Utah
Utah lawmakers pass DEI overhaul, Gov. Spencer Cox expected to sign bill
State Republican lawmakers sent a bill banning “discriminatory” DEI practices to the governor’s desk Friday after two weeks of extended debate and revision. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is expected to sign the legislation into law.
The Utah House took a final concurrence vote on the measure during Friday floor time, approving Senate amendments to HB261 with 60 Republican “yeas” to 14 Democratic “nos.”
The state’s GOP supermajority passed the bill easily with a party-line vote of 23-6 in the Senate on Thursday following the House’s initial passage on Jan. 19. The bill will now head to Cox, who signaled in December his eagerness to print his signature on legislation prohibiting diversity statements and other DEI initiatives.
Senate Education Committee Chair John Johnson, R-North Ogden, told the Deseret News on Wednesday, immediately following a meeting with Cox, that he had no doubt the governor would sign the bill.
The bill, titled “Equal Opportunity Initiatives,” is one of the highest profile “culture war” measures to emerge from the 2024 legislative session so far. If signed into law, it would overhaul diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public institutions in the state and replace them with resource centers open to all “high risk” individuals.
“The intent of this bill is that we treat everyone as an individual, taking into account all their circumstances, capabilities, opportunities and experiences with the goal of providing equal opportunities for everyone,” said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Katy Hall, R-South Ogden, prior to the House concurrence vote.
The bill aims to outlaw DEI trainings, requirements, programs and offices at public universities, schools “or any other institution of the state” that engages in what the legislation calls “prohibited discriminatory practices,” which includes policies that promote differential treatment based on race.
The bill requires public institutions to maintain neutrality on political topics. It also ensures that all students are able to access programs that provide student success resources and mandates that institutions of higher education conduct trainings and surveys focused on free speech.
State funding can be withheld if institutions fail to address violations of these requirements, the bill says.
“It is asking our state entities to provide an environment where everyone, if they work hard enough, and if they want, can succeed,” Hall said. “It will also provide an environment where civil discourse and a marketplace of ideas can flourish again on our university campuses.”
Equal Opportunity Initiatives joins a spate of similar measures across the country seeking to ban DEI initiatives, reaffirm academic freedom at universities and reestablish political neutrality in state hiring and training programs. But Hall and Senate floor sponsor Sen. Keith Grover, R-Provo, have said their proposal is a conciliatory third way, not based on any model legislation, that reclaims the best goals of DEI while abandoning its divisive side effects.
“The reason we’re doing this now is because it needs to happen. We need to now start providing equality of opportunity for all students,” Grover said during Wednesday’s floor debate.
Grover has said the “meat of the bill,” and the part he’s most excited about, is the funding and guidelines for each public university to create or maintain “student success centers” that will provide special resources for all “at risk” students based on their individual circumstances.
Lawmakers debate DEI bill
“Diversity, equity and inclusion” refers to policies meant to create an environment of equal opportunity in colleges, schools or in the workplace with a focus on groups that have faced historic discrimination. It can take the form of diversity statements in hiring, employee trainings and programs intended for particular identity groups.
But whereas proponents of DEI initiatives say they help to redress societal disparities and make all students or employees feel welcome, Hall and Grover have argued that DEI programs can create a chilling effect in academic institutions, often ruling out conservative viewpoints, and highlight racial divisions while showing little effect on participants’ actual sense of belonging.
In explaining her vote in opposition to the bill, House Minority Leader Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake, worried about “unintended consequences,” not having to do with the substance of the bill, but surrounding what the legislation signals to minority communities.
“Taking out diversity, equity and inclusion, it just doesn’t send the right message to many of us,” Romero said.
During the weeks since the bill was introduced, Hall, Grover, and others have made great pains to clarify the messaging around HB261.
Rep. R. Neil Walter, R-St. George, who spoke in favor of the bill during both floor and committee time, clarified that unlike measures in other states, the bill would not automatically defund current programs or offices on college campuses.
“We are very much concerned about making sure that we help people have a successful experience in navigating higher education,” Walter said. “We’re not trying to, in this bill, do anything to take resources away from minorities or other underserved communities.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and concerned community members during two public hearings, have voiced concerns over how the bill’s broad scope might affect teaching strategies, data collection, public-private partnerships, health care initiatives targeted toward specific identity groups and even the 2034 Winter Olympics.
In response to each concern, Hall and Grover have said their bill would allow current practices to proceed in almost every instance unless they violate the bill’s restricted practices. The bill’s sponsors have worked with critics of the bill and stakeholders, including the Utah Board of Higher Education and University of Utah President Taylor Randall, to craft language that avoids unintended consequences.
Randall told the Deseret News Thursday morning that the university would wait to comment until final revisions were made. But Randall readily agreed that the process of amending the bill has been collaborative.
“I will say that the collaboration has been good,” Randall said. “The bill has changed in a variety of ways dramatically. We’ve appreciated the conversation. I think it’s built a shared understanding around the concerns of this issue but also the potential benefits that we also have for just continuing to focus on student success in a diversifying state.”
What does, and doesn’t, Utah’s DEI bill prohibit?
According to the legislative text, banned DEI practices would include maintaining any policy that:
- Promotes differential treatment in employment status or program participation based on “personal identity characteristics,” like race, sex or religion.
- Asserts in trainings or procedures that individuals with one personal identity characteristic are inherently superior, privileged, oppressed or culpable for past actions, because of their personal identity characteristics.
- Requires statements of an individual’s position on DEI initiatives, or topics like anti-racism and critical race theory, before taking action in regards to employment, admissions or state financial aid, among other things.
- Carries the title “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
The bill does not prohibit policies required under state or federal law related to discrimination or harassment, including Title VI, VII and Title IX provisions. The bill contains carve outs for grants, academic research and course material, and requirements needed to maintain eligibility for athletics, accreditation and federal programs. It also includes an exception for previous agreements entered into between the University of Utah and the Ute Indian Tribe.
No training or office will be affected by HB261 unless they violate the bill’s “prohibited discriminatory practices.” The same goes for special ed programs and student groups, Hall and Grover have said.
Utah
22-year-old arrested in Utah in connection to Las Vegas double-homicide
LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Officials have identified a 22-year-old man as the suspect in a Las Vegas homicide case that killed two people in a Southern Highlands neighborhood.
Detectives say 22-year-old Ziaire Ham was the suspect in the case. According to officials, Ham was located on Tuesday, March 3, by the Ogden City Police Department and the Utah Highway Patrol.
Ham was taken into custody and booked into the Weber County Jail. Las Vegas authorities said he will be charged with open murder with the use of a deadly weapon and will be extradited back to the valley.
MORE ON FOX5: LVMPD corrections officer arrested on multiple felony charges
The shooting occurred Monday night at the 11000 block of Victoria Medici Street, near Starr Ave and Dean Martin Drive.
According to police, officers were conducting a vehicle stop in the area when they heard gunfire. After searching nearby neighborhoods they found a car with bullet impacts with a woman and a toddler inside suffering from gunshot wounds.
The pair were transported to hospital where they later died. The Clark County Coroner’s Office identified them as Danaijha Robinson, 20, and 1-year-old Nhalani Hiner.
Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.
Utah
Utah nonprofit creates events, experiences for disadvantaged children
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — A simple moment watching a child laugh changed everything for Ivan Gonzalez.
Eight years ago, Gonzalez was working at the Ronald McDonald House when he had an idea to throw a birthday carnival for the kids staying there.
“Let’s do a carnival, birthday carnival for the kids,” he said.
MORE | Pay It Forward
What happened during that event stuck with him.
“There I was watching this kid play whack-a-mole, just having a blast, laughing,” Gonzalez said. “And then I see his mom kind of with happy tears because he’s enjoying himself.”
That moment led to something bigger.
Gonzalez realized the experience shouldn’t stop with just one event or just one group of kids.
“I said, wait, we can do this not just for kids in the hospital,” he said with excitement.
So he started a nonprofit called Best Seat in the House, which creates events and experiences for children who often face difficult circumstances.
“We provide events and experiences for disadvantaged kids,” Gonzalez said.
The organization serves children battling cancer and other medical conditions, refugee children, kids living in poverty, those in foster care and children with special needs.
“These kids grow up too fast,” Gonzalez said.
For Gonzalez, the mission is deeply personal.
“I grew up very poor,” he said.
He remembers the people who stepped in for his family when they needed it most.
“The local church, we weren’t even a part of it,” he described. “My parents couldn’t afford Christmas gifts and I still remember the gifts they gave me. They didn’t even know me.”
Today, he hopes to create that same feeling for other children through his nonprofit.
“Kids live in poverty and they don’t know where the next meal is coming from, let alone going to a play or to a game,” Gonzalez said.
But for Gonzalez, the reward isn’t the events themselves, it’s the joy they create.
“You can give me a billion dollars, all the money in the world,” he says as tears roll down his face. “I won’t trade these opportunitieskids just enjoying life.”
Because of his work giving back, KUTV and Mountain America Credit Union surprised Gonzalez with a Pay it Forward gift to help him continue creating those moments for kids across Utah.
For more information on supporting Best Seat in the House, click here.
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Utah
‘Don’t release him ever. Please.’ Family of slain Utah teen calls for justice at parole hearing
SALT LAKE CITY — Francisco Daniel Aguilar says he’s sorry for shooting and killing his girlfriend, 16-year-old Jacqueline “Jacky” Nunez-Millan, a Piute High School sophomore, in 2023.
But just as he did when he was sentenced, he didn’t have much of an explanation on Tuesday as to why he shot her not once, but twice.
“It just kinda happened. I was mad. And I stepped out (of my truck) and started shooting,” he said. “When I saw her fall, I just kind of panicked, I just went and shot her again.”
But Jacky’s friends and family members say even before she was killed, Aguilar already had a history of violence, and they now want justice to be served.
“You don’t accidentally take a gun, you don’t accidentally grab a knife … you don’t accidentally shoot someone, those are all choices,” a tearful Rosa Nunez, Jacky’s sister, said at Tuesday’s hearing. “Keep him where he needs to be.
“Don’t release him ever. Please.”
On Jan. 7, 2023, Aguilar, who was 17 at the time, got into a fight with his girlfriend, Jacky, shot her twice and left her body near a dirt road outside of Circleville, Piute County. He was convicted as an adult of aggravated murder and sentenced to a term of 25 years to up to life in prison.
Because of Aguilar’s age at the time of the offense, board member Greg Johnson explained Tuesday that the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole is required to hold a hearing much earlier than the 25-year mark, mainly to check on Aguilar and “see how things are going.” Aguilar, now 20, is currently being held in a juvenile secure care facility and will be transferred to the Utah State Prison when he turns 25 or earlier if he has discipline violations and is kicked out of the youth facility.
According to Aguilar’s sentencing guidelines, he will likely remain in custody until at least the year 2051.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Aguilar told the board that he was feeling “stressed out” during his senior year of high school. He said he and Jacky would often have little arguments. But their bigger fight happened when he failed to get her a “promise ring” around Christmastime, he said.
On the night of the killing, the two were arguing about the promise ring and other items, Aguilar recalled. At one point, he grabbed a knife and then a gun because, he said, he wanted to “irritate” and “scare” Jacky. According to evidence presented in the preliminary hearing, Aguilar and his girlfriend had been “trying to make each other angry” when Aguilar took ammunition and a 9mm gun from his father’s room and then drove to the Black Hill area in his truck with Jacky.
Jacky’s friend, McKall Taylor, went looking for her that night and found her. But after Aguilar shot Jacky in the leg, he began shooting at Taylor, who had no choice but to run to her car to get away. Her car was hit multiple times by bullets. Aguilar then shot Jacky a second time as she lay on the ground and Taylor drove away.
On Tuesday, Taylor’s mother, Lori Taylor, read a statement to the board on her daughter’s behalf.
“My innocence and freedom was taken from me,” she said.
McKall Taylor says the “horrifying events of that night will forever play in my head,” and the sounds of Jacky screaming and the gunshots as well as the sight of Jacky falling to the ground, will never go away.
“Francisco is a murderer who has zero remorse,” her letter states.
Likewise, Rosa Nunez told the board that for her and her family, “nothing in our world has felt safe since” that night as they all “continue to relive this horrific moment.”
After shooting Jacky and driving off, Aguilar says he called his father and “told him I was sorry for not being better, for not making good choices, I told him that I loved him. I was just planning on probably shooting myself, too.”
His father told him that although what he did wasn’t right, “he’d rather see me behind bars than in a casket,” and then told his son to “be a man about it. … This is where you have to change.”
Aguilar was arrested after his tires were spiked by police.
“An apology won’t fix what I did. I’ll never be able to fix what I did. But I want to say I’m sorry,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t even know how to fix what I did. I’m hoping I’m on the right track now.”
Johnson noted that Aguilar has done well during his short time being incarcerated. But that doesn’t change the fact “the crime was horrific,” he said.
The full five-member board will now take a vote. The board could decide to schedule another parole hearing for sometime in the future or could order that Aguilar serve his entire life sentence. But even if that were to happen, Johnson says Aguilar could petition every so often for a redetermination hearing.
The board’s decision is expected in several weeks.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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