A-4 • OCTOBER 14, 2015 • HALLS/FOUNTAIN CITY Shopper news
Diversity efforts not all the same State Rep. Martin Daniel of Knoxville has released figures showing that the University of Tennessee is spending $2,549,882 on diversity programs. Of this amount $1,667,195 is at the Knoxville campus. Some totals suggest it exceeds over $4 million on all UT campuses. The request for this information was generated by the recent controversy on the “gender neutral” pronouns published on the UT Office of Diversity webpage. Vice Chancellor Ricky Hall, who oversees diversity, is paid $217,252 including benefits. In the recent controversy over gender-neutral pronouns use, Hall was seldom if ever mentioned, even though it occurred on his watch in his area of authority. One has to wonder where he was when this issue triggered national news? Instead, UT President Joe DiPietro, who normally shuns involvement in purely campus issues, assumed command of the issue and ordered the offending words removed from the university website after a few days. It is unclear whether DiPietro even spoke to Hall on this issue. This is the same UT president who a few months earlier had written a piece for the News Sentinel outlining his reasons for not getting involved in the Lady Vols name-change controversy on the grounds it was a UT-Knoxville campus issue. It was a matter for Chancellor Jimmy Cheek and Athletic Director Dave Hart to resolve, even though it has generated 25,000 signatures on an online petition and a letter to the UT Board signed by over one-third of the General Assembly. The pronoun issue created a national outrage that caused DiPietro to reverse course and move quickly to end the controversy, which could have handled by Chancellor Cheek or Vice Chancellor Hall acting alone or together. Board members were caught off guard. While the pronoun controversy has ended, the fiscal issue continues on the very valid matter of how many tax dollars should be spent on diversity. Diversity is a worthwhile issue and should be discussed. In the American system, diversity has a valid role. Diversity should
Victor Ashe
be promoted, but does it require $2.5 million a year to do it? It is legitimate to question the amount being spent, as Daniel has stated. Over 30 employees on the Knoxville campus alone are pushing this. The gender-neutral pronoun memo was one of their achievements. Easily discarded, one could assume this was a waste of tax dollars and not required by federal law. What does this office do? My own governmental experience tells me that anytime $2.5 million is being spent, there is an easy 20 percent that could be shaved off with little impact. UT spokesperson Margie Nichols says it is mostly to comply with federal regulations. That is the UT line, and they are sticking to it. Well, citizens and legislators should ask UT to explain precisely what federal regulations require such a cost. If UT cut staff from 30 to 15, what would suffer? Why do individual colleges have their diversity officers in addition to the campus office? That includes the Law School, the College of Engineering, Haslam College of Business, College of Veterinary Medicine and College of Arts and Sciences, to name several. Can this not be streamlined and consolidated to save costs? The trustees and/or UT staff may have to answer these questions or face a legislative inquiry. Some at UT resent Daniel raising these issues, but saving money is good for taxpayers if it results in that. ■ Denark Construction, a very successful Knoxville firm led ably by Raja Jubran, celebrates its 30th anniversary on Oct. 16 with an event at the Historic Tennessee Theatre. Jubran is vice chair of the UT Board of Trustees, which makes him the governor’s point person on the board on many issues. With headquarters on Western Avenue, Denark has been very active in support for many civic projects over the past 30 years. ■ Speaking of diversity, the second Asian Festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, at Krutch Park downtown. Come for all sorts of different foods and a fun time.
Time for a new tune at the school board
One of the strongest arguments for appointing school superintendents is that doing so removes them from the dirty business of politics, which is left instead to the elected school board, which hires, fires and oversees the superintendent. That’s a tidy plan, but it won’t work if the board declines to do its statutory duty. And that’s what’s happening in Knox County, balloons and confetti cannons and Exemplary School District status notwithstanding. Take Bearden High School, for example. In August, this newspaper broke the story that Bearden’s Tennessee Value Added Assessment Score – the beall, end-all gold standard for the data-driven bunch in charge of education – had plunged from Level 5 to Level 1 in 2014-15. This news was accompanied by anecdotal evidence of high teacher turnover rates and difficulties with “one-to-
Betty Bean one” technology, raising questions that begged answers – but not, evidently, in the view of the school board, which has remained curiously silent. Add this to the controversy over the forced resignation of Bearden’s successful, popular softball coach, Leonard Sams, which had already reached the boiling point by the time the TVAAS scores became known, and it would seem that someone on the board might have wondered what the heck was going on at Bearden. But when Bearden parents, players and boosters asked the board to put the matter on its agenda, what they got was crickets, except for insinuations that the coach knows why he
was fired. Meanwhile, a once-successful program is in turmoil and boosters are stuck with the cost of a new practice facility because fundraising dried up with Sams’ departure. Earlier in the summer, communities like Copper Ridge and Mt. Olive were rocked by the non-renewal of popular, successful teachers Christina Graham and Gloria Ray-Scheberle, neither of whom had taught long enough in Knox County to qualify for tenure. Parents came the school board seeking help, or at least answers. Again, crickets. Maybe this “never apologize, never explain” tactic was developed after the 2011 public pillorying of Joel Helton, longtime head football coach at Central High School, whose suspension was announced via a Friday press release over an allegation that he had menaced a female student
with a stick. When that charge proved meritless, Superintendent James McIntyre’s investigation turned into a fishing expedition in an attempt to nail Helton, who was allowed to return to work the following year – at Farragut High School – while McIntyre publicly announced that he would never again be allowed to coach in Knox County. The episode left deep wounds in Fountain City that only began to heal after the new Central High principal, Michael Reynolds, and coach, Bryson Rosser, reached out to Helton, who had been stricken with cancer and had only months to live. In all these cases, and more, citizens went to their school board for answers and got stonewalled by a board whose theme song is “Stand By Your Man.” It’ll probably take one more election cycle for them to learn a new tune.
FBI hears complaints, praise East Knox residents brought a parade of complaints and praise to a panel of Knox law enforcement chiefs in a public forum sponsored by the FBI at Austin-East High School last Thursday. “We need to close the divide between law enforcement and the citizens we serve,” said Edward Reinhold, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Knoxville office, which serves the eastern half of Tennessee. “There have been far too many violent encounters between law enforcement and civilians in recent months. “As leaders in the law enforcement community, we felt it was necessary that somebody start this conversation.” Reinhold said the forum was a response to police killings of black men in Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland, and other locations that have led to riots and unrest across the nation. Several of the attendees responded with stories of their personal mistreatment by local law enforcement officers. One man told of being assaulted by a policeman while he was standing in his own driveway, then being arrested for no reason. Another man complained about an especially vigorous frisking. Theotis Robinson III detailed two stops he experienced that were the result of racial profiling and asked what the agencies were doing to prevent the practice. David Rausch, chief of the Knoxville Police Department, fielded most of the questions and took
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Vivian Shipe, head of the local chapter of the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees, warned law enforcement chiefs of increasing racial slurs and threats of violence at the U.S. Postal Service main post office on Weisgarber Road and urged the creation of a threat assessment team at the facility. Photo by
Bill Dockery
notes, promising individual meetings with the people who had complaints. Questions about employment in law enforcement also surfaced. The heads of the various departments outlined the requirements for hiring in their agencies, and Jessie Brooks, captain of the Knoxville district of the Tennessee Highway Patrol talked about the difficulties in getting applicants for state trooper positions and invited qualified citizens to apply. Several people had questions about the city’s Police Advisory & Review Committee, its powers and effectiveness. One person asked why there was no PARC for county officers. Another person called for the completion of the proposed safety center for people arrested with mental health or substance abuse issues. That comment prompted general applause from the gathering. Rausch said his department did not have a community policing program but instilled a “philosophy of community policing” in the police force. “We want our officers to be in the community before crime occurs. We want everyone treated right and treated professionally.” He dodged a question about guns in city parks, noting that a recently filed
Bill Dockery
lawsuit challenging the city of Knoxville’s interpretation of the state law prevented him from commenting on the issue. Vivian Shipe, president of Local 406 of the National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees, turned the discussion to race relations at the U.S. Postal Service main post office on Weisgarber Road. She called on the law enforcement chiefs to investigate racist and violent threats before there was a violent incident. “We have supervisors who use racial slurs on employees. We have workers who are locked out of the post office building solely because they are big black men,” Shipe said. She said one employee was not disciplined for threatening to bring a gun to work and shoot people, a violation of the USPS zero tolerance policy against threats and violence. “You need to form a threat assessment team before something happens. We don’t want you to be ask-
ing after the fact were there any signs that tensions were building. We don’t want you running in while employees run out. We want you running in now.” Monica Reed from the Morningside neighborhood praised the FBI for holding the forum, and Valencia Watson urged citizens to comply with police when stopped. But black activist David Alex Hayes questioned why the forum was held in competition with another forum on the same topic being held at Payne Avenue Baptist Church. He was also critical of the lack of power given to PARC. In addition to Reinhold, Rausch and Brooks, panelists included Randy Nichols, special counsel to the Knox County Sheriff’s Office; University of Tennessee police chief Troy Lane; Dewayne Johnson, special agent in charge of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s Knoxville office; and Robert Simerly, head of UT Medical Center Security.
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