Last year, “Sex Week at the University of Tennessee” made its debut to mixed reactions. State Senator Stacey Campfield was among the loudest to complain in opposition about Sex Week--as he put it, “If someone wants to dress up like a duck, God bless them. But I shouldn’t have to pay for it.” The President of the University of Tennessee system, Joe DiPietro, however, told legislators, “In my professional opinion, it is very, very important on a university campus to have some sex education going on.” He further stated that he would support Sex Week even if it would prevent only one sexual assault or unwanted pregnancy.
Sen. Campfield’s made threats to revise the University’s budget to withdraw all public funding, if the event received any money from the University. Consequently, all University funding for Sex Week was pulled in 2013.
During the current legislative session, Sen. Campfield has put forth two pieces of legislation, SB1608 and SB2493, that would change the way state universities currently allocate funds from student fees to student organizations. In SB1608, he proposes that funding from student fees should be distributed to student organizations proportionate to their membership. In SB2493, Sen. Campfield proposes that public universities and colleges should not use revenues to pay for speakers.
These bills would create a system that does not allow for a free and open public debate and limits students liberties on campuses across Tennessee. Student organizations at our public universities and colleges have long been forums for students to learn outside the classroom about a wide variety of subjects and from people with differing worldviews. Students would no longer be free to use student government to allocate fees to organizations, instead the legislature would now have a say.
Despite the Senator’s presumed intention, the language of the bills are in conflict with each other. On one hand, SB1608 sets forth the student fees allocation for speakers, while SB2493 prevents the use student fees or any institutional revenues to pay for speakers.
The University of Tennessee-Knoxville Chancellor, Jimmy Cheek, has come out against these bills, as well as the President of the University of Tennessee system Joe DiPietro, UTK Student Body President Jake Baker, and various other UT administrators.
The UTK Student Government created a petition against the proposed legislation regarding student fees, which currently has over 1900 signatures from students and teachers in public universities and colleges across the state.
Importantly, these proposed bills do not define membership. Without a formal definition, there will be no system of accountability and no way to calculate the amount of funding that each organization should receive. This creates a system that is unpredictable and potentially unjust. Ironically, Sex Week would likely receive the largest amount of money because it is one of the most widely attended events.
Earlier this month, Sen. Campfield offered to speak to the UTK College Democrats as a part of his constituents listening tour. The UTK College Democrats extended an invitation to speak with University of Tennessee students, which the Senator accepted--the event was later co-sponsored by the College Republicans. Shortly thereafter, the College Democrats published an event on Facebook that described the event as a “town hall” with Sen. Campfield. After a conversation with the Senator’s executive assistant, the College Democrats became aware of Campfield’s objection to the idea of a town hall event. Subsequently, Campfield, College Democrats, and College Republicans agreed to change the event to a moderated discussion that would pose any reasonable and relevant student provided question to Sen. Campfield.
The College Democrats and College Republicans prescreened and submitted 18 questions to Campfield for review. Sen. Campfield returned eight questions that he refused to answer, on the grounds that they were “‘Do you beat your wife?’ questions.” Among the allegedly unreasonable questions were the following: “[I]n what ways are you involved in your community?”, “Is there any precedent for state legislation regarding student fees?”, and “How do you define ‘membership’ to a student organization?”.
When asked in a phone call with the College Democrats Executive Board why he would not take a question about the definition of membership, Campfield responded “It would take ten minutes to explain.” Eventually he conceded that there was no definition for membership.
In an effort to maintain the integrity of the event, the College Democrats declined to allow Campfield to choose his own questions. Campfield refused to comply. Later that day, however, he called for negotiations to begin again. He proposed three options for the event: a speech without any opportunity for questions, a debate with Democratic primary candidate Cheri Siler, or only answer his desired questions from the original submissions and nothing further. Prior to his request for a debate with Cheri Siler, Campfield originally refused to be in the same room with Cheri Siler.
The College Democrats and College Republicans countered with a proposal that would allow him to reject the eight questions he originally denied, in addition to taking five questions from the audience that would be screened by his executive assistant.
The parties could not reach a final agreement and Campfield effectively pulled out of the event. Though College Democrats and College Republicans received a lot of backlash for hosting the event on campus, the organizations ultimately believed educating student voters was the right course of action. College Republicans were asked to cosponsor the event to make it as clean, fair, and bi-partisan as possible, however none of this satisfied Senator Campfield. He was uncooperative and negligent of his official responsibilities. It is a true shame that he would not come speak to his constituents directly.
