Roughly 20 Black students from Louisville universities walked the stage at St. Stephen Baptist Church May 8 for the inaugural “Ascension Citywide Black Graduation Ceremony,” hosted in resistance to recent state and federal crackdowns on anti-diversity, equity and inclusion practices in higher education.
The event — unaffiliated with any local universities — welcomed students from the University of Louisville, Bellarmine University, Spalding University and Simmons College of Kentucky, who had their names called over a microphone and received certificates and roses to mark the occasion.
The ceremony comes as anti-DEI policies have compelled colleges in Kentucky and around the country to cancel affinity graduations, a term used to characterize optional graduation ceremonies that celebrate the accomplishments of students from underrepresented groups. Kentucky’s public universities have been scrambling in recent weeks to comply with House Bill 4, which prohibits public universities in Kentucky from spending money on DEI initiatives, before the June 30 deadline.
In April, UofL announced it had canceled its Lavender Graduation for LGBTQ+ graduates. The University of Kentucky similarly canceled ceremonies for Black, LGBTQ+ and first-generation students, prompting community members to organize events themselves, according to a report from the Kentucky Kernel, UK’s student newspaper.
Bellarmine, which has hosted a Lavender and Multicultural Celebration during its “Senior Week” in the past, initially canceled it to comply with a federal directive to end DEI practices but has since put the event back on its calendar, Bellarmine spokesperson Jason Cissell said. A federal court’s injunction blocking the directive’s enforcement opened the door to working with students to revive the event, Cissell said.
UofL professor Ricky Jones, who helped organize the Ascension ceremony and has written op-eds that appear in The Courier Journal, said Black students face barriers in higher education that many other students do not. He pointed to lower retention rates for Black students compared to white students as a sign of ongoing racial disparities.
“The ones who actually make it through, we feel like they deserve some special honor because they go through special struggles,” Jones said.
Canceled affinity graduations are just one grievance in a larger struggle for racial justice, Jones said.
“This isn’t just about Black graduation. This is about the abandonment of the Black community — of Black men, women and children, certainly at these schools, but in other spaces, by white leadership in the city of Louisville and the state of Kentucky and certainly around the country,” Jones said. “We are tired of begging white leadership to do right by Black men, women and children. We just can’t do it anymore, so we have to start building our own.”
‘A celebration of community and cultural excellence’
Community members and families and friends of graduates attended the ceremony, which was designed to closely mirror a traditional school-sponsored graduation. Faculty from local universities wore regalia and filed into the church’s auditorium to “Pomp and Circumstance.”
Jones opened the ceremony by discussing the purpose of the graduation, criticizing university leaders who have largely signaled intent to abide by HB 4.
“There are just laws and there are unjust laws. I will be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws,” Jones said. “So the question is, are our current educational leaders moral?”
State Reps. Joshua Watkins, D-Louisville, and Keturah Herron, D-Louisville, and Kentucky Senate Minority Floor Leader Gerald A. Neal, D-Louisville, were in attendance to support graduating seniors. The Rev. Kevin Cosby, pastor of St. Stephen Baptist Church and president of Simmons College, gave the keynote address.
The atmosphere was cheerful as graduates’ names were called, with people in the stands shouting and clapping for the graduates.
Gabriel Rollins, a graduating UofL student, was one of the participating students. He said the intimate setting made the recognition more meaningful.
“I just see it as a celebration of community and cultural excellence. It’s just a blessing to be here, see all these smiling faces,” Rollins said.
Rollins will walk at UofL’s commencement ceremony May 10 at the KFC Yum! Center — an experience he said is no replacement for the moment he shared at St. Stephen Baptist Church with his mother and grandfather sitting in the stands.
“It’s not personal. You won’t feel the community aspect to the graduation. You don’t feel the love of everyone in the room kind of rooting for you. You just feel like another number,” he said.
Contact reporter Killian Baarlaer at kbaarlaer@gannett.com or @bkillian72 on X.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Inaugural Black graduation ceremony amid anti-DEI policies in Kentucky