Hard-right SC lawmakers made claim about LGBTQ hiring at USC. University says it’s false

The South Carolina Freedom Caucus, a hard-right faction of Republican lawmakers, said grant money from the National Institute of Health required the university to “EXCLUSIVELY focus on hiring LGBTQ persons,” in a social media post on Tuesday.

“USC is clearly still pushing discriminatory hiring policies,” the caucus wrote on the platform X.

Those claims are misleading.

“I won’t speculate on the motivation for the Freedom Caucus tweet, but it is completely false,” said university spokesman Jeff Stensland.

The University of South Carolina was one of only a handful of institutions to receive a massive $13.2 million grant from the NIH in 2022. It was lauded a as a “game-changer” for public health, and for the university. About $4.8 million of that funding has been paid out to the university so far.

“Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion at the University of South Carolina is a central value for me, President Amiridis, and our university’s larger leadership team,” USC Provost Donna Arnett said at the time. “I am excited to see the tremendous impact this grant will have on increasing diversity in our university’s faculty ranks.”

The grant, funded through the Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation, was meant to expand the number of number of faculty members in the Arnold School of Public Health and College of Nursing who are dedicated to researching health disparities within South Carolina, the university said.

According to the grant description on USAspending.gov, the official source for federal government spending data, it is part of an initiative to recruit and retain 10 diverse, early-career faculty members and offer mentorship, training, and professional development. It was awarded with the goal to achieve sustainable institutional culture change and “inclusive excellence.”

But it did not dictate that the hires must be from the LGBTQ community.

“Biomedical research institutions have generally failed to effectively incorporate minoritized groups, such as individuals who identify as people of color, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning (LGBTQ) persons,” the grant description read.

The grant praised USC’s 2020 Revision Action Plan, a six-step plan to address diversity, equity and inclusion established to address “systemic racism and societal inequity.”

“The leadership of the University of South Carolina (UofSC) has been intentional about transforming the institutional culture to one that embraces and expects a climate of diversity, equity and inclusion,” the description read. “...These efforts reflect UofSC’s campaign to identify and remove factors supporting systemic racism and gender-bias across all campus endeavors.”

But Rep. Jordan Pace, R-Berkeley, a prominent member of the Freedom Caucus, stood by its claims.

“It’s very clear what this grant is for,” Pace said. “No one should be hired, fired or retained for things other than how they perform at their job.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in South Carolina’s public higher education system have been under attack by the Freedom Caucus for over a year. H. 4289, a bill introduced last spring, targeted DEI efforts in the state’s 33 schools and aimed to prohibit employment decisions based on political beliefs of DEI statements.

That bill passed the House in March, but died when the 2024 legislative session came to a close earlier this month. The Senate hadn’t even touch it, Pace said. He called it “sad.”

“For decades, USC has partnered with state and federal health agencies in efforts to reduce persistent health disparities in rural, minority, and economically depressed communities,” Stensland said. “We are proud of our work to help improve community health through both research and training of health professionals.”

USC’s School of Medicine was recently ranked fifth in the nation by U.S. News and World Report for training doctors practicing in medically-underserved areas.