Many applauded in January 2024 when Utah governor Spencer Cox signed HB 261 into law. The bill’s backers hoped that it would ban mandatory DEI statements in hiring, diversity trainings, and offices dedicated to “diversity, equity and inclusion.” The University of Utah’s main and health sciences campuses, however, have tried to protect their diversity offices from the new law.
To borrow an old Soviet formulation, Utah’s legislature pretended to ban DEI, while the university pretended that it was banned. In an FAQ published shortly after Cox signed the bill, the university claimed that it had no plans to lay off any employees in its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) offices. The school appears to have kept its word: of the 55 DEI administrators at the University of Utah that I identified in January 2024, 36 have merely taken new titles.
Consider, first, University of Utah Health (UHH), which has rebranded its Office of Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion as the Office of Health Sciences Workforce Excellence. Twelve of the former diversity unit’s 13 administrators retain administrative roles at various colleges within UHH. The College of Nursing’s assistant dean for EDI, for instance, saw her title change to associate dean. The School of Medicine’s assistant dean similarly dropped “EDI” from her title. The associate vice president of EDI simply changed units, carrying that title to the workforce-excellence office.
EDI deans on the main campus and at the S. J. Quinney College of Law saw similar shifts. The university’s onetime assistant vice president for EDI and chief diversity officer now works in “community engagement.” The former assistant vice president for faculty equity and diversity is now the assistant vice president for faculty support. The law school’s assistant dean of student affairs, meantime, merely dropped the EDI tag from his role.
Other on-campus diversity efforts have been rebranded and staffed with similar personnel. Three staff members from the since-dissolved American Indian Resource Center work in the new Center for Native American Excellence and Tribal Engagement. The Women’s Resource Center, LGBT Resource Center, and the Center for Equity and Student Belonging collapsed into two new centers, while the university opened a new Center for Student Access and Resources. That center appears to have taken on many diversity-office personnel; CSAR’s Instagram notes that students would “see some familiar faces from various centers that were closed due to HB 261.” Indeed, at least five CSAR staff served in an affinity-group center dedicated to an aggrieved minority before the HB 261 ban went into effect. The former Black Cultural Center program coordinator, for example, is now CSAR’s student resource navigator.
In sum, the University of Utah has apparently defied the state’s DEI ban. In both Florida and Texas, eliminating DEI offices has meant laying off staff to ensure that no one on campus is performing prohibited functions. It is hard to know with certainty whether Utah’s old DEI staff are still performing their old jobs under new names. But the state is acting like it does not matter what voters say or do or what duly elected legislators and executives demand. Like their counterparts in Texas have done, Utah legislators must write strongly worded letters to gather information and make credible threats of enforcement. But that may not be enough. To ensure that the state’s DEI ban is more than a paper tiger, Utah’s legislature or the university’s boards of trustees may need to cut off funds.
Photo: By FancyPants - Own work, Public Domain, Link