Student group to protest anti-DEI law implementation at UTC
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- A group of UTC students say they are furious with recent changes due to new state legislation.
Last week, UTC Chancellor Dr. Lori Bruce announced a series of changes on UTC’s campus due to a series of anti-DEI laws.
She said there are going to be four different offices that are going to be closing in order to comply with those.
These are the Women’s and Gender Equality Center, the PRISM Center, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and the Office of Family and Student Engagement.
Some students on UTC’s campus are unhappy with those changes and are planning to voice their displeasure with the Tennessee Legislature.
Student organization UTC Civic Engagement held a tabling session Wednesday to educate students on new laws that ban offices from serving specific demographic groups.
The student group’s president, Elyssa Looney, says she used the Women’s and Gender Equality Center.
Looney said, “It’s just like a really nice safe space. It’s quiet. I always feel like I can be myself there.”
The university is replacing these groups with the UTC Center for Student Leadership, Engagement and Community.
UTC says this new center, which is to soft launch on October 15, will streamline the university’s efforts to be compliant while offering services to students.
However, Looney is concerned that this will not be able to fully service individual students’ needs.
She said, “The reaction that I get that it seems like UTC is trying to erase student groups of people who have undergone discrimination and ostracism.”
These changes were made due to the Tennessee legislature passing a series of bills that prohibit universities from establishing services based on gender, sexual orientation, and race among other characteristics.
Rep. Aron Mayberry of Clarksville said when the bills were voted on that, “DEI is about lifting up a group of people above another group of people… another word for that is discrimination. Identity based politics are aimed at segregating and separating people into groups.”
UTC Civic Engagement is holding a protest next Tuesday where they hope to send a message to Tennessee legislators.
Looney said, “Students matter, and that combining students and politics is wrong…. If our legislators want to make differences in our education, they need to come here and ask us first. They’re sitting in their ivory towers making these decisions, and they didn’t even come and look at how this is going to affect student groups or our campus.”
They are planning to march from Chamberlin Field to the Federal Courthouse on Georgia Avenue.
