East Tennessee State University Tries to Rebrand Divisive DEI

East Tennessee State University (ETSU), home of the Quillen College of Medicine (QCOM), appears to be attempting to rebrand its DEI activities in the wake of President Trump’s executive order and corresponding guidance from the Department of Education.

Earlier this month, ETSU sent out an email addressed from President Brian Noland recounting recent decisions the university had made regarding its DEI resources. The email comes on the heels of the Department of Education demanding institutions of higher education cease all racially discriminatory policies, programs, and practices; the Department correctly noted that many of these offensive policies are justified on the grounds of DEI.

“Recently, the U.S. Department of Education directed institutions across the country to review their programs and services to ensure equal access for all individuals, regardless of race or personal identity,” Noland said in the email. “ETSU is not an exclusionary institution. Nearly all of our programming and resources are open to anyone wishing to participate. However, we recognize that some terminology may have been construed as exclusive by members of our campus community.”

Despite the statement “ETSU is not an exclusionary institution,” the statement “nearly all of our programming and resources are open to anyone” implies that ETSU realizes its practices and policies have been somewhat less than unifying and welcoming.

ETSU has a long and storied history of promoting radical, divisive, and exclusionary ideologies and practices. Do No Harm has previously exposed ETSU and QCOM for their DEI activities in our 2023 report, “The DEI Bureaucracy in Tennessee’s Medical Schools.”

QCOM maintained a “Diversity Council” whose duties included collecting data and monitoring metrics to ensure that QCOM reached diversity goals, and the school practiced holistic admissions with the aim to increase diversity among the student body.

Additionally, the Quillen College of Medicine recommitted itself to pursuing diversity goals in a policy statement this January.

And most recently, as the Washington Examiner reported, ETSU hosted a lecture called “Health Care Reparations: Reversing the Impact of Race Corrections on Health Equity.”

Other racially themed events held at the September conference included a session on “Black Male Empowerment,” three talks on diversity, equity, and inclusion, a discussion on “racial equity in organizational leadership,” and a training on “facilitating cultural humility.” One event referred to mothers by using the gender-neutral term “lactating parents.”

Noland’s email then went on to list the actions ETSU was taking to achieve “full compliance” with federal directives.

“To ensure full compliance with recent federal directives, the Office of University Counsel is reviewing university communications, including web pages,” the email reads. “In the meantime, new landing pages have been created for the Multicultural Center, the Pride Center, and the Women and Gender Resource Center, with details of events offered by these centers available on the university calendar.”

Of these pages, the previous iteration of the Multicultural Center is easily the page most within the purview of the executive order.

That page includes numerous references to DEI and related resources and concepts; the new page for the Multicultural Center omits reference to DEI entirely.

According to an archived version of the previous Multicultural Center page, ETSU had advertised a “Diversity Scholarship,” had maintained a “Black Faculty and Staff Association,” and had multiple invocations of the benefits of diversity as well as commitments to infuse DEI into the school’s functions.

The email ended with a reaffirmation of the university’s values.

“While processes and language may evolve, our values remain unchanged,” the email reads. “We will continue to cultivate a campus where all individuals feel valued, supported, and empowered to succeed. We will uphold free expression, thoughtful discourse, and our unwavering commitment to respect and civility.”

Do No Harm hopes these actions are genuine good-faith efforts to end divisive and exclusionary practices, rather than attempts to remove troublesome language.

Discrimination exists regardless of what one elects to call it; the practice itself must end.