in a campus-wide email sent Tuesday afternoon.To be “impartial facilitators as an institution of broad perspectives,” the university and Capilouto will no longer make statements on political or partisan events or issues, including on the university website, he said. A new office, the Office for Community Relations, will be created in place of the Office of Institutional Diversity.“We share the value that out of many people, we are one community,” Capilouto wrote in the email.“We share a promise with Kentucky that all who turn to us should have the same opportunity to live a healthy, long life or cross that stage. That is how we honor our shared, common humanity. But we’ve also listened to policymakers and heard many of their questions about whether we appear partisan or political on the issues of our day and, as a result, narrowly interpret things solely through the lens of identity. In so doing, the concern is that we either intentionally or unintentionally limit discourse.”
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