University of Kentucky students advocated for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives during “Day of DEI” protests.
“Day of DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion) was a series of protests on Friday, Feb. 28, organized across multiple university campuses in Kentucky including the University of Louisville, Eastern Kentucky University and Murray State University, according to an Instagram post from university DEI groups.
UK students marched from the William T. Young Library to the Gatton Student Center chanting and holding signs with phrases such as “UKY KEEP DEI” and “DEI = Everyone.”
After marching, protestors also customized a banner celebrating “Day of DEI” at UK.
Logan Robertson, the lead organizer for UK’s “Day of DEI” and president of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), said, during his opening speech, DEI initiatives are essential to the success of universities and marginalized students seeking higher education.
“We can’t uplift our marginalized communities in our city, state or country without listening and aiding our students that come from these communities,” Robertson said.
At the beginning of his speech Robertson led chants of phrases including “Whose campus? Our campus” and “Education is a right, that’s why we have to fight.”
Robertson said he hoped the demonstration showed UK’s administration that students are willing to stand up for causes important to them, saying “We’re going to make sure that the administration advocates for us and our rights.”
Some goals to help advance these rights, according to Robertson, include reinstating UK’s DEI office and investing more into DEI programs.
The disbandment of UK’s Office for Institutional Diversity was also a concern for Grace Yi, a co-organizer of the protest and president of UK’s Students for DEI, and what it may mean for other groups on campus, like the Martin Luther King Center and the Office of LGBTQ* Resources.
“There’s no guarantee now that they’ll be protected, because we know that UK would bend in this kind of way,” Yi said.
During her speech, Yi said she felt the reasons universities have given for DEI disbandment were not reflective of their true stance, saying it does not seem to be about ineffectiveness.
“The University of Kentucky could have tested out alternative ways to encourage faculty to create inclusive environments,” Yi said. “They didn’t solve any of the structural issues that DEI was meant to be a temporary bandaid for. We’re still bleeding.”
Yi said painting DEI as “reverse discrimination” can mislead people, and that the effects of House Bill 4 “aren’t obvious when you’re first looking” because of the language used in the legislation.
“I am just hoping that we can all come together and recognize that the language about reverse discrimination in that bill and in some recent executive orders is just plain bullshit,” Yi said.
House Bill 4 would prevent universities from expending resources to “establish or maintain a diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative,” and “establish or maintain a diversity, equity, and inclusion office,” according to the legislation.
Since public universities rely on federal funding, Yi said, legislation similar to HB 4 is critical to the future of DEI at UK.
“We’ve cut things like the Confucius Institute in the past because of threats to federal funding,” Yi said. “We are so dependent on what legislature and what state funding is going to do to UK.”
Yi also said the language used about the term “equity” could also mislead people, referencing one of President Donald Trump’s memos which referred to equity as “Marxist equity,” according to NPR.
“Equity isn’t some crazy communist thing out to steal your guns and babies,” Yi said. “The idea is supposed to make up for the fact that certain communities are more disadvantaged.”
Throughout the first portion of the rally, representatives from multiple student organizations also spoke including representatives from the Latino Student Union (LSU), Asian American Association and OUTLaw.
OUTLaw is a group at UK’s J. David Rosenberg Rosenberg College of Law that focuses on LGBTQ issues in the law, according to OUTLaw’s BBNvolved page.
Amy Moctezuma Perez, the LSU representative at UK’s “Day of DEI,” talked about the importance of unity during her speech.
“They want us to stay divided and point the finger at each other and cover up the fact that the true evil comes from them and the 1%,” Moctezuma Perez said.
Moctezuma Perez encouraged attendees to not only “challenge yourself” by evaluating their own biases, but also to be aware of the role they can play in advancing issues important to them.
“Why do you think the way you do? Why do you hold the prejudices that you do?” Moctezuma Perez said. “We must recognize that we are way more impactful than we think we are, and that we not only deserve but have the right to belong in all spaces.”
