Cox’s rebuke of university diversity efforts draws backlash; details of planned bill still in the works

SALT LAKE CITY — Gov. Spencer Cox’s tough words directed at university diversity, equity and inclusion programs are drawing backlash from defenders of the efforts.

“We are extremely concerned about his statement and the direction that Utah is taking,” Darlene McDonald, who helps lead a pair of Utah advocacy groups that help racial and ethnic minorities, said Thursday, a day after Cox’s comments.

Meantime, state Sen. John Johnson, R-North Ogden, said legislation aimed at DEI programs, as they’re known, is in the works for consideration in the 2024 legislative session, but he wouldn’t get into specifics since the proposal is still being crafted.

Johnson proposed legislation in the 2023 session aimed at doing away altogether with DEI programs — an increasing target of conservative lawmakers across the country — at Utah’s public universities. SB283 ultimately stalled, though it was the focus of study over the summer, and Johnson is heavily involved with other lawmakers in preparing the proposal for 2024.

“We need to end practices that discriminate against anybody,” Johnson said Thursday.

Whether the new proposal goes as far as his 2023 measure in pushing for the elimination of DEI programs has yet to be determined, Johnson said. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last summer effectively deeming affirmative-action admissions policies at universities unconstitutional, he argues, bodes in favor of moves to at least scale back DEI programs.

“Affirmative action was legal before (the Supreme Court ruling) so you could do things affirmatively to help one group over another. Now they basically say, ‘We need to have fairness across (the board). We don’t want to judge people based on their race or ethnicity. We want to fairly judge people,'” said Johnson.

In his monthly press conference Wednesday, Cox said DEI programs at Utah’s universities don’t seem to be effective in addressing equity and inclusivity issues or in boosting graduation rates of students of color. He took particular aim at “diversity statements” that he said certain new hires at Utah universities have to make. The University of Utah, Utah State University, Weber State University and Southern Utah University all have DEI programs.

“Sadly, I don’t believe that what we’re seeing with some of these programs, maybe many of the programs in our universities, is accomplishing any of those things,” Cox said. Rather, he went on, “these identity politics and philosophies have kind of infiltrated what I think were very well-intentioned ideas and programs.”

Johnson said he was “quite pleased” with Cox’s comments. “I really appreciate that the governor is trying to lead out on this thing,” Johnson said.

On the flip side, McDonald and Stanley Ellington, chairman of the Utah Black Roundtable, which advocates for African Americans in Utah, defended DEI initiatives. McDonald helps run the 1 Utah Project and People of Power Coalition, which advocate for people of color. She also ran unsuccessfully last year as a Democrat for the 4th District seat in the U.S. House.

Dismantling DEI programs “will send us back — way, way back — make it OK to be even more segregated than what we were 50, 100 years ago,” McDonald said. She sees Cox as “catering” to the right in his critique of DEI programs.

Ellington dismissed the suggestion from critics like Johnson that DEI programs somehow give students of color an extra boost at the expense of white or other students.

“Nobody’s being left out,” Ellington said. If new programs help bolster equality for everybody, he said, “nobody’s left out.”

In some Utah communities, racial and ethnic minorities account for just small fractions of the overall population — 1% or less — which can foster a sense of isolation, he said.

“If you can’t see that 1%, and they are a decimal point, they treat them as if they don’t exist,” Ellington said. DEI programs help counter that and help Black and other minority students navigate the university setting.

Johnson said Cox staffers have been involved in talks on DEI legislation, as well as Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, and House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper. Rep. Katy Hall, R-South Ogden, has also been involved, he said, as well as higher education representatives. Hall last year proposed legislation, HB451, taking aim at rules in public universities and other state entities requiring statements on diversity, equity and inclusion of job applicants or would-be students. The proposal stalled.

“How do we do this the right way?” Cox said at his press conference. “I want everybody at the table.”