Utah Lawmakers Flex Their Power Over Public Universities

Public colleges and universities in Utah are set to lose roughly $60 million in July—or 10 percent of their state-funded instructional budgets—but they can earn back that money by cutting programs and positions and investing in other areas considered worthy by state lawmakers, under a law passed this spring.

Some universities have detailed their early plans for cuts and reinvestments, which for some include nixing minors in ethnic and women’s and gender studies and instead putting money into broad items such as “additional online pathways” at Weber State University and “social work/counseling” at Southern Utah University. Under the process outlined in House Bill 265, colleges and universities’ plans for this “strategic reinvestment” must be based on enrollment, completion rates, job placement, wages, program-level costs and “current and future localized and statewide workforce demands.”

Academic freedom was never designed to prop up programs with declining enrollment or poor outcomes for students.”

—Rep. Karen Peterson, a Republican state lawmaker who sponsored HB 265

Bryan Magaña, a Weber State spokesperson, said in an email that the ethnic, women’s and gender and queer studies minors on the chopping block had a combined enrollment of 50. He said they “were assessed using the same metrics as every other program, and are among 30-plus majors, minors, certificates and emphases slated for elimination.”

“A big part of our strategic reinvestment plan, and the key objective of HB 265, was to better align our offerings with workforce needs. The market analysis for Utah doesn’t currently show a demand for jobs in those areas,” he wrote. “That doesn’t mean those fields are unimportant or that skills from those classes can’t translate to the workplace, but when job placement is one of the main drivers of HB 265, Weber State had to take that into serious consideration.”

HB 265 is just one example of how Republicans in Utah’s State House are trying to exert more control over public higher education and shape colleges’ academic programs and services. The changes have raised concerns among faculty, who see their traditional academic freedom and shared governance roles in setting curricula and other areas being usurped.

State Encroachment

Since 2024, lawmakers have mandated post-tenure review; banned diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and offices; and banned pride flags, Juneteenth flags and others from “prominent” campus locations. They’ve also created a Center for Civic Excellence at Utah State University, mandating that faculty appointed to that center teach all the university’s general education courses while serving on short-term, at-will contracts.

(Harrison Kleiner, a tenured associate philosophy professor and vice provost overseeing undergraduate education at Utah State, said that—despite what the law allows—all faculty teaching gen ed courses at Utah State will have academic homes in departments and colleges outside the center. He said the law “preserves faculty governance rather than eliminating it.")

That law envisions a future statewide impact, requiring the Utah Board of Higher Education to “develop a proposed core of system-wide general education courses aligned with the educational principles” in the law.

“The State Legislature loves to interfere in higher education,” said Kendall Gerdes, a tenured associate professor of writing and rhetoric studies and president of the University of Utah’s American Association of University Professors chapter. “They’re afraid of faculty governance and they don’t respect the expertise of faculty at any of their state institutions.”

As for university administrators, Gerdes said, “Our administration wants to have a healthy working relationship with the State Legislature. I think that they are less concerned about having a healthy relationship with their own faculty.”

Rep. Karen Peterson, a Republican state lawmaker who sponsored HB 265, said in an email that as the higher education environment evolves, “we have the opportunity to realign resources, allowing institutions to focus on their core missions: conducting groundbreaking research, providing life-changing economic opportunities for students, and training the future workforce." She said HB 265 responds to the state’s current workforce shortages “in nursing, engineering, mental health, and other high-impact professions.”

“Academic freedom was never designed to prop up programs with declining enrollment or poor outcomes for students,” Peterson said. “Faculty members are stewards of public funds and public trust. The legislation we’ve passed ensures that institutions operate in a way that is accountable, transparent, and mission-driven and that higher education remains relevant, affordable, and accessible for all Utahns.”

Harriet Hopf, immediate past president of the University of Utah Academic Senate and a tenured anesthesiology professor, says it’s been hard to keep up with all the new laws and bills.

And the lack of specificity in some of the bills makes it difficult to understand the implications or how university administrators will interpret the language, Hopf said.

“I have to make sure that my interpretation agrees with what the Legislature thinks it should be interpreted as and also what the president of the university thinks and what the faculty think and what the students think,” she said. “There’s a whole lot of stakeholders who are all interpreting in different ways, so that’s been really challenging.”

Some university administrators have gone beyond the letter of these laws, including closing centers for LGBTQ+ students and women despite the anti-DEI law not specifically requiring this. A University of Utah spokesperson wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed that “other Utah universities who did not initially close their centers last summer (and led to the narrative that the University of Utah went too far) have ended up closing their centers as well this spring AND laid off their staff, something the University of Utah did not do.”

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that university president Taylor R. Randall cited a 2024 law, Senate Bill 192, on the limits of faculty governance to silence an Academic Senate discussion in February that was critical of his provost. Hopf told Inside Higher Ed the interrupted discussion involved talk of a tenure decision that was supposed to be private.

Hopf said the Academic Senate executive committee began sending meeting agendas to Randall for review in light of SB 192’s provision that “a president may, in the president’s sole discretion, seek input from the institution’s faculty.” But she said Randall never rejected input on any agenda item.

Nicole T. Allen, a tenured associate professor of communication studies at Utah State, said, “We have a lot of administrators who are overcomplying with laws.”

“It just seems like everything is on fire, and the more people you look to for help, you find out that those are the people starting the fire,” Allen said.

At Utah State, she said there’s a “general chilling effect” on faculty who might otherwise speak out against the gen ed takeover law or other issues but won’t because they fear being cut for “redundancy” or “efficiency.”

“I think that coercive element is very clear, and I would be surprised to find it’s not at every other university in Utah,” she said.

Program Cuts

Universities’ proposed cuts aren’t yet final. The Utah Board of Higher Education must vote on the plans, and then two legislative committees must review them, with the Executive Appropriations Committee deciding in September whether an institution deserves its first round of reinvestment funding.

Of the six public universities, four have released their plans for cuts, which include gutting entire programs alongside cuts in administration and other areas. Some have launched detailed webpages about their plans, while Weber State provided a PowerPoint presentation and Utah Tech University provided a four-page PDF. University officials said increasing enrollment and meeting state workforce needs were key drivers of their decisions.

If approved, the universities will enact the cuts over a three-year period, allowing for teaching out students in programs that are shuttering.

“It’s just going to be chaos and the students are going to pay the price in the end,” Allen said. “There’s just no way that this level of chaos is not going to impact student learning, and it seems like no one cares. Except for the professors and the student-facing support staff, no one really gives a shit.”

Southern Utah University’s plans fall hard on the humanities: It intends to eliminate bachelor’s degrees in art history, French, French education and philosophy and the in-person version of its master’s degree in arts administration, leaving just the online option for that graduate program. It also plans to cut two undergraduate minors that have been politically controversial elsewhere: ethnic studies and women’s and gender studies.

The university also plans to ax some associate degrees—including criminal justice, equine studies and agriculture-livestock farm management—plus some certificates, some emphases within programs and the master’s in athletic training.

Weber State plans to cut a raft of majors—including applied environmental geosciences, applied physics, art education, computer science teaching and electronic engineering technology—while combining many secondary education majors into broader categories, such as one world languages education major instead of separate ones for French, German and Spanish. It’s also planning, like Southern Utah, to jettison its minors in ethnic studies and women’s and gender studies, along with its minors in queer studies, linguistics and public administration.

Utah State plans to end bachelor’s degrees in agriculture communication, American studies, Deaf education, environmental engineering and family life studies, plus master’s degrees in financial economics and fitness promotion. It also intends to nix a couple of associate degrees and many emphases within degrees.

“The incredibly frustrating thing is that we were doing so well and it just seems like everybody’s throwing obstacles in everyone’s way,” said Allen, who said her department is now joining with two others.

Utah Tech plans to cut, alongside various emphases and certificates, its bachelor’s degrees in theater education and professional studies and its minors in long-term care administration and digital defense and security.

But the University of Utah, the state flagship, and Utah Valley University haven’t revealed their plans. In a message to campus last week, University of Utah provost Mitzi M. Montoya did say “the impact of H.B. 265 is significant.” More details are expected next week when the state Board of Higher Education meets.

“The U’s portion of the higher ed budget cuts required by H.B. 265 is about $19.6 million,” Montoya wrote. She added that “during this first year, we are required to show about $5.9 million in cuts”—and most of that is coming out of academic affairs.

Hopf, the immediate past University of Utah Academic Senate president, said she thinks the university not announcing its plans yet “is the right decision, but of course it also makes everybody more uncertain about what that means—what kind of cuts are we going to expect?”

“I don’t know what the plan is,” Hopf said.

“Generally speaking, faculty—not just at our institution, but certainly at our institution—are like, ‘We’re in this uncertain world that’s changing and we don’t know what’s going on, and are people doing things in our best interests?’”