‘I can see the views on both sides’: Utah Senate passes Dixie State rename bill — with some reluctancy
SALT LAKE CITY – A bill to rename Dixie State University took another step forward on Wednesday morning.
The Utah Senate voted 26-3 for first substitute HB278 to be replaced by Senator Don Ipson, R-St. George. Since the bill was replaced by the House of Representatives after it was passed last month, the House will have to vote on the bill again before it can be put on Governor Spencer Cox’s desk for consideration. The 2021 legislative period ends on Friday.
The original HB278 cleared the House of Representatives by 51 to 20 votes on Feb.10, but the bill was only picked up by the Senate Education Committee earlier this week. In fact, a group of college students traveled from St. George to the Utah State Capitol last month to protest the Senate’s then-legislative lull.
Ipson’s replacement bill was finally passed by the committee on Monday. The bill calls on the university’s trustees and college officials to submit a recommendation to the Legislative Management Committee no later than November 1, following a public name change process. Ipson said it is directing feedback from the university, alumni, community leaders, residents of southwest Utah, and local businesses.
If a name is not submitted on time, the Trustees would establish a Heritage Committee to identify and implement strategies for preserving the heritage, culture and history of the region on the institution’s campus, including regional significance of the term ‘Dixie’. “
It was passed after a 20-minute Senate debate on the bill, during which several senators said they reluctantly supported the bill. They used the ground time leading up to the vote to rail against the “culture to cancel” which they held responsible for the need for the bill.
“I don’t think the name is racist, but I get the perception. I understand we’re living in 2021,” said Senator Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, adding that he doesn’t understand why other schools like Yale, hasn’t been scrutinized that closely.
Founded in 1701, Yale University was named after a slave trader named Elihu Yale. His story became the subject of the “Cancel Yale” movement last year, according to the Yale Daily News.
“I can see the views on both sides … but where does it end? ‘Mr. Potato Head’ is now ‘Potato Head’. Dr. Seuss is on his deathbed,” added Senator John Johnson, R-North Ogden, added, referring to Hasbro’s recent decisions to market the children’s toys in a gender-neutral manner and Tuesday’s announcement that six Dr. Seuss children’s books are no longer published due to pictures that are considered racist and insensitive.
“I think we need to think about what is happening to the ‘cancellation culture’ and how much pressure is put on all sorts of things when it seems a little bizarre,” Johnson continued.
Senator Jake Anderegg, R-Lehi, also used the time to support the bill and loathe some of the reasons behind it. He said it was difficult to reconcile the need for a name change with the desire of the southern Utah community to keep the name.
“I think this is a good compromise that will help us work through the process and make sure we get public input on it. It’s just – I hate breaking culture.” That’s so stupid, “he said.
Meanwhile, Senator Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, and Senator Derek Kitchen, D-Salt Lake City, both said they were glad the bill allowed decision-making by people closer to the community rather than the legislature itself were. That is why they supported the current bill on the original legislative proposal.
The purpose of the bill is to help college leaders and students who request a school name change based on growing concerns about the name that led to new challenges.
“We’re not trying to cancel anything,” said Kitchen. “Indeed, the right thing to do is to return it to the community to get involved in a process and empower them to move in the direction that makes the most sense for the university and the community: it is the right thing.”
Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers, R-Cedar City, added that he supported the bill as he saw it as a possible “positive outcome” of a controversial situation.
“This was a very, very difficult problem that we faced,” said Vickers. “To be honest, it was very divisive in southern Utah.”
Some senators also pushed for the option of a name reflecting the university’s recent drive to become a polytechnic school.
Richard Williams, president of Dixie State University, said the university is calling for the move because of growing concerns from students and alumni about the name, which refers to Utah’s southern region of Utah but also has ties to the Confederation. The school was founded in 1911 and two years later the term “Dixie” was added for the first time.
A recent study found that about one in five Dixie State graduates recently said their employer either raised or was likely to raise concerns about the name of the school. Various faculty members and the NAACP chapter in Utah have also raised concerns about the name of the school, particularly over the past year.
Jeanetta Williams, president of the Salt Lake Branch and the NAACP’s Tri-State Conference in Idaho, Nevada and Utah, has written a statement against the bill, which was published on Deseret News on Wednesday.
“The name Dixie has racial connotations associated with Dixie State University’s earlier traditions and southern symbolism,” she wrote. “The administrators removed the longtime rebel mascot in 2005 amid controversy over Confederate relations. … The Dixie State University campus statue was made up of Confederate soldiers called” The Rebels. “The statue showed Confederate soldiers and a horse carried a Confederate battle flag. “
“In the second half of the 20th century, the school’s mascot was Rodney Rebel, a Confederate soldier,” she added. “The rebel statue was removed from the Dixie State University campus and put into storage in 2012. The statue was later returned to the artist.”
However, the name remains popular with many residents of the Southern Utah region and in Utah. A poll by Deseret News / Hinckley Institute of Politics last month found that 61% of Utahns surveyed were reluctant to change the university’s name, compared with 20% for it. There was also a rally against the bill on Monday.
Addressing the controversy last month, Cox said he believed Dixie State University “would happen” at some point.
“It’s just whether it happens now or later,” he said at the time. “A change that reflects the mission of the university and a change that can signal to the rest of the world what the university is doing.”
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