Article

When Our Work Becomes Illegal: Navigating Anti-DEI Laws in Kentucky 

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Abstract

In 2025, Kentucky passed a law outlawing DEI offices, resources, and programming in public colleges and universities. In this article, we—two academic librarians at an urban, public research university in Kentucky—reflect on how that anti-DEI law renders much of our collaborative and individual work illegal. We provide a chronology of DEI-related changes over a five-year period at our institution, highlighting the shift from the university’s goal in 2020 of becoming a premier anti-racist research university to DEI now being outlawed at the university in 2025.

Keywords: DEI, anti-DEI, colleges, universities, academic libraries, inclusion

How to Cite:

Howard, A. & Shareef, C., (2025) “When Our Work Becomes Illegal: Navigating Anti-DEI Laws in Kentucky ”, The Political Librarian 8(2), 73-79.