Time to talk: a call for a meeting with legislators and students

Tanner Hancock

January 13, 2016

This past December, the University of Tennessee once again made national headlines as Rep. John J. Duncan (R-Tenn.) publicly criticized on Fox News a memo on the university’s office of diversity and inclusion for attacking Christianity. The post, which in part suggested students and faculty make sure that “your holiday party is not a Christmas party in disguise,” was immediately decried by the state’s Republican political majority, with some even calling for suspension of state funding to the university’s diversity office.

Everyone’s shouting, but no one is talking.

Over the past week, I’ve had the pleasure of covering the latest in a string of controversies between the Tennessee legislature and UT’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion. If you’re not already aware of what’s going on, here’s the short version: our state legislature is angry with our Office of Diversity, and many students are angry that they’re angry.

Simply put, everybody’s angry, yet strangely enough, there’s been no dialogue between the students and the people who represent them in government. And that needs to be fixed.

So here it is: I’m proposing a face-to-face meeting between the students of the University of Tennessee and those Tennessee lawmakers who have taken issue with the Office of Diversity, specifically:

Should any (hopefully all) of these representatives agree to meet face-to-face with UT’s student body, The Daily Beacon will personally organize it, proctor it, cater it or do whatever it takes to make this important conversation happen.

As news editor for the school paper, one of the standards I’m expected to uphold is objectivity in my reporting, and I don’t plan on breaking that here. I am not promoting a liberal agenda. I am not promoting a conservative agenda. What I am promoting, rather, is a chance to bridge the disconnect between the people in Nashville and the students of our state’s flagship university.

If our state representatives are serious about upholding their responsibility to all Tennesseans (as I’m confident they are), then they should jump at the chance to listen to the voices of those Tennesseans who just happen to be in school.

So give the politicians a call, shoot them an email, spam their Facebook page, whatever it takes to get a response. It’s time to stop complaining to the middle-man (see: Chancellor Cheek), and voice your concerns directly to our representatives.