Tenn. legislators divert university diversity funds for year
NASHVILLE — Tennessee lawmakers Thursday approved a bill that diverts — for one year only — about $436,000 from the University of Tennessee office of diversity and inclusion and into scholarships for minority students in engineering.
If approved by Gov. Bill Haslam, that move ends — at least for this year — a push by conservatives angry over the Knoxville campus's annual Sex Week and memorandums to the campus community from the diversity office last year discussing gender-neutral pronouns and ways to make Christmas holiday office parties inclusive for non-Christians.
The diversity bill was one of about a half-dozen issues that kept the General Assembly from adjourning for the year Thursday. Lawmakers return Friday to work out compromises on a few other items.
Short of the diversity bill failing, the outcome was the second-best that University of Tennessee and diversity advocates could have expected. When demands to "defund" diversity programs surfaced last year, the discussion revolved around $19 million spent throughout public higher education on such diversity efforts as scholarships and faculty recruitment. Later, the Senate Education Committee recommended taking $8 million from the university's diversity programs.
The compromise adopted by a House-Senate conference committee and approved by both chambers essentially is the version approved earlier by the full Senate — taking money designated for salaries in the small office of diversity and inclusion, for school year 2016-17 only and using it to fund minority engineering scholarships.
The House version would have permanently diverted the money and earmarked 25% of it for "In God We Trust" decals for law enforcement vehicles. The other 75% would have funded minority scholarships.
University of Tennessee President Joe DiPietro said Thursday night, "We had frequent contact with elected officials over the course of the session, and we hoped the Legislature would understand our need to support and advance a culture of diversity and inclusion on our campuses.
"While we appreciate what could have been an $8 million hit being reduced to $436,000, we continue to be concerned about the loss of those important inclusion and diversity programs impacted by this reduction."
The House approved the compromise 63-21, the Senate 27-3.
It also prohibits state funds to be spent by University of Tennessee "to promote the use of gender neutral pronouns, to promote or inhibit the celebration of religious holidays, or to fund or support sex week."
There were denunciations of the bill on the floors of both chambers, by supporters of diversity efforts who charged that it was too much interference by the legislature in the university's operations, and by conservatives who complained it didn't go far enough.
"We're sending a disproportionately strong message to UT administrators. I think in future years there may not be an office of diversity," said Senate Minority Leader Lee Harris, a Democrat from Memphis.
Sen. Mike Bell, a Republican from Riceville, Tenn., said he took exception to Harris' remarks.
"This is a slap on the wrist compared to the foolishness that's come out of this office over the last several years," he said. "They're lucky we don't shut that office down."
In the House, Rep. Joe Armstrong, a Democrat from Knoxville, said the bill and the publicity about the legislature's efforts will hurt the university's efforts "to recruit world-class scholars, world-class athletes, world-class researchers."
Rep. Micah Van Huss, a Republican from Gray, the House sponsor of the defunding effort, said: "If the administration of UT doesn't want the legislature micromanaging, they should clean up their act. Nothing opens the closed mind of an administrator like the sound of a pocketbook snapping shut."
Follow Richard Locker on Twitter: @ricklocker