In September 2019, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin appointed attorney A.C. Donahue to the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees for a six-year term. Donahue, an attorney based out of Somerset, has a noted anti-LGBT history. Donahue has contributed extensively to the Southern Poverty Law Center designated hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which designates marriage as "a union between one man and one woman", and that "children do best when raised by their married mom and dad, and the best way to protect them is to promote marriage." Donahue is a member of the so-called Honor Corps of the organization, meaning he has donated 450 hours or more of pro bono work. Donahue also served as part of the legal team for former Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed for refusing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

According to the Board of Trustees website, the role of the Board is to act as "final authority in all matters affecting the institution and exercises jurisdiction over the institution's financial, educational, and other policies and its relation with state and federal governments." 

Having a member with such immense power over the Commonwealth's flagship educational institution and such close ties to Governor Matt Bevin, who has advanced anti-LGBT policies and endorsed discriminatory agendas of President Trump is a threat to the University of Kentucky, its LGBTQ students, and their allies.  The University was named one of the best universities for LGBT students by the Campus Pride Index, only one of twenty-five given this designation. Given the University's commitment to diversity, and the fact that Board has approved regulations that state "sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression as explicit identity categories that are named and supported in institution-wide policy and practice", Donahue's appointment is in direct violation of the supposed tenets the University claims to unwaveringly support. 

This petition calls upon the Kentucky Council on Secondary Education and the Board of Trustees to remove Donahue for cause of his evident animus to LGBT persons in the Commonwealth and nationwide. Regardless of his policy influence, to remove Donahue would be an ideological and symbolic committment for equal rights in the Commonwealth and in its higher education system. As the motto of the Commonwealth reminds us, "united we stand, divided we fall," and the presence of hateful ideology at such high levels only serves to divide us.