Utah Governor Spencer Cox oversaw an initiative to push DEI into Utah schools.
Under Biden’s Covid-era policies for school aid, Cox and those in the in the Utah education department pushed DEI far beyond what was required per the conditions of the funding.
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Utah secured funds for the state from the Trump administration under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act. Later in 2021, the Biden administration made funds available through the American Rescue Plan (ARP).
Utah received over $550,000,000 in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief or “ESSER” funds from the ARP.
The Biden administration’s ARP had a requirement for states to “maintain equity” in public schools, but Utah took the plan a step further, using the requirement as a jumping off point for broader DEI initiatives.
Other states with Republican leadership, such as Florida, simply agreed to “comply with all requirements relating to Maintenance of Equity.” South Dakota said that to maintain educational equity in schools, its best strategy was “reopening schools for in-person instruction” in August 2020.
The Utah plan, however, worked on by Cox’s office as well as the USBE, leaned into this requirement in the Utah ARP plan to push DEI initiatives through Utah’s public education system.
While the ARP only had a few requirements, marking out what was necessary to “maintain equity” in schools, Utah went above and beyond this to push DEI.
A letter of recognition thanking Utah’s efforts on equity from Biden’s Department of Education as of March 2023 explained that the USBE and Utah State Superintendent Sydnee Dickson’s efforts in implementing the ARP’s requirements on equity were “a result of cooperative efforts involving Governor Cox, appropriators in [the] State Legislature, and State educational agency leadership and staff.”
