When he took office in 2021, Utah governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, made advancing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” a key priority. He appointed a high-level diversity officer to his administration. His senior leadership was put through a “21-Day Equity Challenge,” which instructed them in microaggressions and antiracism.
The universities were on board. Utah State’s annual diversity symposium featured talks such as “Decentering Whiteness.” The university also required DEI statements from applicants to the faculty, explaining how they infused diversity and equity—a focus on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other categories of “marginalization”—into their work. Even for positions in fields such as insect ecology and lithospheric evolution.
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