Adam Tamburin

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

A panel of state lawmakers voted Wednesday to strip state funding from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville's diversity office following months of outrage from Republican lawmakers over two controversial posts on the office's website.

The Senate Education Committee was reviewing the University of Tennessee system budget proposed by Gov. Bill Haslam when Sen. Delores Gresham, the committee chairwoman, proposed an amendment that would remove all state funding for the Knoxville campus' Office for Diversity and Inclusion.

"Only federal funds shall be expended to support the Office for Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville," the amendment reads.

The amendment passed unanimously.

The diversity office does not receive any federal funding, according to UT officials.

The amendment also would take $8 million out of the UT Knoxville budget and reroute it to UT agricultural extension services and rural outreach through the UT campuses in Chattanooga and Martin. When Gresham introduced the amendment for a vote, she mentioned its impact on rural communities but not on diversity funding.

Anthony Haynes, UT's vice president for government relations and advocacy, said Wednesday that "we certainly understand the intent behind" the amendment.

"Hopefully, we'll get a chance to work this out before we pass the final budget bill in April," Haynes said.

In an interview Wednesday evening, Gresham said she didn't know that no federal funds went to the diversity office, meaning the amendment stood to defund the office completely.

"That's not my understanding," Gresham said. "I would not completely defund the office. I think that would be extremely injurious. I would not do that, so I'll have to double-check that because that's not my understanding."

Shortly before the vote, UT President Joe DiPietro mentioned incidents of blatant racism on UT campuses that he said illustrated the need for investments in diversity programming. He said that in recent years someone had thrown bananas at a group of black prospective students, and in another incident someone threw cotton balls across the lawn of a black cultural center.

After his remarks, Gresham, R-Somerville, told DiPietro, "This committee is behind you and UT."

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Controversy drove amendment

Gresham's amendment comes after multiple lawmakers have questioned funding for diversity programming across the UT system.

In September the Knoxville diversity office published a column encouraging students and professors to use gender-neutral pronouns such as ze and xym when people requested them. Then, in December, media attention swirled around a separate post that gave UT employees tips to "ensure your holiday party is not a Christmas party in disguise."

Both posts were removed after heavy waves of criticism, and DiPietro has made repeated trips to Nashville to defend diversity programming. But lawmakers have continued to hint they would take action.

In December, following the holiday post, the Tennessee GOP State Executive Committee called for lawmakers to strip funding from the University of Tennessee's diversity office. Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, said "heads need to roll" at the diversity office.

On Wednesday, Gresham said the diversity office had "seen a couple of hiccups along the way, some errors in judgement in the approaches to a very worthy effort for inclusion and diversity." But she said the motivation for her bill had been to pump money into rural Tennessee, not to take money away from diversity efforts.

UT spends about $5 million annually on diversity programming, according to estimates from the university system. That's less than 0.25 percent of the system's $2.1 billion budget.

Earlier Wednesday, a special called House committee had quizzed DiPietro on diversity funding. That panel discussed diversity programming at UT and at the Tennessee Board of Regents college system for two and a half hours but took no official action.

Reach Adam Tamburin at 615-726-5986 and on Twitter @tamburintweets.

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