Kansas Legislature passed a budget proviso barring state and university employees from listing pronouns and tying $4 million to ending DEI programs

On April 11, 2025, the Kansas Legislature gave final approval to Substitute for HB2007, the state's FY2026 omnibus appropriations bill, which carried a budget proviso restricting how public employees may communicate their gender identity. The proviso bars state agencies and state universities from permitting employees to include gender-identifying pronouns or "gender ideology" in email signature blocks or "any other form of communication," and it conditions roughly $4 million in funding on ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, training, and positions. Substantively identical language also appeared in the primary budget bill SB125, but the enacted vehicle was Substitute for HB2007. Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, championed the pronoun and DEI budget language.

Gov. Laura Kelly subsequently signed the budget into law without line-item vetoing the proviso, and the secretary of administration was directed to certify agency compliance. Because the restriction operates through the appropriations bill rather than a standalone statute, it reached every executive agency and Board of Regents university funded by the budget, converting a spending measure into a statewide limit on how transgender and nonbinary public employees may identify themselves at work.

Updates

2025-07-24 — Regents universities directed employees to strip pronouns by July 31 [3]

By late July 2025, Kansas Board of Regents institutions, including the University of Kansas, had instructed employees to remove gender-identifying pronouns from email signatures and other official communications ahead of a July 31, 2025 compliance date set to satisfy the budget proviso.