This story is jointly published by nonprofits Amplify Utah and The Salt Lake Tribune, in collaboration with Weber State University, to elevate perspectives in local media through student journalism.
Ogden • Weber State University’s annual Unity Conference was set to take on a big topic — censorship — with workshops, panel discussions and the screening of a documentary about book banning.
Organizers announced Wednesday that they canceled the event, originally scheduled for Thursday and Friday, because university officials wanted speakers to remove some of what they were going to present.
Professor Richard Price, one of the scheduled speakers, wrote in an email to the university’s president, Brad Mortensen, ”Little did I expect that the university would censor the content of the conference to the point at which I could no longer ethically participate.”
On Thursday, Weber State’s chapter of the American Federation of Teachers’ Utah College Council — a union that represents faculty and staff in higher education — told The Signpost via email that it would host a “teach-in,” titled “Unity Conference: Uncensored Version.”
That event, unaffiliated with the university, was scheduled to take place at the same time and place as the original conference: Friday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., in front of Stewart Library on the Ogden campus.
The decision to cancel the conference came after organizers received an email from Jessica Oyler, Weber State’s vice president of Student Access and Success (SAS), in which she sought “to provide clarity” about whether the conference’s programming conformed to state law.
Oyler cited HB261, passed by Utah Legislature and signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, which requires Utah’s higher-education institutions eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly referred to as DEI.
“The intent here is not to suggest that operating this way is ideal, as I know there are strong feelings about the legislation itself, but rather to be transparent about how we are operationalizing the law,” Oyler wrote in her email to organizers.
Oyler told The Signpost on Thursday that her department — which funded the conference — does not enjoy the academic freedom that faculty do, and so is not exempt from the restrictions of HB261.
“That distinction in funding and coordination matters under HB261 because SAS staff and other non-faculty employees fall outside the academic freedom protections specifically carved out in the law,” she said.
HB261, Oyler said, doesn’t allow university programs to talk about what the Legislature called “discriminatory practices.” Those include anything that suggests any people, based on characteristics of personal identity, are inherently privileged, oppressed, racist, sexist or victims. The same goes for political systems or conflicts over power.
Price, a political science professor at Weber State, wrote in a blog post Thursday that administrators wanted to block information that suggested censorship is the result of a partisan strategy.
“I, a political scientist, was told not to talk about politics,” Price said. “In other words I was ordered to lie to my colleagues, students and the general public.”
The 27th annual Unity Conference, which was free to the public, was scheduled to take place Thursday and Friday at two locations: Stewart Library in Ogden and the D2 building at the school’s Davis campus in Layton.
Roughly 120 people were registered for the event, half of them conference organizers and people scheduled to present, Bryan Magaña, public relations director for the conference organizers, said in an email.
The committee in charge of the Unity Conference — whose title was “Redacted: Navigating the Complexities of Censorship” — sent an email to the conference’s collaborators Wednesday, “to share the difficult news that we have made the decision to cancel” the event. The notice also was posted on the school’s website.
An email signed by the conference’s co-chairs read: “After careful consideration of concerns raised by conference planners and participants, we have determined we cannot in good conscience deliver the high-quality, meaningful experience that our community expects and deserves.” At the bottom of the email, the sign-off, “Co-Chairs of the 27th Annual Unity Conference,” was crossed out.
Sarah Herrmann, who organized one of the conference’s panels, posted on a private faculty Facebook group, obtained by The Signpost, that presenters were directed to remove any mention of diversity, equity and inclusion by the end of the day Monday.
Herrmann wrote that she was concerned “about the precedent this sets for academic freedom, student scholarly development and the integrity of conferences and events hosted on campus.”