University of Kentucky faculty members have expressed concern over the revision of identity-based speaker event advertisements, saying it threatens free speech.

Three speaker events across three UK departments underwent title changes, including omitting gender, wealth and race-related wording. Some faculty members said they received edited event titles, but were unsure why they were made or where the direction to make them came from.

Identity-based event title changes signify censorship on campus, faculty members say. Instructors and staff have been advised not to speak with Kentucky Kernel reporters, and department chairs have warned them of “unforeseen consequences” for the department. 

Carolyn Sachs, UK alum and professor, spoke at UK in September as part of the Sociology department’s Centennial Lecture Series Talks. Sachs’s Ph.D. thesis discusses the historical erasure of women farmers and their involvement in agriculture as landowners and contributors. 

Sachs’s lecture was originally titled “Invisible, Empowered, Erased: Women Farmers Across the Globe.” According to a faculty member who requested to remain anonymous, the edited suggestion shortened the title to “Women Farmers Across the Globe,” omitting the words “invisible,” “empowered” and “erased.”

Former Sociology department chair and professor Pat Mooney introduced Sachs at the event and expressed concerns about the title change. 

“The question that women farmers haven’t been recognized for their role in agriculture. I don’t know who it’s threatening to. I don’t know why it’s problematic,” Mooney said. “And so, we don’t know. We haven’t been given a list of words that are unacceptable.”

Mooney said he has been in the Sociology department for about 40 years and served as acting chair for eight years. 

“I talked with (James) Hougland. He was chair for 11 years. Claire (Renzetti) was chair for 8 years. None of us have any memory of anybody wanting to restrict, change the title of a speaker’s talk,” Mooney said. “So we’re in really new turf. This is unprecedented in my experience.” 

Dr. Tanya Golash-Boza’s speaker event on Oct. 7 was originally titled “Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC’s Racial Wealth Gap.” According to the anonymous faculty member, the event’s title was renamed and advertised as “DC’s Economic Disparities in Historical Context.”

Dr. Golash-Boza’s biography on the event advertisement was revised to exclude her founding of the Racism, Capitalism, and the Law Lab at the University of California, Merced.

The suggested event advertisement also removed descriptions involving her involvement in racial coalitions. The sentence “Her work examines how racism and capitalism intersect and how law sustains inequality” was removed in the revised advertisement, according to an email sent to Justin Conder, department manager associate, provided by a Sociology department faculty member. 

On Nov. 12, UK’s English department hosted Colleen Lye, associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Lye’s talk was titled “Maoist Mulan“ before it was revised and advertised as “The Asian-American 60s.” 

Professor Gerónimo Sarmiento Cruz, assistant professor in the English department, introduced Lye’s talk and spoke about the title revision.

 “Colleen’s talk today is titled ‘The Asian-American 60s,’ which was (the) second title after the one in parentheses that we weren’t allowed to print in a poster, if I’m not mistaken,” Cruz said. “So, I guess I shouldn’t read it out loud.”

Event coordinators who requested to remain anonymous at Lye’s talk said this was the first event title in the English department that had been changed.

Anonymous English department faculty said they do not review events within departments, but they are required to send advertisements to UK’s College of Arts and Sciences for review. One of the coordinators said she sent the poster to Scott Bradley, assistant dean for communications and technical solutions at UK. 

Bradley declined to interview about the revision of Lye’s talk. He provided a written statement saying their team works with the College of Arts and Sciences, Dean’s Office, Office of University Events, PR and Marketing and others. 

“We are trying to work more closely with these offices to ensure compliance with new state and federal policies. But to be clear, we don’t approve events. Additionally, while we reviewed the department’s promotions for this specific event, we did not request changes to this event’s title.” Bradley wrote.

The Kernel did not receive a response about who requested the redaction of the title “Maoist Mulan” and who was providing guidance to their team regarding compliance with new state and federal policies. 

“I don’t think anybody wants to take responsibility for it. And I think that’s why they put a guy like Scott Bradley in the position of having to manage this, simply because he’s at the interface of IT, of the internet, and the faculty person. But it’s not fair to the IT people,” Mooney said.

Lye declined to comment on the event title revision, but spoke about personal concerns regarding censorship, saying she changed one of her research titles from “Marxist” to “materialist.”

“There’s so much censorship going on in terms of, like, you can’t use this word, that word, and Marxism could be one of those words,” Lye said. “People don’t like critical race, you know, there’s like, checking words ‘Oh, are you teaching trans feminism? Are you teaching this or that?’”

Lye said she hasn’t experienced censorship related to her work, but is cautious about associating the word “Marxist” with her name.

“There can be the danger of doxing when you have things up on your website, and then random people could be coming and giving you a hard time,” Lye said. “I myself have not directly experienced that recently, that is, in 2025, regarding personal attacks or something. But I know people who have.”

Conder shared an email with a sociology professor containing the suggested event revisions. 

All three suggested event title revisions stated that they were provided for “digital distributions (email and web),” according to the email sent by Conder. 

Conder has not responded to the Kernel’s request to who received these instructions.   

Event review and protocols document

The associate dean of UK’s Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Carmen Agouridis, emailed CAFE faculty and staff to follow up on a town hall meeting that addressed event reviews and protocols.

The email, sourced by a faculty member who requested to remain anonymous, contained a link to a document titled “Event Review and Protocols.”

The document states that UK PR is not approving events, but rather requesting that departments submit their event plans so they can better prepare for and respond to issues and questions that arise regarding the events. 

“We’ve asked communicators to share the college’s event calendar with us and any specific events or communications which may be sensitive publicly or potentially an issue with new policies like HB4 and federal DEI directives … We’ve worked on a couple to tweak how they promote those, but we are clear that these policies do not impact a faculty member’s research or class instruction, as well as registered student org activities, and protect academic freedom,” according to the document. 

Some professors have expressed concern about what the document implies. 

“I mean, it’s really concerning, right? I mean, I think that the policies say one thing, but the action doesn’t seem to really indicate that; it totally contradicts,” a faculty member who asked to remain anonymous said. “How to navigate through, kind of like going into this … Almost like a burning forest. I mean, it is a scary moment.” 

In the email, Agouridis directed further questions to CAFE’s director of marketing and strategic communications, Derrick Meads. 

Upon request for further information about the document, Derrick Meads directed the Kernel to Kristi Willett, UK PR’s executive director.

Willett said the attached document wasn’t a policy.

“It looks like some guidance that gives details of the processes of existing procedures for some facets of working with events management and about some requests made by our office in reviewing content calendars,” Willett said.

Minutes from this town hall meeting are not available on public record. When the Kernel requested documentation of the minutes from the town hall meeting, Agourdis directed reporters to UK spokesperson Jay Blanton. 

Mooney and the anonymous faculty members said they do not know where the instructions regarding event advertisement are coming from. 

The anonymous faculty interviewee said they are not sure if the instruction is coming from the college or university level. They said that changing the title of someone’s talk, their biography and proposing an alternative title threatens free speech.

“The university is so frightened, (the) university is so afraid,” the anonymous faculty member said. “Asking someone to change the title of their presentation. I mean, is asking somebody to change the title of their book, right? I mean, it’s the same thing. It seems to me that’s totally against the freedom of speech.”

Phrases “Racism, Gender, Maoist, invisible, empowered, erased, and racial wealth gap” were requested to be removed from digital and email advertisements, according to the email from Conder sent to Mooney. 

UK PR declined to be interviewed by Kernel reporters about the altered advertisements. 

Whitney Siddiqi, UK executive director of issues management and strategic operations, emailed Kentucky Kernel reporters a written statement saying UK PR does not approve event titles, but that it is doing “more content review of marketing and communications materials given the changing legal and policy landscape.” 

Faculty members have declined to speak on record or conduct interviews with media regarding the changed titles.

“It’s irresponsible to seek comments against the administration, on camera, from those who are most vulnerable and most at risk of retaliation,” a faculty member said. 

Mooney says without a list of prohibited words and phrases, professors have to self-censor, which may lead to overcompensation. 

“They can’t admit that there’s a list. Because then it’s clearly a violation of free speech- it’s clearly censorship. So it’s up to us to sort of guess. And cautious people will err on the side of caution. And make the list bigger than it even needs to be … So it’s kind of a catch 22, you make up a list, you sort of have to intuit,” Mooney said. 

Two faculty members in the Sociology department confirmed receiving the following email from department chair Ed Morris on Nov. 13:

“Good morning, everyone:

It has come to my attention that a reporter for the Kentucky Kernel has been contacting members of our department asking for an interview to discuss “recent regulations” and how our department may have been impacted. I strongly advise you to NOT speak with this reporter on these issues.

While this is a legitimate request and we should all support student journalism, there are just too many risks to discussing these issues in the current environment. This could potentially lead to unforeseen consequences for you and our department.

Please let me know if you want to discuss this further.

Best,

Ed”

Mooney said that university instructors were previously encouraged to speak with the media, and that it was good PR for the university. He said UK PR routinely emailed instructors asking them to speak with reporters. He said this has been a reversal of his understanding of 40 years in the department. 

“That’s a fact that people are afraid, that’s an indication of the censorship, of the loss of freedom of speech. I shouldn’t have to be afraid to talk about these matters.” Mooney said. 

Faculty senate disbandment and resolutions to campus free-speech protections about DEI and HB4 dissuade professors and faculty from speaking.

“This is a slippery slope, it seems to me. If there’s going to be suggestions that we change the titles of guest speakers, I don’t know where that goes,” said Mooney.

If you’ve attended a censored event or your department has been affected by the UK’s new policies, please contact [email protected].