Tag: University of Tennessee at Knoxville

Activist Arrested at University of Tennessee Anti-Israel Protest Sues Knox County Sheriff over Lack of Hijab in Mugshot

Tom Pappert
Vanderbilt University #FreePalestine Camp

An activist who was arrested for her alleged participation in an anti-Israel encampment at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (UTK) in May is now suing Knox County, Knox County Sheriff Tom Spangler, as well as Knox County Sheriff’s Office (KNSO) Sergeant Jonathan Burgess.

The lawsuit filed by Layla Soliz explains that she is Muslim and wears a hijab, but after her May 2024 arrest, “Knox County Sheriff’s Office employees demanded that Mrs. Soliz remove her hijab and be photographed without it for her booking photo,” then published it online.

Read the full story

University of Tennessee Offers to Rehire Professor Accused of Wire Fraud, Following Judge’s Acquittal

Cooper Moran
Anming Hu

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville will offer to rehire Anming Hu, a professor who was fired after being charged with wire fraud and making false statements.

According to a letter obtained by the Knoxville News Sentinel, Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor John Zomchick detailed a host of incentives for Hu to return to the campus.

Read the full story

University of Tennessee at Knoxville Says It Can’t Speak to Why Its Test-Optional Admissions Excludes Home-Schooled Students

Corinne Murdock

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK) told The Tennessee Star that no one there can explain why home-schoolers are excluded from its test-optional admissions. Also excluded are those students whose schools didn’t use alpha or numerical grading systems. UTK’s test-optional policy will last until fall 2025.

“Unfortunately, we do not have anyone who can comment around that topic in particular at this time,” stated the UTK spokesperson.

Read the full story

University of Tennessee, Knoxville to Require SAT, ACT Scores For Home-Schoolers, But Not For Public School Students Through Fall 2025

Corinne Murdock
Person filling in exam answers

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) will be test-optional until fall 2025 for all applicants – unless you were home-schooled. UTK will prohibit home-schoolers from capitalizing on their test-optional policy, as well as those students from schools that didn’t use alpha or numerical grading systems. UTK said their decision reflected a commitment to equity in a press release issued on Thursday.

The test-optional policy doesn’t mean that eligible applicants get a free pass entirely from admissions. According to the UTK admissions page, applicants that don’t submit their ACT or SAT scores will be considered a “test-optional applicant” and must submit an additional essay. However, the essay has less to do with academics and more to do with character – the current prompt this year asks applicants to recount an example of their leadership in a personal essay.

Read the full story

Lamar Alexander Discusses When and How Colleges Can Reopen Safely

Chris Butler

Senate Health and Education Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) this week said “the question for administrators of 6,000 colleges and universities is not whether to reopen in August, but how to do it safely.”

Alexander made his remarks during this week’s Senate Health and Education Committee hearing — “COVID-19: Going Back to College Safely” — which featured college and university presidents discussing their work to help students go back to school in the fall as safely as possible.

Read the full story

UT Knoxville Professor Arrested, Charged for Double-Dealing with Chinese Government and NASA

Jason M. Reynolds

  A University of Tennessee – Knoxville associate engineering professor has been arrested and indicted on three counts of wire fraud and three counts of making false statements for allegedly hiding his relationship with a Chinese university while receiving funding from NASA, the Department of Justice said in a statement. Anming Hu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK). “Hu allegedly committed fraud by hiding his relationship with a Chinese university while receiving funding from NASA,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. “This is just the latest case involving professors or researchers concealing their affiliations with China from their American employers and the U.S. government. We will not tolerate it.” “The United States Attorney’s Office takes seriously fraudulent conduct that is devised to undermine federally-mandated funding restrictions related to China and Chinese universities,” said U.S. Attorney J. Douglas Overbey for the Eastern District of Tennessee. “The University of Tennessee has cooperated with the investigation, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office values the university’s assistance in this matter.” The indictment alleges that beginning in 2016, Hu engaged in a scheme to defraud NASA by concealing his affiliation…

Read the full story

Comptroller Pulls Back Curtain Behind UT Knoxville’s Sex Week Programs

Jason M. Reynolds

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville is facing the music over the controversial event known as Sex Week, with the Tennessee Comptroller’s Office sending a report to legislators pointing out that very few students attend the university-supported program. A copy of the report by the Comptroller’s Office of Research and Education Accountability is available here. The report was given to the Senate Education Committee Wednesday. Legislative leadership requested a review of the week-long event which has been held at UTK each spring since 2013. The event is organized by Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee (SEAT), a registered student organization (RSO). A 2017 story by The Tennessee Star revealed the titles of some of the Sex Week classes, such as “Having an Affair With Yourself.” The names go downhill from there. According to the Comptroller, SEAT’s membership is less than one-tenth of 1 percent of UTK’s enrollment, and has refused administrators’ requests to “tone it down.” The Comptroller’s Office says: • SEAT is one of about 600 RSOs at UTK, all of which are eligible to request student activity fee funding. In four of the past five years, SEAT received the highest allocation of student activity fee funds, including about…

Read the full story

University of Tennessee Students Major in Sex

Jason M. Reynolds

Many students at Tennessee’s flagship university are majoring in sex toy education this week in addition to fields like nursing and engineering. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville’s annual Sex Week began Friday, April 6 and runs through Thursday, April 12. The event is hosted by student organization Sexual Empowerment and Awareness at Tennessee (SEAT). The group’s website says it “strives to foster a comprehensive and academically-informed conversation about sex, sexuality, and relationships with the purpose of educating the University of Tennessee student body and the Knoxville community.” The week’s activities are graphic in nature. However, SEAT seems to find the activities amusing. Take Sunday’s carnival for example: “Cum one, cum all, to the Sex Week Carnival! Join us to kick off the week that ‘makes Mardi Gras on Beale Street look like a Sunday School picnic,’* mingle with dazzling drag queens and fabulous circus performers, and be dazzled by our three-Nuva-ring circus. Show off your skills at sex trivia! Try your hand at the Condom Relay Races! Test your knowledge at the Lube Taste Test! Winning games gets you tickets, and tickets get you prizes like sex toys!” The week keeps rolling on with seminars titled “Your Vulva and You”…

Read the full story

University of Tennessee Knoxville Students Want to Challenge ‘Christian Privilege’ on Campus

Chris Alto

The student leader of a soon-to-be established student group calling itself the “Interfaith Network UTK” says the organization is needed at the University of Tennessee because “there’s been a lot of anti-Muslim rhetoric (and) Christian ideological privilege on campus.” According to leaders of the new group, two campus events this year sparked the idea of creating an interfaith group that would focus on service projects to demonstrate shared “core values” and is open to both those who hold specific religious beliefs and those who do not. In February, Eboo Patel, founder of the national Interfaith Youth Core lectured about his organization and how religion can be used to build bridges in a diverse community. Days later, Matthew Heimbach, leader of the Traditionalist Worker Party  which ascribes to while nationalist ideology, launched his campus speech tour at UTK. During the campus demonstration organized by UT Knoxville’s Progressive Student Alliance to protest the administration’s decision allowing Matthew Heimbach to speak at the university, Drost Kokoye, a founding and current board member of the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC), Tennessee’s most prominent Muslim organization, added a police shout-down to the protest. Kokoye’s tweet described the police assigned to protect the protestors as the “KKKPD.”…

Read the full story

Top 10 Classes Taught at This Year’s ‘Sex Week’ University of Tennessee

Tennessee Star Staff

Undergraduates at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville are not learning about the Constitution this week, the focus of The Tennessee Star’s new series of articles for secondary students in grades 8 through 12. Instead, they are participating in the school’s fifth annual “Sex Week.” “Sex Week is a whole week of student activities that our student organization called SEAT puts on during the spring semester,” the web site says: Sex Week 2017 will be April 3-7. Our goal is to create a safe space where students can openly engage in comprehensive and academically informed discussion about all things related to sex, sexuality, relationships, and gender. Basically, we want to educate, because this stuff is important! “We firmly believe that sex education is not comprehensive without including conversations about pleasure and empowerment. Learning about consent, how to communicate your needs with partners, and how to find pleasure and fulfillment in yourself is really critical to building a healthy and safe campus. Not convinced? Sexual pleasure is included in the World Health Organization‘s definition of sexual health,” the website adds. Some of the important classes University of Tennessee undergraduates can attend during Sex Week include this top ten list: (1) Sex…

Read the full story