Members of the Kansas Board of Regents are pictured on May 20, 2026.

In what has become an annual exercise to keep $2 million of state funding, the University of Kansas and the state’s other public universities are being ordered to address diversity, equity and inclusion topics.

This year, the Kansas Legislature’s orders are limited: Create some definitions related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and its philosophical cousin known as critical race theory.

While limited, higher education leaders began to learn this week that the task likely won’t be simple. A draft policy creating such definitions received a hearing at the Kansas Board of Regents on Wednesday, but the only thing to come out of that meeting is that a different set of definitions will be brought forward next month for consideration.

“I think there may be some thoughts about whether this is going to pass muster with some of the legislative audience,” John Yeary, general counsel for the Kansas Board of Regents, told a subcommittee of the Regents on Wednesday.

In other words, the proposed definitions may not go far enough to satisfy members of the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature, where a majority of lawmakers are concerned about DEI topics becoming too heavily emphasized at the state’s universities.

Over the last couple of years, those lawmakers have inserted requirements – known as provisos – into the state’s budget bills prohibiting certain DEI activities. Those provisos have included the elimination of specific DEI positions, prohibited contracts related to DEI initiatives, and in a move that was protested by several staff members, required changes to e-mail signature blocks so that preferred pronouns – like ‘they’ and ‘them’ – were not included in state email accounts.

All those provisos remain in the most recent state budget bill, but lawmakers added additional requirements. The lone one for budget year 2027 – which begins in July – is that universities define DEI and critical race theory. Those definitions are in anticipation of potential changes universities would be required to make to classes for the 2028-2029 school year.

This year, however, universities are only tasked with creating definitions, with the major one defining what is meant by “DEI-CRT-related content.” Beginning in the 2028-2029 school year, universities essentially would not be allowed to require any students to take a class that contains DEI-CRT-related content.

If the Kansas Board of Regents doesn’t come up with a definition before the end of July, each of the state’s six public universities could have $2 million in state funding withheld from their state budgets.

With that in mind, Regents got their first look at a proposed definition for DEI/CRT-related content: “With respect to DEI, content that intentionally establishes and promotes the preferential treatment of groups based on race, color, gender, ethnicity or national origin in violation of federal law.” And, as it relates to CRT: “Content that defines a conceptual framework, as the singular and authoritative lens, establishing racism to be systemic within laws, policies, or institutions.”

While the Regents were presented with those definitions on Wednesday, almost immediately their general counsel told Regents to expect a different version of the definitions when they come back to the board for approval in June.

Yeary and his staff have been communicating with university leaders, and he also indicated he had received feedback from some people involved in the legislative process.

“We’ve got to recognize that we have a line to walk there,” Yeary said of feedback from university leaders and legislative leaders. “The language is meant to do something, and there is some work that has to happen after that with courses, so we want it to be doable.”

What the definitions would look like next month was unclear. Regent Pamela Ammar objected to the phrase “singular and authoritative lens” as the bar content must clear to be considered critical race theory content. She said the phrase seemed overly broad and vague.

“I feel like we need to narrow that in some way,” she said.

However, Regent Peter Johnston noted that the language did put some meaningful limits on what could be considered CRT content. He said if that phrase is dropped from the definition, he wants to see some replacement phrase that makes it clear that not all discussions regarding race are CRT content.

“The concern I’ve had is the ability of professional historians or professional political scientists to study these things from the lens of history or the realms of political science without running afoul under the law based on a definition that is overly broad,” Johnston said.

Multiple provosts who were in attendance at Wednesday’s subcommittee meeting of the Regents expressed similar concerns. KU Provost Arash Mafi told the group that he’ll want to see a definition that won’t limit “robust” conversations in KU classrooms.

“We want to make sure that the professors are able to do what they are supposed to do,” Mafi said.

Regents likely will consider adopting definitions at their June 17 meeting.