Written by Jason Ellis
The Boone County School Board recently declined to consider LifeWise Academy’s proposal to allow students to leave class for weekly Bible study. The request was made possible by a new Kentucky law permitting one hour of “moral instruction” during the school day. LifeWise, an Ohio-based nonprofit, has expanded across several states by offering Bible-based classes to public school students. Supporters frame the program as values education, but its curriculum is explicitly religious, raising questions about whether it fits within the same ideological debates that have surrounded diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Conservative lawmakers have argued that DEI programs divide students and politicize education. Just last year, Kentucky’s legislature passed new restrictions on DEI initiatives at public colleges and universities, and, in the past weeks, Sen. Lindsey Tichenor (R-Smithfield) presented a draft of a bill to end DEI in K-12 schools to the Interim Joint Committee on Education, stating “DEI reinforces division rather than unity, and encourages students, teachers and staff to see each other through the lens of identity and creating group think instead of creating independent thinkers.” Yet LifeWise’s model is also inherently ideological, privileging a particular religious worldview. If neutrality is the standard, then I believe LifeWise deserves the same scrutiny as DEI…