Student scholarships and faculty procedures will be adjusted in compliance with state law and President Donald Trump’s executive orders regarding DEI, according to a campus-wide email from MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee.
Tennessee’s Public Chapter 245 prohibits all state-funded universities from awarding diversity-based scholarships and aid based on the student’s race, color, ethnicity or national origin.
“Moving forward, we will continue to explore the opportunities available to best support the needs of our students,” McPhee said in a campus-wide email on Tuesday. “With legal challenges to a number of the Executive Orders and federal agency directives, we have chosen to suspend future awards until we have greater clarity.”
All unawarded scholarships are suspended until further notice, according to an email sent out to students from McPhee.
However, students who received a diversity-based scholarship before the announcement will still receive the funds in the 2025-26 school year.
The following instructions for “day-to-day work” were offered to MTSU’s faculty and staff in an email from Mark Byrnes, university provost, on Tuesday:
- Admissions: A person’s race, color, ethnicity, or national origin should not be used in university admissions decisions at the undergraduate or graduate levels.
- Academic centers and institutes: Missions, goals, programming etc., should not be explicitly focused on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
- Academic websites and publications: Remove references to initiatives explicitly focused on diversity, equity and inclusion on any university website or publication for which you have editorial control.
- Hiring: Do not consider or discuss a job candidate’s race, ethnicity, sex, age, or similar protected characteristic while screening applicants or deliberating as a committee.
- Programming: Eliminate sponsorship and/or support of any programming related to diversity, equity, or inclusion, both internal and external to the university.
Additional changes to student and faculty activities may follow as the university continues to review programs and services, according to McPhee’s email.
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