In the past month, the University of Kentucky has revoked support for numerous identity-based student organizations (IBOs) and denied students access to gender-inclusive housing for the upcoming semester.

As of Thursday, Oct. 16, UK has not formally announced either of these initiatives, nor have they communicated them in writing to those impacted. 

On Sept. 22, the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering held a meeting with seven student organizations informing them that UK could no longer provide them support, including funding, dedicated space and faculty advisors, according to multiple people in attendance. 

An attendee shared an email with the Kentucky Kernel, inviting the groups to the meeting with Rudolph Buchheit, the dean of the college of engineering. Sent on Sept. 16 by Buchheit’s executive assistant Edwina “Robyn” Morefield, the email lists the following organizations, requesting two representatives of each come to a one-hour meeting:

• Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE)
• National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE)
• Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
• Graduate Society of Women Engineers (GradSWE)
• STEMgiQueers 
• Phi Sigma Rho
• Triangle Fraternity 
• Association for Computing Machinery for Women (ACM-W)

The email did not specify the purpose of the meeting, but SWE secretary Jillian Fortwengler said her organization had an idea of its intent. 

“It was kind of like very ominous, but a lot of us assumed what it was going to be about just because of the wording of the email and just choosing the identity-based organizations,” Fortwengler said.

Fortwengler and a representative of STEMgiQueers confirmed the student groups also noticed before attending the meeting that their UK bank accounts were frozen.

At the meeting, Fortwengler said Buchheit told her and the rest of the organization representatives they would not be able to access the funds previously held in UK accounts. 

Fortwengler and a representative of the NSBE told the Kernel the dean said organizations would need to have their donors reroute the money to external accounts if they wanted to access it. 

Attendee notes from the meeting shared with the Kernel said that the IBOs are still allowed to operate as registered student organizations and accept private support. At the time of publishing, they are all still listed on BBNvolved.

Attendees told the Kernel that Buchheit said they would also no longer be able to have their own permanent dedicated spaces on campus, but that they could still reserve spaces through UK’s event management system.  

Any UK employees advising these organizations will no longer be allowed to have “designated roles” associated with them and can only oversee IBO operations on a voluntary basis, Fortwengler said.

Representatives of the IBOs at the Sept. 22 meeting told the Kernel Buchheit attributed the changes to federal and state legislation. 

University spokesperson Jay Blanton confirmed this was the reason for the changes, citing House Bill 4 and a letter UK received from the Office of Civil Rights.

House Bill 4, passed in March in Kentucky, “prohibits a public postsecondary education institution from providing differential treatment or benefits on the basis of an individual’s religion, race, sex, color, or national origin.” 

The OCR letter, which outlined UK’s violation of Title VI, gave UK until Nov. 30, 2025 to determine which “identity-based” organizations can receive university support in compliance with federal instruction. 

“We have all these organizations of minorities within the college of engineering and also all around campus, and them selecting just the identity-based organizations to drop funding to make, they literally said, ‘to make the playing field even,’” Fortwengler said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me. I just feel like I can’t wrap my head around it, especially with all that’s going on and all the laws being passed. I don’t know why we’re targeting individuals who are just trying to be equal with others.”

Fortwengler said SWE has had to reconsider whether they can travel to their annual national conference. An anonymous representative of STEMgiQueers confirmed they had to cancel their conference plans due to a lack of funding. 

“Really, I got a job from one of those events, and we don’t know if we can take people still,” Fortwengler said. “We don’t really know what to do if we don’t have the money to do that, because we have money, we just can’t use it. I think it’s going to drastically affect all of our future events.”

Sources within the J. David Rosenberg College of Law, including OUTLaw president and second-year law student Lucille Kirk, confirmed they attended a similar meeting.

On Sept. 25, the college of law deans met with all college of law student organization presidents and told them all of their funding is frozen indefinitely, excluding groups associated with academic credit. Typically, every year, the college of law allocates $750 to each student organization. 

According to Kirk, college of law officials told the organizations that they legally had to cut the $750 funding for “identity-based organizations” due to House Bill 4 but decided to cut it for everyone for “fairness’ sake.” 

“If we run out of money, then we can’t do anything fundamentally,” Kirk said. “ I think, for smaller clubs in an undergraduate sense, that are specialty in nature and also have to do with identity. It may functionally kill those clubs because they don’t have a budget. So while the language (in the bill) is not getting rid of them, it’s creating a reason for them to be killed off that kind of wipes their hands of it.”

It is unconfirmed whether other colleges have had meetings like the colleges of law and engineering. Blanton did not know about the meetings when the Kernel inquired, but confirmed that funding and space could no longer be provided to IBOs by UK.

“So that would be basically resources, and so under federal direction and law and policy, we do not believe we can do that,” Blanton said. “I can’t speak to a meeting that whatnot, but I can tell you kind of overarching way that would be the case.”

Blanton also confirmed that UK has discontinued gender-inclusive housing.

“In accordance with House Bill 4 and new federal guidance, the university can no longer offer separate housing accommodations based on applicants’ stated gender identity,” Blanton said. “I can tell you that, yes, to comply with state law, which is House Bill 4, and federal policy directions that we’ve received. The University no longer includes preferred pronouns on records.”

But UK did not tell anyone any of this. They instead opted to let students find out for themselves when it was time to arrange housing for the fall. 

“I don’t know what communication has been made, other than certainly when they, when you, when they’re going through that application process that’s no longer available,” Blanton said.

A faculty member who requested anonymity told the Kernel that numerous students have come to them confused by the changes and explained what “gender-inclusive housing” means.

“So these are trans and non-binary students who are able to request to live with other trans or non-binary students,” the faculty member said. “So they could be sure that they would be in a space where they were accepted for who they were, and that they could be safe and not be matched with someone who doesn’t understand or affirm them and is hateful to them.”

They said students currently living in gender-inclusive housing asked residence life about the process of reapplying for next year and were told it was not an option. 

“They looked into the process of requesting a room with people they already know, and you know, who they already know were affirming, and the only people who showed up that they could request a room with were people who had the same gender markers that they did,” the faculty member said.

In the past, students’ gender in the registrar did not impact their ability to receive gender-inclusive housing.

“They’re in, like, different states of outness with their families or with their communities,” the faculty member said. “So some of them might not have had gender markers changed in the UK system, but through gender inclusive housing, that was not important.”

They said a student attempted to change their name and gender markers through the registrar on Oct. 10, but were told they could no longer do so as of that day. 

The faculty member also explained how this development, paired with the elimination of gender-inclusive housing, creates a dangerous situation for transgender and non-binary students. 

“So what this means, based on the students’ understanding, unless UK has another plan … the trans and non-binary students at UK are concerned, because if there’s a student who’s a trans woman who has not had her gender markers changed, that means her options next year appear to be, to be placed with men in student housing, and non-binary students have no guidance about what to do,” they said. 

The faculty member provided a direct statement from a transgender student, who requested to remain unnamed but is negatively impacted by the new guidelines.

“This presents a real danger to a lot of students who rely on gender inclusive housing to room with people they feel safe with,” the student said. “And the university has not directly communicated anything about any of this to the general student body or those currently in gender-inclusive housing.”

Blanton said students who may end up in housing situations they are uncomfortable with can still access other university resources.

“When students have concerns about their housing or roommate assignment, we’ve got options through Campus Housing Offices in success for them to make contact to ensure they’ve got a safe, comfortable living environment experience on campus,” Blanton said. “But yes, we can no longer offer those accommodations.”

Many of the engineering IBOs in conversation with the Kernel have confirmed they are working on a joint statement sharing their perspective on the situation.

UK has yet to announce these changes or publish any written policy.

“It causes confusion when things don’t happen in writing, it causes confusion, and it causes miscommunication and lack of clarity,” the anonymous faculty member said. “I think that the students seem tired and scared and overwhelmed, that they, you know, just want to be thinking about their midterms and their papers and being students, and instead, they’re having to advocate just to get accurate information.”