Utah is the latest state to ban DEI programs in government and colleges
The bill, which now awaits Governor Spencer Cox's likely approval, mirrors similar actions in Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma, showcasing a national trend toward reevaluating diversity initiatives in higher education.
Utah has aligned with a growing number of Republican-led states by passing a bill that prohibits Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training, hiring practices, and programs at state universities and within state government.
The bill, which now awaits Governor Spencer Cox’s likely approval, mirrors similar actions in Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma, showcasing a national trend toward reevaluating diversity initiatives in higher education.
“It ensures academic freedom on university campuses where all voices will be heard,” said Republican Keith Grover, the bill’s Senate sponsor.
In addition to targeting DEI offices and programs, the bill also prohibits the requirement for employees to submit DEI commitment statements. Senator Keith Grover, the bill’s Senate sponsor, argued that the bill ensures “academic freedom on university campuses where all voices will be heard.”
“I can assure you, after this legislative session, it will not be happening in the state of Utah, these diversity statements that you have to sign to get hired,” Cox said in December.
At the same press conference, Cox called such statements “bordering on evil.” Soon after, University of Utah President Taylor Randall announced that the school would be doing away with diversity statement requirements, citing Cox’s comments.
“In light of recent statements made by elected leaders and directives from the Utah Board of Higher Education to eliminate diversity questions or statements used in hiring at Utah’s higher education institutions, all hiring units at the university should discontinue the use of any type of diversity statements or similar practices as part of their unit-level applicant or employee hiring processes,” Randall wrote.
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The Utah bill is part of a larger national dialogue on the role of DEI initiatives in higher education and government. In July, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 17, banning DEI offices at Texas public colleges. Months earlier, University of Houston’s independently announced it would halt the use of DEI statements in its hiring processes. In December, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced a mandate requiring all state colleges to “review their DEI programs to “eliminate and dismiss non-critical personnel.”
Campus Reform Editor-in-Cheif Dr. Zachary Marschall reflected on the trend in a Tuesday op-ed in the Washington Examiner. “The country is finally paying full attention to the problem left-wing university radicals have created, and the mood in America is shifting back to sanity, decency, tolerance, and truth. These are the virtues higher education ought to be pursuing — and they deserve preservation.”
“Like the Committee on Public Safety, which sent people to the guillotine during the French Revolution, DEI offices use their nice-sounding name to hide their atrocities,” Marschall wrote. “That strategy worked for years — but not anymore. Public universities in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas have now curbed or banned DEI practices and programming.”