By Jesse Dolojan, Staff Writer

Northern Kentucky University (NKU) closed its Office of Inclusive Excellence (OIE) on Aug. 29. The OIE aimed to ensure that diversity, inclusivity and equity were involved in various aspects of NKU’s activities such as the admissions, hiring, and promotional processes, NKU’s student curriculum and the administrative structure. 

Earlier in the year, the Kentucky Senate attempted to pass a bill which would lead to the dissolution of their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices in public universities in Kentucky. Despite the fact that the bill did not pass. Some universities have shut down their own DEI offices due to pressure from Kentucky policymakers. UK President Eli Capilouto made the announcement on Tuesday, via email to the UK community. 

Ryan Canterbury, a senior English major at NKU, believes that funding was an additional issue in sustaining the OIE at NKU. “So We don’t know exactly what happened, but the story around campus is that they wanted to use the offices for things that are more beneficial to the entire university,” said Canterbury, “which makes sense, because NKU doesn’t have, famously, that much money for stuff like that.”

UK and NKU closing down DEI offices is part of a nation-wide trend of various state legislatures passing legislation to limit DEI efforts. Florida and Texas have eliminated DEI related jobs on college campuses, and Alabama and Utah have pushed to further limit DEI efforts in K-12 schools and in state government. 

Christopher Sumo is a Xavier senior marketing major who is the treasurer for Minorities in Business and treasurer and social media personnel for the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. When Sumo heard that NKU dissolved their OIE, he stated he would be upset if something similar happened at Xavier. “Once you close those DEI offices, boom. There goes funding for the diverse and multicultural clubs and Greek organizations,” Said Sumo.

“Once the funding goes down, the clubs are often left to fend for themselves if they don’t have a strong base or a reoccurring source defined but they’re going down as well. The diverse population probably follows, because there are no more safe spaces on campus to be themselves”.

Sumo has faith that even if Xavier were forced to shut down their DEI offices, students and faculty are passionate enough to continue DEI efforts on campus. “I do think it’s definitely possible. Now, will it be easy? Of course not. Because anything worth having, worth keeping, more worth keeping, more worth working to is never easy,” Sumo said.