UK cut extension and health jobs but saved PC positions, says advocacy group

Today's press release from The Family Foundation:

LEXINGTON, KY--The University of Kentucky is putting politics ahead of its mission to serve Kentuckians in its budget cuts, according to one advocacy group. "The University of Kentucky should cut the political correctness and leave the county extension program and the College of Medicine alone," said a spokesman for the group.

 

The Family Foundation criticized the university today for laying off as many as 75 employees while leaving the Office for Institutional Diversity, which gets almost $2.5 million a year, untouched. While touting "diversity," the mission of the Office for Institutional Diversity is to promote politically correct causes such as lesbian and gay issues and abortion on campus.

 

"You have to question the priorities of a university that is cutting important programs like the Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service and the College of Medicine while it is spending $2.5 million on one-sided political activism on campus in the name of diversity," said Martin Cothran, senior policy analyst for the group.

 

"We wonder how many of the 75 jobs UK is eliminating could be saved by ditching the PC and concentrating instead on non-political programs that really matter."

 

Cothran also said that it was hard to tell exactly what UK's Office for Institutional Diversity has actually accomplished, since its goals were vague and ill-defined. "It's very hard to tell exactly what this $2.5 million is buying. Most of the money seems to be going to pay people to repeat the word 'diversity' over and over again in the hopes that people will think that they're actually doing something useful."

 

Cothran said the University could retain the $260,000 in funding for Minority Student Affairs, the MLK Cultural Center, and Student Support Services and still save over $2 million.

 

The group pointed to the university's budget, which indicates that almost $1 million of the $2.5 million of its diversity budget goes for administration. "It appears," said Cothran, "that UK can't even do left-wing politics very efficiently."

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