For students attending the University of Kentucky this semester, the first day of classes also marks a semester without an Office for Institutional Diversity.
UK announced last week it was eliminating its Office for Institutional Diversity , months after the state legislature tried to pass bills targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses statewide.
In addition, several other changes announced last week will go into effect. UK will remove mandatory diversity training throughout the university, and no employees will be required to write a diversity statement to be employed.
The Office for Institutional Diversity was created at UK about 15 years ago, and before that, existed as the Office of Minority Affairs since the early 1970s, UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said.
Tiffany Madden, a sophomore from Lexington, said she hopes changes to the Office for Institutional Diversity don’t mean changes to the opportunities or resources for minority students. Without a central office, Madden wondered what that would mean for students being able to find resources.
“I feel like if most people didn’t know where to go at first, it will probably be difficult or challenging to find out where the resources are now,” she said.
UK to eliminate Office of Institutional Diversity months after legislators targeted DEI
Madden said she was very shy during her first year on campus, and the Martin Luther King Center — a center on campus that works with students from all backgrounds and hosts events centered around cultural awareness, leadership and community — was where she found connections and friendships with other students.
“I was able to meet other Black people on campus. I was very scared about being here and there not being any Black people,” Madden said. “So that there’s a whole center for those types of things, that’s great.”
Sha-Niya Green, a junior from Louisville, has been involved with the Martin Luther King Center since her first year. When she heard the news about the Office of Institutional Diversity, she was “a little shocked.” Her first concerns were about offices and programming being completely removed from the university, though the MLK Center will remain at UK.
Programming within the office will move to other units on campus. For her, places like the Martin Luther King Center, which was previously housed under the Office of Institutional Diversity and will move to the Office for Student Success, provided a place for community and assistance as she began her college career.
“It’s important because it provides kind of a safety net for all the different, diverse people that are here,” Green said. “I know that I have a certain place where I can go in and they can help me, or help me get accustomed to being in a space that’s not catered to me.”
UK is expecting an enrollment around 35,000 students this fall. Last year, nearly 74% of the student population was white, 7% was Black, 6% were Hispanic or Latino and 4% were Asian, according to demographics on the university’s website.
Final enrollment data for the fall 2024 semester will not be known until several weeks into the current semester.
William Seay, a senior from Paducah, said he has some concerns about the office going away, but felt that diversity efforts can still be effective without an official office. Those efforts should be driven by a desire to create space for students, not just to make a university look better or more attractive, he said.
Having DEI programming on a college campus can “definitely broaden people’s scopes,” and introduce students to new ways of understanding people, Seay said.
“For people who feel like they’re excluded, or they don’t feel like they have a group that they belong to, it is nice to have that,” Seay said. “I think it’s a healthy outlet for that kind of stuff.”
UK President Eli Capilouto said he received feedback throughout the summer, including meeting with legislators who expressed concerns about the role of 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, Capilouto said.
In addition to other changes on campus, 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 last week.
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