Editor’s note: Name has been redacted for sources’ privacy
President Trump issued a record-breaking number of directives in his first 100 days in office, including an executive order on Jan 21, titled “ENDING ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION AND RESTORING MERIT-BASED OPPORTUNITY.”
The order required federal agencies to terminate existing diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility mandates and included language “encouraging the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.”
As a private school, Westminster University exists in a unique position in contrast to public universities. President Beth Dobkin said that the school won’t make any “preemptive changes” in anticipation of legislation in a recent interview.
“We remain committed to sustaining a teaching and learning environment that facilitates access and success for all students,” Dobkin said in an email sent out on February 20 in response to the “Dear Colleague” letter.
There has been constant messaging about the changes higher education will face since the new administration entered office on Jan. 20. The communication has been described by many as confusing and tumultuous.
Dobkin is currently the only university president in Utah to sign the American Association of Colleges and Universities letter denouncing the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education.
“ The new right, and Trump in particular, is at all times three things: cruel…and that’s the point…and then chaotic and politically savvy,” said Shawn Coon, assistant professor of education. “ It’s meant to be mean.”
The risk of supporting diversity, equity and inclusion
“It’s one thing to say ‘let’s support DEI in a world where there are no consequences’ but now we’re in a world where there are clearly consequences for going against this current kind of administration,” said Coon, the education professor.
Tamara Stevenson, chief diversity officer at Westminster University, said the current approach is all about risk.
Stevenson said there are four areas where the institution is most at risk:
Access to federal funds, vulnerable populations on campus, legislative vulnerability, and unequal personal or professional burden or impact.
“It would be irresponsible for me to advise campus leadership to do things that will make us vulnerable,” Stevenson said.
HB-261 “did not impact Westminster directly,” but there is potential for future legislation to change this, Stevenson said.
“In this present moment, Westminster University as a private, independent institution is somewhat buffered,” Stevenson said. “At this point, we are continuing to comply with federal and state law.”
Stevenson said access to higher education is at the heart of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work and is being prioritized.
“ In the case of Westminster and other institutions, it’s student aid. Anything that would jeopardize that will dictate how we reconfigure, revise, review and adjust where needed,” Stevenson said.
“We are also taking an effort to look at what could be affected should we have more clarity [on federal restrictions],” said President Beth Dobkin.
The renaming and moving of the Diversity and Inclusion Center
The Diversity and Inclusion Center, which oversees student identity groups and ASW, was renamed as Student Engagement and Belonging (SEB) in 2023.
SEB was also relocated from Bassis Student Center to the basement of Shaw Student Center, along with the Associated Students of Westminster, Westminster’s student government.
“There wasn’t a mandate on us to do that,” the anonymous professor said. “We chose to do that in advance of any ruling. Then we shoved them in the basement of Shaw, which is an inherently inaccessible space.”
One of the previous co-director of First Scholars, Kari Lindsey, had her office moved before taking a job at the University of Utah.
“I think students deserve an accessible and friendly space to congregate and build community,” Lindsey said. “Campus was told that this move was temporary, so it is my full belief and expectation that these services will be moved by August of 2025.”
As the academic year has progressed, the move no longer seems temporary to students.
“It’s taking longer and that’s really not something that I want the next generation of ASW to have to deal with,” said Quincy Stewart, ASW President. ”So we still wanna be in Shaw, just preferably the first floor so that when people go to eat, they’re passing by us.”
The first floor is used to hold and feed large gatherings of students, creating a friendly atmosphere for students to feel safe and supported — a sharp contrast to the cramped space and low light of Shaw’s basement.
“You go down there and it feels like you’re in the back rooms. It doesn’t feel like you should be there,” said Lila Howells, justice studies major and disability justice coordinator.
The basement has also had issues with flooding from the upstairs bathroom and kitchen, worsening the atmosphere for students.
“To change [Diversity and Inclusion Center] to Student Engagement and Belonging… I don’t know what those words mean to me,” said Howells. “It doesn’t mean the same thing.”
The Associated Students of Westminster (ASW) launched a petition to relocate their offices out of the basement in Shaw during the 2025 spring semester.
Stewart said the initial idea for the petition started with Estelle Meneses, a sophomore nursing student and AAPI Life Coordinator. Together, ASW and SEB banded together to create momentum behind their push to move their offices.
The petition was accompanied by a letter stating, “Over the past year, ASW and all six Identity Groups have encountered numerous challenges due to their placement in the basement of Shaw.”
The petition cited “poor accessibility, an inconvenient and isolated location, lack of visibility to the student body and an overall decrease in engagement with the student organizations housed in this space” as reasons for the wanted change.
Howells, the disability justice coordinator, said when bringing accessibility issues to campus officials, they are told there aren’t enough complaints to see a reason to change the problems a student is facing.
“I think it’s frustrating because even though we are the only DEI groups that still exist on campuses in the state of Utah and at times feels like we are still pushing them aside and lowering them,” said Howells, disability justice coordinator at Westminster.
Students perspectives on Westminster’s handling of diversity, equity and inclusion
Howells cited bureaucracy as the main issue that stunts progress.
“The hierarchy at Westminster is so small compared to the University of Utah, yet you have to go through 30,000 steps to get anything up to the higher-ups,” Howells said.
Although messaging on recent events has been limited from the institution’s leadership, the published messages have been comforting, according to students.
“I see all these emails that I really agree and resonate with from President Dobkin about the legislation and how Westminster is taking stances,” Howells said. “But when it actually comes to students creating and wanting policy changes or simply asking for very basic accessibility changes on campus, it’s met with a lot of pushback.”
Students said this pushback could be related to differing motivations between students and administration.
“Disability Justice, Black Excellence, all of those groups are great, but it’s also very run -through-the-university,” said Indra Krueger, a sophomore justice studies major. ”It feels more administrative sometimes, and students don’t necessarily have the freedom to build community separate from admin.”
Krueger said a separation is needed to create an environment for progress.
“Admin can impede that because their job is to manage the money and to attract new students,” Krueger said. “ Their jobs are to manage a business. I don’t think that kind of space always lends itself to community building. Part of community building with students is just going to be organizing and trying to push on the admin to change things.”
University Utah’s student’s defunding
Though Westminster is in a unique position as a small private school, all students in higher education are dealing with the same uncertainty.
“ I think that we need to have sympathy for our neighbors down the street,” said Coon, the education professor.
While Westminster has been shielded, the University of Utah was impacted by HB-261 and received scrutiny from the Trump administration.
“The Black Student Union lost its funding completely,” said Neveah Parker, President of the Black Student Union at the University of Utah. “We used to operate with $11,000 recurring each year.”
The Black Student Union and the Pacific Island Student Association withdrew from the university’s sponsorship to be able to act independently of the institution’s new restrictions on group names, activities and language used.
“People don’t feel like they belong. People don’t feel like they have a place on campus,” Parker said. “People don’t feel like someone’s advocating for them. They don’t see faculty that look like them. They don’t see professionals that look like them.”
Students at the University of Utah have criticised the administration’s interpretation of HB-261 and said the institution has taken an extreme approach to the legislation.
“ Everyone is welcome. All language, all the time. HB-261 didn’t need to be made in order for it to be equal for everyone,” Parker said. “Equal opportunities initiatives. Right? That’s what the language is. That already was happening.”
Students at the University of Utah said they are concerned the institution is moving backward and reversing many programs that were started through student movements.
“These centers were created to solve a problem. The problem is still there,” Parker said.
Faculty’s Perspective on DEI at Westminster
Currently, the institution isn’t directly impacted by HB-261 and other legislation. However, faculty say the fight for DEI is already underway on campus.
“ We are very much complying in advance to keep our heads down and not invoke the ire of the more conservative folks in our state at the great disservice to our students, staff and faculty,” said a professor who engages with DEI at Westminster and wished to remain anonymous. “ It’s embarrassing that we as a university that could speak up and could be a space where we openly and loudly support DEI, we don’t.”
The anonymous professor said that while there isn’t legislative backlash against DEI work at Westminster, there is still a “hostile environment on campus” and DEI work is not incentivized or compensated.
“ Staff are genuinely worried about their jobs, they’re worried about retaliation,” the anonymous professor said. “They have fewer protections than faculty do. And so they are in a much more vulnerable position to be able to speak out.”
The anonymous professor cited Westminster’s small size and being “run off of relationships” to high turnover in positions related to DEI work on campus where “decisions that have been made by the administration and VP-level positions have driven away really talented, dedicated staff and faculty members.”
The anonymous professor said this is a structural and cultural issue around DEI work on campus that leads to extreme burnout.
“ If we created an environment where there was less fear and there was more collaboration, we could better serve students and we could better protect our staff and our faculty colleagues,” the anonymous professor said.
Other professors feel that the school’s priorities are misaligned.
“ If we’re going to put our money towards anything right now, it really shouldn’t be the sesquicentennial, splashy ‘whatever,’” the anonymous professor said. “It really should be putting that towards the unique space that we occupy now in Utah, which is bolstering up support and resources towards DEI on campus.”
Some criticized the messaging around DEI from the institution as “performative.”
“ We’re so insular and so self-congratulatory about inward-focused stuff that we are doing,” aid Spencer Bagley, associate professor of mathematics. “But if you never engage in the world beyond 1300 East or 1700 South then we’re not doing our jobs as educators.”
“ If we have been given the golden opportunity of having a DEI office, how is the student experience meaningfully different?” Bagley said.
Bagley criticized the school using buzz words like “distinctively different” without emphasizing how we are actually different –specifically, that we are exempt from the law requiring discrimination against trans students (referring to the HB-269).
“ How are we not saying that a way we are distinctively different in the state of Utah is not being legally required to discriminate against trans students?”
Bagley said fear is hindering the institution’s potential and “ there is so much more that we could be doing if we weren’t just so afraid of what could happen.”
The tentative future of diversity, equity and inclusion
“ My long-term worry is if for a long enough period of time you tell people you’re not welcome here, whether that’s the University of Utah or [Westminster]… eventually people lose some hope,” said Coon, the education professor.
Despite the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, many students are continuing to organize and stand up for DEI practices.
“ DEI feels more like a stopgap to stave off some of the effects of patriarchy and racism,” Krueger, the sophomore justice studies student, said. “We have that stopgap. Now we need to build something.”
Students and faculty agree that despite the current political climate, there is more work to be done.
“It is about continuous improvement. It’s about embedding the work, it is about creating an environment for students to thrive,” said Stevenson, chief diversity officer. “It’s a lot going on, but we will get through this. It’s gonna look different on the other side. I think we’ll be better for it, but right now we’re in a really painful spot.”
At Westminster, the Associated Students of Westminster (ASW) is setting up meetings to speak to administrators about the petition to relocate their offices after presenting the petition.
“ I think we’re coming down from all of the fear of the Dear Colleague letter and we’ve seen that we can still do the things that we care about on campus,” said Stewart, ASW President.
Stewart said some events have had their titles changed to comply with the university’s requests but “the heart of the message is still there and there’s still students looking out and caring for each other.”
Up the road at the University of Utah, students remain motivated to fight back against the changes administrators have made in response to HB-261.
”We’ve really been trying to focus on what we can do instead of what we can’t do,” said Parker, the Black Student Union president. “ All systems are corrupt in one way or another, and if we just accept it, then how do we move forward? Because right now, we’re not moving forward, we’re moving backwards.”
The BSU launched a GoFundMe campaign to fund the group’s efforts after the loss of institutional funding. So far, the campaign has raised over $12,000.
“ Community is one thing that they can’t take away,” Parker said. “ So if you love your community, and you make space for other people, then I believe that’s the way we can move forward together.”
