This story was reported with support from the MuckRock foundation.\u00a0Less than 72 hours before Weber State University in Utah was scheduled to host a conference on censorship, presenters were told not to discuss identity politics, or be removed from the official program agenda. In an email to presenters selected to participate in the 27th Annual Unity Conference, titled \u201cRedacted: Navigating the Complexities of Censorship,\u201d then-Vice President of Student Access & Success Jessica Oyler told participants that it wasn\u2019t a \u201creal\u201d academic conference; therefore, their statements and materials that \u201ctake a side\u201d on legislation or policies wouldn\u2019t be protected by academic freedom under a particular state law.\u00a0Utah\u2019s HB 261\u2014the state law in question\u2014is one of many enacted to discourage public colleges and schools from using Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) frameworks to inform admission and employment decisions, or risk losing future funding opportunities from the state. Dozens of similar laws have been implemented in states like Texas, Florida, Alabama, and Iowa in recent years. While these laws frequently make funding a central target, prohibitions on college classroom instruction are growing more frequent.\u00a0Proponents of free speech, academic freedom, and civil rights have criticized these laws, arguing that they force the institutions that have financially benefitted from implementing DEI initiatives and scholarly contributions from researchers to make concessions that keep the university funded at the expense of its reputation. Case in point, Weber State\u2019s censorship conference.\u00a0404 Media has obtained documents via a Freedom of Information Act request that offer more insight into the university\u2019s rationale, the presenters\u2019 responses and what\u2019s happened since.Oyler tried to articulate to presenters that it wasn\u2019t a \u201creal\u201d conference because it had been funded by the university\u2019s student affairs division. Apparently, under Utah\u2019s HB 261, this made the conference appear academically illegitimate, because under this law\u2014and the university\u2019s interpretation of it\u2014academic freedom isn\u2019t assured for students. Nor is it an assurance for university staff, or researchers, regardless of institutional affiliation, when programs aren\u2019t funded through faculty affairs.\u00a0Sarah Herrmann, an associate professor of psychological science at Weber State, says she was encouraged by conference organizers to submit a proposal to present at the conference research she\u2019d conducted with one of her students into the effects of legislation like HB 261 student campus culture. Specifically, how the resulting effects of legislation\u2014like the closure of campus cultural centers\u2014would impact the student experience. Their proposal was accepted, with Herrmann\u2019s student having planned to present their findings at the conference. Then, mere days before the conference, the student received a request from one of the event organizers to remove any mention of \u201cDEI\u201d both as an acronym and spelled out, which was quickly forwarded to Herrmann.\u201cYou can imagine students who were part of the Women’s Center or cultural centers seeing their minor canceled,\u201d Herrmann told 404 Media. \u201cIt conveys a message about who belongs and who doesn’t.\u201dHerrmann\u2019s student was among the first to officially withdraw from the conference, as it signaled an institutional willingness to dissuade the development of student scholarship\u2014a trend taking hold at institutions in states with these laws in effect. For instance, in April, the Texas Tech University System issued a memo barring all future graduate theses and dissertations on sexual orientation and gender identity once currently enrolled students satisfy pre-determined degree requirements for graduation.\u00a0Coincidentally, Weber State is one of the institutions that has closed its campus cultural centers. It\u2019s also one of the institutions that has \u201csuspended\u201d both its Queer Studies and Women\u2019s & General Studies minor, which are both listed as \u201cpending formal discontinuance\u201d on the university\u2019s web pages. university\u2019s website. Rachel Badali, Weber State University\u2019s public relations director told 404 Media in a statement that in order to comply with HB 265\u2014yet another state law, the university came up with a \u201cstrategic reinvestment plan.\u201d That plan resulted in the university eliminating more than 30 major, minor, certificate and emphasis programs.\u00a0\u201cA major point of this process was to align WSU\u2019s offerings with workforce needs, and market analysis for the state didn\u2019t show a demand for jobs in those areas,\u201d Badali told 404 Media. \u201cThere was also limited student demand. Last year\u2019s combined enrollment in queer studies and women and gender studies was less than 50 students, which was about 0.28% of degree-seeking students.\u201dRichard Price, a professor of political science and philosophy at Weber State who publicly withdrew from the conference\u2019s keynote panel after receiving Oyler\u2019s email, has been involved in a number of the campus\u2019s initiatives aimed at improving access to LGBTQ+ scholarship over the years. I spoke with Price shortly after they\u2019d held their last queer history course of the semester and for the foreseeable future. They told 404 Media these programs received very little funding from the state.\u00a0\u201cThey were passion projects, closed to pacify legislators who don\u2019t like seeing words like \u2018queer,\u2019\u201d Price told 404 Media.Price says morale among faculty is low, particularly for those in the social sciences and humanities, who also happen to belong to the identity groups being actively marginalized, claiming that earned media for scholarship isn\u2019t being actively promoted by the campus. This is despite the individuals perceived to be at the helm of the censorship conference\u2019s unraveling having left the institution for other opportunities.\u00a0\u201cThey don’t want my research to come up easily in legislator searches,\u201d Price added.Price isn\u2019t alone in making this claim. However, Weber State\u2019s public relations arm disputes this characterization, with Badali noting that \u201c[w]hen WSU employees are sharing their expertise or making headlines for their great work, it proves that students are learning from the very best in the field.\u201cThat\u2019s something the university continues to support and promote,\u201d she added.\u00a0But researchers from other colleges who submitted proposals to the conference weren\u2019t immune from the university\u2019s rigid interpretation of the state\u2019s anti-DEI laws, either. Brianne Kramer, an associate professor in the College of Education and Human Development at Southern Utah University and her colleague also received requests to edit their conference materials for references to \u201cthe New Right,\u201d which are literally the first words in the title of a recently published article the presentation was based on.\u00a0\u00a0Kramer told 404 Media that she and her colleague, Sean P. Crossland of Utah Valley University were well aware that the university was asking them to censor themselves. However, the university\u2019s request wasn\u2019t their line in the sand. They didn\u2019t expect to be censored during the event itself, and since neither of them are university affiliates, they didn\u2019t have to fear reprisal.\u00a0\u201cYou can censor my title or the language in my abstract, but unless you gag me or drag me out of the room, I\u2019m going to say what I need to say,\u201d Kramer told 404 Media.Kramer notes that academic researchers do have to take calculated risks when considering what conferences to present at or attend. This pressure encourages researchers to self-censor, which can be more detrimental than government intervention in part because it becomes so hard to measure the full extent of the problem. Kramer also says that it weakens tenure protections.\u00a0\u201cFaculty may struggle to meet promotion and tenure requirements if they can\u2019t publish or present certain types of scholarship,\u201d she added. \u201cThis affects tenured and non-tenured faculty, limiting their ability to use their expertise. The consequences extend to students, who miss out on the full education they deserve when faculty self-censor in teaching, scholarship and service. Everyone loses in this scenario\u2014not just faculty, but students and staff as well.\u201dMany of the initially scheduled presenters affected by Weber State\u2019s rigid read of HB 261 welcomed efforts to reschedule the conference, led by the Wildcat Collective on two separate occasions\u2014the second going better than the first, according to organizers, but never quite measuring up to what the conference was intended to be. Scholars like Kramer in Utah are also encouraged that SB 295 was signed into law in March of this year, amending HB 261 to broaden the scope ever so slightly. Kramer says that while it\u2019s going to take time to return to anything close to the baseline, faculty researchers seem more inclined to mobilize in opposing restrictions to academic freedom in Utah and elsewhere, especially now that the consequences are out on full display.\u00a0\u201cYou can\u2019t be an activist without hope,\u201d Kramer added. \u201cYou have to be hopeful that even if we don\u2019t get to see the big change, that we\u2019re going to see those incremental changes, hopefully, as we move forward.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"