Tag: Joe Smith

ETSU Student Government Calls for Cutting All Ties with Neighboring Christian University Over Departure of Homosexual Professor

Jason M. Reynolds

The Student Government Association at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) is targeting a private Christian university over allegations that it forced a homosexual professor to resign last spring.

The SGA at the public university on Tuesday voted 17-5 to suggest that ETSU cut its athletics scheduling and financial partnerships with Milligan University and other universities accused of discrimination, the Johnson City Press reported. Milligan is located about five miles from ETSU.

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Hamilton County’s UnifyEd Officially Expands Into Political Arena

Jason M. Reynolds

A Hamilton County education advocacy organization seems to want to have it both ways – as a education reform nonprofit – and as a political action committee. Hamilton County education advocacy group UnifiEd says it wants to make sure every class has a “great teacher,” achieve “universal excellence by guaranteeing equal opportunity to all students,” get the community to support public education by increasing transparency and accountability, and prioritize public school funding, according to its website. Those sound like lofty goals. However, Hamilton County Board of Education members Joe Smith and Rhonda Thurman last May accused UnifiEd of politicizing the district’s desegregation debate, the Chattanooga Times Free Press said. The spat began with the board members speaking out against UnifiEd’s APEX Project.The project suggests the school system increase integration by redrawing attendance zones and providing transportation options to other schools, among other options, Thurman said. UnifiEd fired back at Smith and Thurman, the Times Free Press said: “These school board members’ stance and rhetoric is especially concerning given the long history of segregation in Hamilton County schools,” read a statement from UnifiEd in response. UnifiEd has pushed for cultural competency training, which has already been taking place in Williamson and Knox counties,…

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Pushed by UnifiEd, Hamilton County School Board Uses Consultants, Committees to Tell Community Its Schools Are Unequal in Diversity

Jason M. Reynolds

Williamson County and Knox County Schools have been making headlines with their white privilege and “cultural competency” training for teachers, but so far there is no sign that trend has spread to Hamilton County Schools – yet. Williamson County has forced teachers to learn about “white privilege” in required in-service training days, The Tennessee Star has reported in a series of stories. Knox County Schools are spending $170,000 out of their $928,677 in-service budget on cultural competency training for teachers. Hamilton County Board of Education has been working with diversity consultants for the past couple of years to desegregate schools through means that would include busing. They formed committees and workshops to label the district as inequitable for minority students. One diversity group attacked two school board members last year for opposing their plans. Dr. Marsha Drake, the district’s chief equity officer, launched an Equity Task Force in 2018. The Hamilton County Board of Education in May 2018 voted to begin seeking funding to pay for the Howard Group, a consultant agency, to identify “the larger factors that put some students on unequal footing,” the Chattanooga Times Free Press said. The board asked the Howard Group to work with the…

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