Feature photo from Sidelines Archives
Story by Noah McLane
Last week, students received a biennial campus climate survey asking if they can express themselves adequately at MTSU.
The survey resulted from Public Chapter No. 268, which prohibits public higher education institutions from taking specific actions regarding divisive concepts and students’ and employees’ beliefs, ideologies or viewpoints. Governor Bill Lee signed it into law in 2023.
As part of the law’s requirement, public higher education institutions must survey students, staff and faculty to determine if individuals can freely express their beliefs, ideologies or viewpoints.
“When [the law] was passed, many professors became concerned that it would limit their free speech, but a careful reading makes it clear that no professor who teaches his or her course in a professional way is in danger of losing a position with the university,” said Ken Paulson, director of MTSU’s Free Speech Center and a renowned first amendment lawyer.
However, organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee said, “the provisions of these laws are intentionally vague and mandate reporting of ill-defined ‘violations,’ causing fear of future retribution from the Tennessee legislature.”
The law explicitly targets 16 divisive concepts:
Most of these concepts fall under First Amendment protection, and Tinker v. Des Moines (1967) upheld students’ rights to free expression.
“In the state of Tennessee, it’s best to think of this as a political act rather than a legislative one,” Paulson said. “You’d have to ask the sponsor of the bills why they’re doing it, but it has been part of a pattern of handing campuses as liberal.”
One way this trend is materializing is the growing popularity of a legal and academic school of thought called critical race theory, which looks at American history through the lens of overt and systemic racism.
Proponents of this framework say teaching it would help “develop laws and policies that can dismantle structural inequities and systemic racism…building a more equitable future,” according to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
“Opponents fear that CRT admonishes all white people for being oppressors while classifying all Black people as hopelessly oppressed victims,” according to the Brookings Institute, a nonprofit that conducts nonpartisan research to improve policy and governance at state, local and global levels.
Since September 2020, 247 local, state and federal government entities across the United States have introduced 861 anti-critical race theory bills, resolutions, executive orders, opinion letters, statements and other measures, according to a report published by UCLA School of Law–Critical Race Studies.
The nation’s 25 red states (states that reliably vote Republican) are responsible for 63% of all introduced measures; the 20 blue states (states that reliably vote Democrat) for 21% of the total; and 16% in five purple (states which do not reliably vote for either major party). In 2021 and 2022, 241 of these 563 introduced measures were enacted or adopted, according to the report.
The Tennessee law does not ban discrimination training or diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, nor will it impact professors whose educational focus is race or gender.
The biennial survey lasts until July 1, 2028, but questions about the law remain for students on campus now.
As far as impact, the law does not appear to have had an effect on enrollment.
Yield rates – which refer to the number of students who enrolled versus the number accepted – remained flat in 2024. For example, MTSU had a yield rate of 30% in 2023, which means that of the people who applied and were accepted by MTSU, 30% ended up enrolling.
In 2023, University of Tennessee schools had an average yield rate of 28.1%. In 2024, the rate increased to 29.5%.
However, the new law can still affect current students.
“If there are certain things that teachers can’t say or explain to a student, I feel like they’ll get the misconception of, ‘oh, if they can’t talk about it, then it’s bad,’” Jennifer Delgado, senior accounting student. “At least to me, that’s gonna be the impact that this is gonna have.”
Noah McLane is the Lead News Reporter for MTSU Sidelines.
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