After GOP Lawmakers Defunded Their Pride Center, These LGBT Students Decided to Run it Themselves

Tennessee Legislature Eliminated University’s Office of Diversity in Response to Article Advocating Gender-Neutral Pronouns

LGBT students at the University of Tennessee are fighting back after GOP state lawmakers did their best to shut down the school’s six-year-old Pride Center. 

Earlier this year, the Tennessee Legislature passed House Bill 2248, eliminating $445,000 in funding for UT’s Office of Diversity, which oversees the Pride Center. As a result, the Pride Center lost its faculty director and is no longer an administrative office within the university. Also gone are the Pride Center’s work study and graduate assistant positions.

The bill came largely in response to an article posted by the Pride Center’s director last year, in which she encouraged the use of gender-neutral pronouns on campus. After GOP Gov. Bill Haslam allowed HB 2248 to become law without his signature, a group of students calling themselves “LGBT Pride ambassadors” launched a fundraising campaign that has brought in $6,455 in just two weeks. 

“The Pride Center remains open,” UT spokeswoman Margie Nichols told The Knoxville News-Sentinel. “We are doing what we can to support it within the law.”

The LGBT Pride ambassadors say they’ll have to cut some educational programs, along with general center hours. Ambassador Jonathan Clayton told the News-Sentinel that although the bill “set the university back 20 years,” they hope to prevent the Pride Center from becoming “a somber space.” 

In addition to defunding the Pride Center, the bill forced the school to reorganize several other entities, including the Office of Multicultural Student Life, the Office of Equity and Diversity, the Educational Advancement Program and the Commission for Blacks, the Commission for LGBT People, the Commission for Women, and the Council for Diversity and Interculturalism, according to USA Today. 

In a statement, UT’s Black Student Union called the bill “a shameful attack on marginalized and under-represented students and communities.” 

“These decisions represent a dangerous step backward for our state,” the Black Student Union wrote. “In this increasingly hostile and bigoted climate, we are not the only SEC school without an office for diversity!” 

To contribute to the Pride Center, go here. 

 

Image via University of Tennessee Pride Center