But a recent spate of controversies has led to questions about Capilouto’s future at the state’s flagship. On Tuesday, Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, posted a lengthy statement saying he was “losing confidence and growing increasingly concerned with the management and decision-making” at the university.

Beshear pointed to two particular events that sparked his concerns: the hiring of a law school dean over the objections of faculty, and the creation of a nearly $1 million job for the university’s athletic director, who was set to retire. A governor using his power and platform to influence university leadership isn’t unprecedented in Kentucky. In 2016, then-Gov.

Matt Bevin, a Republican, disbanded the entire Board of Trustees of the University of Louisville as part of an effort to facilitate the resignation of its president of 14 years, James Ramsey, who was mired in scandal. Capilouto, 76, is not facing anything like the allegations of fraud and misconduct that led to Ramsey’s downfall. But he is leading a university at a time when higher education is under enormous pressure in the statehouse and beyond… Another Democratic governor who has recently spoken out about higher-ed leadership is Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger.

Spanberger asked a handful of University of Virginia board members to resign as soon as she took office in January, and has moved quickly to make new board appointees. She has said her goal is to protect public universities from political pressure; her Republican predecessor, Glenn Youngkin, appointed conservative allies to campus boards and was in regular communication with them about influencing university policies and leadership. Jennifer Cramer, president of the University of Kentucky’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said Beshear’s concerns are the same as many faculty who question the university’s spending priorities and fear the complete loss of any role in academic decisions.

I have every bit as much confidence in the decision of the senior administration to hire this eminently qualified right-wing judge as the Dean of the Law School as I did in the decision of the senior administration to unilaterally dissolve the university senate! Here’s a summary of where we are from the Herald-Leader, and here from Above the Law: When Kentucky Law announced that Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove of the Eastern District of Kentucky would assume the deanship, it seemed like the school had finally gotten its ducks in a row. After all, the school hasn’t had permanent dean since Mary J.

Davis stepped back from the role back in 2024, and a pair of previous dean searches failed to find anyone. Stability appeared to be on the horizon. But underneath the surface, the announcement kicked a hornet’s nest.

Or, at Kentucky Law, a cockroach nest. According to the Louisville Courier Journal, weeks before that March 6 announcement, UK law faculty told university officials that a “substantial majority” of them found Van Tatenhove “unacceptable”: In a February email obtained by The Courier Journal, UK law school associate deans Joshua Douglas and Beau Steenken told law faculty they had sent an email to DiPaola and others involved in the dean search informing them that a “substantial majority of the faculty expressed that Candidate D does not meet the standards of the candidate profile” the university put forward.

Candidate D, obviously, was Judge Van Tatenhove. The other three finalists — Michael Higdon, Mary Graw Leary, and Milena Sterio — were all conventional academic picks and rated as acceptable to the faculty. The university disregarded the faculty pick and announced Option D anyway.

Did we mention that the judge served as a legislative aide to Mitch McConnell and chief of staff to GOP Rep. Ron Lewis? Well, he did.

From the university’s perspective, a politically connected former judge could be a boon to fundraising. From the faculty’s perspective, during an active Republican-led assault on academia, a Republican dean reads a lot like a white flag. Worth noting that Governor Andy has claimed a scalp, as Mitch Barnhart has demurred from taking on the responsibilities of his no work $1 million/year job. We’ll see how things play out from here.