Post by pavel on Apr 22, 2016 10:36:09 GMT -6
NASHVILLE — State lawmakers Thursday approved a bill that diverts — for one year only — about $436,000 from the University of Tennessee office of diversity and inclusion and into scholarships for minority students in engineering.
If approved by Gov. Bill Haslam, that move ends — at least for this year — a push by conservatives angry over the Knoxville campus's annual Sex Week and memorandums to the campus community from the diversity office last year discussing gender-neutral pronouns and ways to make Christmas holiday office parties inclusive for non-Christians.
The diversity bill was one of about a half-dozen issues that kept the General Assembly from adjourning for the year Thursday. Lawmakers will return this morning to try to work out compromises on how to cut the Hall income tax and how to alter a property tax relief program for totally disabled veterans and other low-income elderly or disabled homeowners.
Legislators and the Haslam administration have agreed to cut the Hall income tax on stock and dividend income from its current 6 percent to 5 percent and to express the "legislative intent" to make annual cuts until the tax is eliminated. But a pair of conservative anti-tax groups is pressuring Republicans to write the future tax cuts into the bill.
Read more: www.commercialappeal.com/news/government/state/legislators-divert-ut-diversity-funds-for-one-year-31065c62-c7ef-728c-e053-0100007f9973-376660611.html
If approved by Gov. Bill Haslam, that move ends — at least for this year — a push by conservatives angry over the Knoxville campus's annual Sex Week and memorandums to the campus community from the diversity office last year discussing gender-neutral pronouns and ways to make Christmas holiday office parties inclusive for non-Christians.
The diversity bill was one of about a half-dozen issues that kept the General Assembly from adjourning for the year Thursday. Lawmakers will return this morning to try to work out compromises on how to cut the Hall income tax and how to alter a property tax relief program for totally disabled veterans and other low-income elderly or disabled homeowners.
Legislators and the Haslam administration have agreed to cut the Hall income tax on stock and dividend income from its current 6 percent to 5 percent and to express the "legislative intent" to make annual cuts until the tax is eliminated. But a pair of conservative anti-tax groups is pressuring Republicans to write the future tax cuts into the bill.
Read more: www.commercialappeal.com/news/government/state/legislators-divert-ut-diversity-funds-for-one-year-31065c62-c7ef-728c-e053-0100007f9973-376660611.html