Utah News Dispatch
Utah’s anti-DEI bill is flexible, but does it send an ‘unwelcoming’ message to minorities?
When the Equal Opportunities Initiative bill came to be in the Utah Legislature, restricting diversity, equity and inclusion programs in state universities and other public institutions, it had hints of a nationwide debate. Now that HB261 is scheduled to become law on July 1, some schools and local governments are still scrambling to figure out […]
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President’s Circle on the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City is pictured on Monday, January 15, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
When the Equal Opportunities Initiative bill came to be in the Utah Legislature, restricting diversity, equity and inclusion programs in state universities and other public institutions, it had hints of a nationwide debate.
Now that HB261 is scheduled to become law on July 1, some schools and local governments are still scrambling to figure out how the law will impact their practices. But, other than banning the words “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion” from being in a public office’s name, with a long list of exceptions and untouched funding, the conglomerate of public Utah universities doesn’t expect to make many substantial changes to efforts focused on at-risk communities, including minorities.
Basically, universities would still be able to serve minority students and keep identity-based groups or clubs under the new law, so long as they don’t exclude anyone.
“(The bill) is narrowly tailored enough that allows us to do that work and focus on student support,” Geoff Landward, interim commissioner of the Utah System of Higher Education said. “That we still have those resources means that there’s not a lot of changes that we need to make in terms of how we support students, other than doing some revisions to programs and offices and ensuring that we’re complying with the law.”
But, as with any untested approach, there may be things that don’t work as intended, he said.
“If we see unintended impacts from the legislation that inhibit our ability to meet that core mission,” he said, “then we’ll come back and ask (lawmakers) to help and they’ve said that they will.”
While lawmakers were drafting the bill, the system of higher education voiced some concerns around the potential effects of the legislation, Lawdward said, which were addressed. Top of mind were the students who face barriers to accessing education who need attention and resources to overcome those challenges.
Though data from the Utah System of Higher Education shows that those barriers affect students of low socioeconomic status, it also demonstrates the impact on students of color is disproportionate.
“It doesn’t prohibit us from the fact that as we work to address those barriers for individuals coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds, that a lot of those resources will be going to certain populations,” he said. “But it doesn’t do that at the exclusion of others.”
Overall, the group hopes to keep supporting students who need help to complete their degrees.
“I feel like there’s a way to do this where students from all backgrounds understand and know that they’re still valued and welcome and that there are supports for them and resources for them,” Landward said. “And that maybe some of the more extreme rhetoric that you hear in social media or other sources aren’t reflective of our approach to this legislation or, frankly, to the approach of the legislators that were involved in it. And I don’t want it to get hijacked by that rhetoric.”
In the meantime, Utah Valley University has already changed the name of its Office of Inclusion and Diversity to be the Office of Institutional Engagement and Effectiveness. And the University of Utah eliminated the diversity statements it had used in hiring before the Legislature convened.
Beyond the bill, a message
Florida recently made national headlines when it prohibited using state funds to support any DEI programs, eliminating full-time DEI positions and administrative appointments. The NAACP recently responded to that action by urging student athletes to reconsider attending predominantly white colleges in Florida.
Other red states like Texas and Alabama have also run bills overhauling DEI programs.
The issue of restricting DEI initiatives, House Minority Leader Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City said, has gotten more momentum since Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. And though the Utah DEI restrictions are more flexible than in other states, the message behind this and HB257, which prohibits transgender people from accessing bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity, is what concerns Romero.
House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, left, and Senate Minority Leader Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, are joined by other Democratic leaders at a press conference on the first day of the legislative session at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024.. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
The message applies both to communities affected and some of those who support the legislation, Romero said, citing the example of Natalie Cline, the Utah Board of Education member who posted a photo of a high school basketball player falsely suggesting she was transgender.
“I don’t think the intention of the majority of my colleagues was to hurt communities of color,” she said. “But this bill definitely sends a message for the majority of people I’ve talked to that are from communities of color, that they’re not welcome.”
Particularly in higher education, Romero said, though many experience barriers, there are structures that have been in place for a long time for communities of color and women that need to be reviewed to level the playing field.
Romero has shared her experience growing up in Utah being Mexican American and a first-generation student, experiencing instances of racism and finding a safe space at the University of Utah’s Center for Ethnic Student Affairs. They are experiences that many of her colleagues haven’t gone through, she said.
Passing the bill, though, energized young people in her district to participate in politics to create change, Romero said, which gives her hope.
But, more immediately, she believes the bill will cause unintended consequences, especially in local governments, and she wouldn’t be surprised if it’s discussed again.
“We’re going to have to find out when we’re dealing with the health outcomes of communities of color, when we’re looking at the social determinants of health, when we’re looking at programming that municipalities and the county do to address disparities,” she said. “And so I don’t think my colleagues really thought that part out because the focus had been on higher ed.”
DEI is today’s CRT
Though Woods Cross Republican Sen. Todd Weiler believes in the principle of diversity and inclusion, he can find the “equity” piece of DEI sometimes problematic, he said.
“I think that there is a fear among some that there’s these national liberal agendas that are taking hold in all of the universities, including those in Utah,” Weiler said, “and I think that this was an attempt to push back on that and say: ‘Wait a second. Let’s treat everyone fairly. Let’s help everyone who needs a lending hand. And let’s not make this all about politics.’”
Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, speaks in the Senate Chamber at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
During the debates, the bill sponsors cited anonymous anecdotes of instances of exclusion and acknowledged they didn’t have data to support the change. Weiler finds it hard to believe that DEI-related exclusions are not a problem, he said, adding that’s why Taylor Randall, the president of the University of Utah, “is facing all kinds of backlash from liberal professors at that institution because they’re saying that he should have stood up and fought this.”
“I think that there is a perception at the Utah legislature that these university professors and bureaucrats, in some instances, are just kind of taking their orders from this national liberal agenda and they’re just implementing that here locally,” he said, “and I think this bill was the legislature saying ‘No, that’s not appropriate. That’s not an appropriate use of our taxpayer funds.’”
But, that agenda goes both ways, he said, with conservatives also pushing against DEI across the country. A few years ago, the same players on both sides of the aisle advocated for or against critical race theory, for example.
“I feel like DEI is (what) CRT (was) two or three years ago,” he said.
Often, he said, those initiatives are trying to “solve racism with racism” by judging or dismissing students based on the color of their skin. If the state is funding a program, he said, lawmakers want them to be able to help everyone.
“I hope this DEI bill will give everyone a chance to succeed and if it doesn’t, then we can always come back and tweak it next year.”
‘Anti-DEI’ in Utah’s brand
Though a bill that would have restricted some DEI practices in private businesses failed in the session, there may still be impacts on Utah businesses, Sara Jones, CEO of InclusionPro, a Utah-based company that guides executives to implement DEI strategies.
“It absolutely does touch business. Businesses have thousands of interactions with our higher ed institutions every single day, month, year,” Jones said. “We don’t operate in isolation. We’re an ecosystem.”
DEI restrictions may jeopardize decadeslong relationships between businesses and universities, she said. A lot of those have been built based on different identity groups and events.
“(The bill) covers the higher ed employee who’s interacting with the business person,” she said. “And if we make higher ed employees so worried that they’re going to violate a law, that’s going to have a chilling effect.”
Jones was also concerned about the legislation’s message becoming part of the “state branding,” while different industries try to fill job vacancies. For Jones, the bill also represents a lost opportunity to find creative ways to address exclusion concerns by expanding DEI programs to rural communities, or first-generation students and creating bridges that would have been better received.
The new policy may also be a missed chance to have a nuanced conversation about how DEI programs work.
“We want there to be a real skills-based reason why somebody is in a role. DEI is not the only place where that happens. And I agree with that,” Jones said. “I don’t go to my clients saying ‘you better have quotas, you better have DEI statements,’ those sorts of things. I would rather that we just build up our leadership skills across the board to be better at seeing people’s genius and their talents and their skills.”
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