With the new legislative session well underway in Nashville, legislators are making good on their promise to de-fund the University of Tennessee’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. A bill recently introduced by State Senator Frank Niceley would cut the University of Tennessee school system’s diversity related funding to $2.5 million, a 75 percent decrease from the the nearly $20 million the school system funds its diversity efforts.
Primarily a response to the diversity office’s past gender neutral pronoun and holiday inclusivity postings, the bill would succeed in greatly diminishing funding to the diversity office, which receives a portion of the approximately $2 million allocated to diversity programming. It would also likely affect the nearly $16 million in diversity scholarships granted to minority students and students with disabilities.
The bill presents several other stipulations, including prohibiting the university from holding Diversity Week, yet the legislature’s intentions are set on completely restructuring how Tennessee schools approach the handling of diversity.
While Nashville vies for cuts, members of many student organizations at UT are approaching diversity from a very different perspective. This Friday, members of The Progressive Student Alliance, SEAT, volOUT and many others will present to Chancellor Jimmy Cheek a list of demands, which the Daily Beacon has printed here in full.
For senior and SEAT member Elizabeth Stanfield, the list of demands represents the frustrations she and many other students hold towards the administration for what they see as a lack of representation. During her four years at UT, Stanfield said she has witnessed the administration bow down to the will of the state legislature on matters of diversity. She remembers the administration’s decision to cut funding to Sex Week in 2013 and the removal of posts suggesting gender neutral pronoun usage and holiday inclusivity practices. Now in her final year, Stanfield said it’s time to take a stand.
“You’re supposed to be a buffer between us and the legislature,” Stanfield said of school’s administration. “Take us as seriously as they take the legislature.”
Rep. Micha Van Huss and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, both vocal opponents of UT’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Looking towards the future, Kristen Godfrey, a graduate student and member of the OUTstanding Planning Committee, said that while she doesn’t know what to expect, she knows exactly what to hope. Outlined in the list of demands, Godfrey hopes student action will lead to an apology from Chancellor Cheek and President Joe Di Pietro, as well as increased sensitivity training on matters relating to LGBT+ and minority issues. She sees failures in the little things too. Before the break, the the UT interactive map site had a searchable section for gender-neutral bathrooms. Now, it’s been changed to “family-style restrooms.”
“That is complete erasure,” Godfrey said, who asserts that the fight for diversity on campus must necessarily include all those underrepresented communities whose voices are not being heard. “I think that one of us can’t get free without the other. All of our liberation is tied together.”
Over the past semester, much of the legislature’s discontent has been aimed at Chancellor for Diversity Rickey Hall, who was asked to resign by several members of the legislature. In the wake of the holiday inclusivity post, a range of Tennessee students of differing backgrounds rushed to his defense. Now, it seems an even larger mix of students is organizing to express their dissatisfaction with both the state government and the school’s response to legislative pressure.
“We are customers at the university. I’m a customer and I deserve to feel safe no matter where I go,” said JT Taylor, a senior and member of the Progressive Student Alliance.
Like the other crafters of the list of demands, Taylor envisions a future where students, rather than politicians, choose how to define the campus culture.
“Only we can tell you what our campus climate is like,” Taylor said. “We can handle a campus climate on our own.”
