Utah State Board of Education board rejects adopting anti-DEI stance

The Utah State Board of Education rejected a request Thursday to formally adopt a stance against diversity, equity and inclusion.

The decision came after state school board members received hundreds of phone calls and emails expressing concern over the proposed resolution. It would have defined DEI as a “Soviet” and “Marxist” practice and directed all Utah public schools to disband “any and all” DEI practices.

Utah has already outlawed DEI practices in government organizations, including public schools.

The resolution, however, asserted without citing examples that Utah public schools “are still in direct conflict with Utah code and reject the Legislature’s clear directive to prohibit the teaching and praxis of DEI [CRT].”

Five board members — Joann Brinton, Rod Hall, Christina Boggess, Cole Kelley and Emily Green — had asked to add the resolution to the board’s meeting agenda.

A USBE spokesperson previously told The Salt Lake Tribune that resolutions establish the board’s official position on a matter but do not carry the same “legal authority as a board rule or policy.”

Some board members said that’s why they could not support the measure, which failed in a vote of 10-4.

“We make rules,” board member Molly Hart said. “If we have problems in our districts, we do not write resolutions. period. A resolution does virtually nothing besides create chaos.”

All but one of the resolution’s original requesters, Kelley, voted in favor. He cited the pushback from constituents as an apparent need for changes.

Boggess, who retained her support, argued that adopting it was necessary to avoid blowback from the federal government after President Donald Trump’s directives to eliminate DEI from government institutions. She said the state school board should also show its support for the Utah Legislature.

“I think we’re giving the proverbial middle finger to the Legislature,” Boggess said. “I think we’re giving the proverbial middle finger to our federal agencies, who have spoken very boldly on these issues and have asked us to address them.”

‘My phone did not stop ringing’

An initial draft of the proposed resolution was first published online earlier this week, quickly drawing community concern.

“I have a quiet district. They don’t reach out very often. And yesterday,” board second vice chair LeAnn Wood said, “my phone did not stop ringing.“

Many residents also spoke out against the resolution during public comment Thursday.

“The identities kids bring into the classroom are integral parts of who they are as learners,” said Amelia Landay, a teacher at a Title I elementary school. “Asking us to ignore their diverse backgrounds goes against board policy.”

Several students affiliated with Latinos in Action — a national organization that works with schools to close graduation and opportunity gaps for Latino students — asserted the resolution would put the program at risk.

Others argued the resolution undermined educators.

“We are more bothered by the way members of the State Board of Education are portraying the education system in the state, rather than supporting educators in school,” Lexi Cunningham told board members.

Cunningham is the executive director of the Utah School Superintendents Association and the associate executive director of the Utah School Boards Association.

“Insinuating that there is a culture of noncompliance, and a blatant disregard for laws, is creating a divide between this board and the education community,” she added.

Linking DEI to Soviet Russia is inaccurate, scholar says

The first published draft of the proposed resolution asserted that DEI originated in Soviet Russia as part of a “Communist” effort to achieve “actual equality, or equity.”

An updated draft released Thursday removed the words “Communist” and “communism” but maintained that DEI “at its core” is Soviet. It also said Soviet programs called “коренизация (korenizatsiya)” and “разнообразие (raznoobrazsiya)” translate to “inclusion” and “diversity,” respectively.

But Rebekah Ramsay, a Soviet historian at the University of California, Berkeley, told The Tribune in an email that those translations and the resolution’s other assertions are inaccurate.

“It would be difficult to argue compellingly that DEI programs in 21st century Utah are ‘at their core’ a 1920s Soviet policy,“ Ramsay said, though she noted both are linked to “broader histories of equal rights advocacy.”

Ramsay added that “коренизация” does not mean “inclusion,” as the resolution asserted, but instead more accurately translates to “nativization” (or literally “root-ization”).

The term refers to Soviet nationalization initiatives, including policies that non-Russian regions should be governed by those of the area’s primary nationality; that schools and state services should be available in the region’s national language; and that all residents should learn the national language, Ramsay said.

“It was not about ‘inclusion’ or ‘diversity’ per se, but rather about autonomy and rights,” she wrote in an email. “Korenizatsiia was most prominent in the 1920s, at the beginning of the Soviet Union’s existence. It was actively repressed under Stalin, though not officially rescinded. Most of the people involved with early ’korenizatsiia’ were accused of ‘bourgeois nationalism’ by the late 1920s and executed in the ‘Great Purge’ of the late 1930s.”

The second term the resolution cited, “разнообразие,” is associated with diversity, but “in a descriptive or celebratory sense,” Ramsay added.

“I’ve never seen it used to indicate a program or initiative,” Ramsay said. And while “equality” was a Soviet goal, “diversity, equity and inclusion” are not terms historically associated with Soviet initiatives, she added.

“Soviet policies consistently denounced and excluded certain categories of people,” Ramsay said.

The resolution goes on to define “identity politics” and “inclusion” as inherently Marxist concepts. It argues that “inclusion” means prioritizing marginalized groups or unpopular ideas (”counter-hegemonic perspectives”) at the majority’s expense, ensuring “unity in content through Marxist thought.”

The goal, the resolution asserts, is to achieve “actual equality.”

Ramsay said “actual equality” is a term that stems from the Soviet Party and not Marxist thought. Marxism is a system of thought developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels that critiques capitalism and advocates for a classless society.

“The emphasis on ‘actual equality’ is an unusual choice,” she said. “This phrase is a Soviet formulation, which seems to be mostly associated with discussions at the 12th Party Congress in 1923.”

DEI’s longstanding presence in public education

Diversity, equity and inclusion, as a concept, promotes the fair treatment and full participation of all people, especially populations that have historically been underrepresented, according to the American Psychological Association.

In the context of public education, DEI means ensuring that all students, regardless of their background, receive equal educational opportunities.

Opponents of DEI argue it’s “un-American” and that it “seeks to dismantle our entire society and recast it,” as Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, wrote in February. The Heritage Foundation is the conservative think tank behind the far-right Project 2025 policy book.

DEI has been common practice in public schools and universities for decades, but experts argue its politicization started after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, which sparked increased DEI initiatives in government and corporate America, according to a USA Today report.

Those initiatives were met with strong conservative backlash and quickly became a political rallying point. In recent years, Republican-led states, including Utah, started cracking down on DEI, banning the practice and terminology from government institutions.

In an executive order signed Jan. 29, Trump called diversity, equity and inclusion “indoctrination” and “discriminatory” and called for the elimination of all federal funding related to it.

Utah’s early anti-DEI laws

Before the federal DEI crackdown, Utah had already prohibited DEI in government through multiple laws and administrative rules passed in the last two years.

HB261, an anti-DEI bill passed in 2024, scaled back diversity efforts across public education and government statewide.

HB427, passed in 2023, required that students be taught about racism, sexism and oppression in a way that is consistent with “certain principles,” including that individuals are not inherently racist or sexist because of their race, gender or other identities.

Following both, the Utah state school board in 2024 amended an administrative rule originally aimed at ensuring “educational equity” for all students. The revised rule, R277-328, prohibits any training or practices related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The state also previously banned Critical Race Theory (CRT) from being taught in Utah schools, which the proposed resolution presented Thursday repeatedly and incorrectly asserted is the same concept as DEI.

Critical Race Theory is a graduate-level concept that analyzes how social and political laws and media shape social conceptions of race and ethnicity; it considers racism to be systemic and inherent in Western society.

Following multiple accusations that CRT was being taught in Utah’s schools, a 2022 state audit found no evidence to support those claims.