Kentucky’s New DEI Law Ends “White Ally” Therapy Training, Campus Reform Reports on AIM Investigation
August 8, 2026
Kentucky anti-DEI law seemingly ends NIH-funded professor’s ‘white ally’ therapy training
Jacob Aurelus ’27 | Campus Correspondent | August 8, 2026, 6:03 am ET
A University of Louisville professor who received nearly $500,000 in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to study race-related stress helped develop an American Psychological Association-approved training program that educated therapists on “allyship”
Asked about the status of the program, a University of Louisville spokesman told Campus Reform it is the university’s understanding that the Dialectical Engagement in Anti-Racism (DEAR) Project “held its last training session in December 2024, prior to the enactment of HB 4.”
Kentucky lawmakers approved House Bill 4, prohibiting public universities from expending institutional resources on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Public institutions were required to comply with the law by June 30, 2025.
The timeline places the DEAR Project’s last publicly identified training before Kentucky’s DEI restrictions took effect, highlighting the type of race-focused programming Republican lawmakers said House Bill 4 was intended to address at the state’s public universities.
The DEAR Project was co-founded by University of Louisville psychology professor Dr. Yara Mekawi alongside psychologists Natalie Watson-Singleton and Danyelle Dawson, who describe themselves as “three women of color scholar-psychologist-activists.”
The organization became an approved continuing education sponsor through the American Psychological Association (APA), allowing licensed mental health professionals to earn continuing education credits required for professional licensure by attending its workshops.
Federal grant records show Mekawi received $478,120 in NIH funding to study chronic race-related stress among black Americans through the university’s Challenging Ongoing Legacies Of Racism (COLOR) Lab, which she continues to direct.