Kentucky’s 2026 Legislative Session began earlier this month and several bills are already drawing controversy. One of them is Senate Bill 26 (SB26), filed by Sen. Lindsey Tichenor, R-Smithfield.
SB26 targets Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in Kentucky’s K–12 public schools. If enacted, the bill would eliminate DEI initiatives in elementary and secondary education.
SB26 defines DEI as any “policy, practice, or procedure designed or implemented to promote or provide differential treatment or benefits to individuals on the basis of religion, race, sex, color, or national origin.”
Supporters of the bill argue that it simply ensures students are treated equally, regardless of race, religion, or sex. Critics, however, contend that eliminating DEI programs risks marginalizing minority students and ignoring longstanding racial disparities.
Proponents of DEI maintain that because people of color have faced historical oppression in the United States, public institutions have a duty to account for those disparities in policy. From this perspective, opposition to DEI is often framed as inherently racist, and equal treatment under the law is dismissed as insufficient or even harmful.
Under this view, SB26, which seeks to eliminate DEI and treat all students equally in the classroom, simply plays into a generations-long attempt to oppress students of color. Because black students are historically—and many argue, currently—oppressed, equal treatment alone is viewed as inadequate.
These ideas are not merely confined academic debate. Dr. John Marshall, Chief Equity Officer in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS), following the election of President Trump, posted on social media that “THE MAJORITY of whites could care less” about black people and “have no issues harming you or yours.’”
Marshall is still employed by JCPS with a salary of $199,899.90—the second-highest salary in the district.
However, Marshall’s salary is just a small part of a much larger DEI infrastructure within JCPS. In the 2024 fiscal year alone, JCPS had a nearly $2 billion budget. Of that, JCPS designated $30.02 million for their Diversity, Equity, and Poverty (DEP) department. Another $38.57 million went to “Racial Equity Funds,” most of which was devoted to salaries. But not only is DEI a huge line in the budget, critics say it is also harmful to students.
DEI proponents argue that because white students are possessors of “white privilege,” it is now the duty of institutions to counteract that privilege through policy. This is the view that Rep. Sarah Stalker articulated in December of 2025, stating that: “I don’t feel good about being white every day, for a lot of reasons…”
Stalker went on to argue that white children should be confronted with their “white privilege” within the context of public school curriculum. The clip went viral online, inviting comments from Elon Musk and countless others.
While it is true that black people have historically been oppressed in America through chattel slavery and Jim Crow, remedying those injustices should not involve new forms of racial preference. Rather, the solution is to seek in the present to live up to our profession of the equality of every man, woman, and child before God and before the law—in this way, living out what Martin Luther King Jr. called the “true meaning” of the American creed.
SB26 seeks to do exactly that. Whereas DEI views the world through the lens of oppressor and oppressed, SB26 seeks to reinstate the historic American creed: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.
Such a creed demands that students of all races be treated equally and taught their worth as human beings. And this is exactly what SB26 seeks to do by demanding that schools’ disciplinary policies not “consider religion, race, sex, color, or national origin or otherwise establish student disciplinary caps or quotas on the basis of religion, race, sex, color, or national origin.” The bill makes similar demands on “employment, employee recruitment, employee hiring, employee promotion, contracts, contract renewal, student enrollment, and student services.”
An Executive Order by President Trump last January called DEI “wasteful” and “preferencing.” The President is right. DEI eats up countless millions of taxpayer dollars and delivers racial division in return—a poor return on investment by any measure.
By moving away from grievance-based frameworks and racial division, SB26 allows educators to refocus on core academic subjects and the essential character formation that equips students for life in the real world.