Utah Board of Education measure targets diversity programs ‘still present and active’ in schools

SALT LAKE CITY — The debate over diversity programs in Utah schools — eliminated, presumably, in a controversial law approved by Utah lawmakers last year — isn’t over.

The Utah Board of Education on Thursday is to consider a resolution targeting lingering diversity, equity and inclusion practices that it says are “still present and active” in the state’s schools and Board of Education rules. Per the proposal, the Board of Education calls on the state body and local school districts to “immediately disband” practices, programming, curriculum and policies aimed at promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, known by the acronym DEI.

Related: University of Utah among 50+ universities facing federal investigations as part of Trump’s anti-DEI campaign

The measure’s preambulatory clauses go further, tying diversity initiatives to Soviet-style communism.

The intent of diversity programming is “to achieve the Soviet Communist goal of actual equality, or equity…, by implementing a political favoritism program in the name of identity politics,” the proposed resolution reads. The push for diversity, equity and inclusion, it goes on, “is 1920s Soviet Union policy for using ethnic minorities to advance the installation of Communism.”

The resolution doesn’t identify any specific examples of continuing diversity programming, to have been eliminated per HB261, approved by lawmakers in 2024. But Christina Boggess, the state school board member behind the proposal, said they’re there. Board members Cole Kelly, Joann Brinton, Rod Hall and Emily Green also back the measure.

HB261 “attempted to address the ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ issue — supposedly outlawing it — but evidence shows there is an overt obfuscation and blatant disregard for the law among many within the USBE and our LEAs,” Boggess said in a message to KSL.com, referring to the Board of Education and local school districts. The Utah educational system has “a culture of noncompliance,” she charged, referencing a recent legislative audit, and the resolution aims to make it “follow the law” after debate on the matter dating back five years.

Another board member, Sarah Reale, offered blistering criticism of the proposal.

“The resolution is not only offensive and full of false narratives, it is a complete waste of time. Our public schools have put time and resources implementing and following the requirements of HB261. This resolution is unnecessary, creates misleading narratives, fuels culture wars and is, frankly, embarrassing,” she said in a message to KSL.com.

HB261 called for the dismantling of diversity initiatives at Utah’s public colleges, public schools and other government entities. Such initiatives aim at aiding traditionally marginalized groups, including racial and ethnic minorities, but HB261 proponents say all people in need, regardless of personal identifiers, should be able to tap into them. The proposal caused heated debate in Utah. Likewise, the issue has been focus of a growing push nationwide by some against diversity programming based in part on the contention that the sort of discrimination that prompted it is no longer as pronounced, rendering it unnecessary.

The resolution, furthermore, casts a wary eye on the “identity politics” that it states are at the root of diversity initiatives. “Identity politics includes programs, processes or implemented ideas referring to a critical, or oppressor vs. oppressed, framework for dealing with inequities between identity groups,” it reads.

The debate last year over HB261 focused mainly on the impact it would have at Utah’s public universities. Since its passage, institutions like the University of Utah and Weber State University have renamed and reformulated the diversity, equity and inclusion offices they once offered to cater to all students needing help, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation and other identifiers. But the new state law also applies to public schools and governmental entities.

The proposed resolution, without offering examples, said “many facets of DEI” continue in Utah schools and trainings and in Board of Education rules. It also notes a Jan. 20, 2025, executive order issued by President Donald Trump calling for an end to diversity efforts at the federal level. The measure calls for the elimination of continuing diversity initiatives and policies in Utah schools and the school board by June 30, though it doesn’t spell out a means of documenting compliance.

The Board of Education agenda allots 30 minutes of discussion time to the diversity initiative, one of several items officials are to discuss at the body’s regular meeting on Thursday. Reale lamented use of meeting time on the resolution “when we could be working to support our students, teachers and families in Utah.”