NASHVILLE - Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey said Friday "heads need to roll" at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville's Office for Diversity and Inclusion after the office's recent web post on Christmas and holiday parties.
Calling the post "crap," Ramsey, the Republican Senate speaker, singled out Rickey Hall, vice chancellor over the diversity office. Ramsey said his remarks aren't aimed at UT-K Chancellor Jimmy Cheek but he noted he has told Cheek that Hall needs to go.
And, Ramsey told reporters, he wants to examine and cut four-fifths of the Office for Diversity and Inclusion's operations. He was particularly critical of Hall's salary.
"Let's think this through logically," Ramsey said. "You have an Office of Diversity and Inclusion where the person running it makes the taxpayers pay him $175,000 a year, basically the same salary as the governor, to think up this crap. That's all I can possibly say."
He said the office's policy "is not about inclusion."
"It's just the opposite. It stifles freedom of speech. It stifles freedom of religion and it's amazing to me that something like this needs to be put in writing on some kind of official website."
The original web post reminded people to "Ensure your holiday party is not a Christmas party in disguise." It suggested UT staffers "not play games with religious and cultural themes" such as Secret Santa.
The parties, the post said, should have "no emphasis on religion or culture."
That generated an uproar among Republican conservatives in Nashville and Washington, D.C.
Congress has virtually nothing to do with UT's funding, but state appropriations make up about a third of the UT system's budget.
The post came down Tuesday and Cheek switched control of the office's website to the university's communications vice chancellor, but the political reverberations continue.
The UT system spends about $5 million on diversity and inclusion initiatives across its campuses, including UT-Chattanooga. The UT-Knoxville diversity budget this year is $436,722.
The university said in a statement Friday that Ramsey and Cheek "spoke earlier in the week and he is aware of his position." But the statement sidestepped what Cheek intended to do, if anything, regarding Hall.
Ramsey recalled a similar flare-up in August after the diversity office posted suggestions that UT-K speak with students on the use of such "gender-neutral" pronouns as "ze," "zir" and "hirs."
The post was removed after Republican lawmakers lashed out.
"I think it galls taxpayers that this is a taxpayer-funded position that gets paid $175,000 apparently to do nothing but sit around and think up stuff like this," Ramsey said. "This is not a private university where they can do whatever they want to. This is a public university and it galls people this is happening. So I think that position needs to go."
He later added: "I think that the head of the department at least needs to go. It's like the third strike and we'll look at funding from that point forward."
In a statement to the Nashville Scene, Tennessee Democratic Party Chairwoman Mary Mancini charged that Ramsey's charges were "a smokescreen for Tennessee Republican failures."
"The Lt. Governor would rather attack the jewel in our state's higher education system than focus on making life better for struggling Tennesseans. What kind of leadership is that? Oh, yeah, the Republican kind," Mancini said.
"When will 'heads roll' because Republicans stalled access to affordable health care for 300,000 hard-working Tennesseans? When will 'heads roll' over their plan to fire state workers and sell off pieces of our parks, schools and other public buildings?
"If this doesn't perfectly illustrate the failure of the Republican majority to govern effectively then I don't know what does," Mancini said.
Contact Andy Sher at asher@timesfreepress.com, 615-255-0550 or follow via twitter @AndySher1.