When Kentucky lawmakers passed a law this year eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in public colleges and universities, their intent was clear: Kentucky campuses will no longer be centers for ideological activism and will instead return to their primary purpose — education.
But the University of Kentucky isn’t fully complying with House Bill 4, which is based on Goldwater Institute reforms. Specifically, the university’s board of trustees missed its deadline to adopt a viewpoint-neutrality policy prohibiting discrimination based on political or social views. Instead, the board delegated its responsibility to the university president, whose neutrality statement says nothing about prohibiting viewpoint discrimination or promoting intellectual diversity. And it was never formally adopted by the board.
This week the Goldwater Institute and Christopher Wiest of Kentucky—a member of the Institute’s pro bono American Freedom Network—sent a letter to Attorney General Russell Coleman urging him to take action and to force the university’s leaders to follow the law.
In a powerful column this week, USA Today’s Ingrid Jacques said that an Indiana mom represented by the Goldwater Institute is “right to sue” her local school district for retaliating against her for recording a conversation with her daughter’s principal.
Whitley County Consolidated Schools banned Nicole Graves from her daughter’s middle school and prohibited her from contacting school staff without prior permission, all because she dared to record a private conversation with the principal. That violates Nicole’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, so she and Goldwater sued the district in federal court to have its recording policy revoked.
Jacques called the punishment “absurd” and praised Nicole for her “bravery and for standing up for parental rights everywhere.” In addition to USA Today, the column has been published in dozens of other news outlets across the country.
Read the USA Today column here.
Local news took note this week of the Goldwater Institute’s property-rights victory in its case against the city of Holbrook, Ariz., which had passed a targeted zoning change on a motel property, putting the kibosh on its sale and slashing its value.
Goldwater recently secured compensation for the motel owner, Anil Patel, thanks to Proposition 207, the Goldwater-drafted Private Property Rights Protection Act, which protects property owners when government actions reduce the value of their land.
The Painted Desert Tribune, which covers Holbrook, reported that “in the complaint filed by the Goldwater Institute it states that Holbrook officials were attempting to seize Patel’s property by prohibiting him from using his land as he sees fit by usurping private property rights.”
