United Campus Workers of Utah, CWA 7765 opposes USHE’s decision to shut down inclusion centers.

Logan; Salt Lake City - The faculty, staff, and student workers of United Campus Workers of Utah, CWA 7765, condemn the Utah System of Higher Education’s (USHE) recommendation to eliminate the jobs of public university workers who provide vital services to students. 

In anticipation of HB261 (Utah’s “Anti-DEI” bill) going into effect on July 1, USHE is prompting UofU and USU to disband a number of programs that provide vital and organizationally distinct services to students of the state’s largest public universities. The recommended cuts would include the UofU’s Center for Equity and Student Belonging and USU’s Inclusion Center. These centers are beloved by students because of the staff and student workers who commit themselves daily to improving student success and access on Utah’s public campuses.

If they follow USHE’s guidance, UofU and USU will likely eliminate the jobs of dozens of employees who are professionally dedicated to student success. Without a dedicated plan for the future of these student services and the employees who provide them, Utah’s universities invite a disastrous dilution of talent. Displaced workers will be forced into less-desirable positions for which they have not trained. Many will leave the university entirely, taking their experience and expertise with them. Dissolving inclusion centers will drain our campuses of dedicated employees and desiccate student life.

Veterans, first-generation college students, international students, students with disabilities, non-traditional students, single parents, and many others receive benefits, scholarships, and find community in the programs and centers that are now under threat. Disbanding these centers will impede recruitment to our public universities and decrease on-time graduation rates. Ultimately, this would be a disservice to the people of Utah.

Donna Baluchi, faculty outreach librarian at UofU notes that “Inclusion centers, and their programming… is how we reach students at the start of their academic careers. We help them get the most out of college, graduate on time, and get jobs. I can’t honestly say, ‘Anyone can become a doctor,’ if we don’t have the appropriate services and staff available to show students how to understand then navigate the journey to medical school.” 

Importantly, HB261 does not speak to the inclusion centers and programs that operate on Utah’s public campuses nor to the work their employees do. The law, we have been told, will only affect exclusionary programming that benefits individuals with specific “personal identity characteristics.” However, the Center for Equity and Student Belonging and the Inclusion Center have always been for everyone. To sacrifice campus workers to USHE’s narrow interpretation of the law would be a dereliction of duty on the part of university administrators.

UCW Utah is hopeful that the administrations of UofU and USU will stay true to their previous assurances that HB261 will not have significant impact on workers or students on our campuses. Two weeks until HB261 goes into effect and workers are still in limbo on where they will work and what their future positions will entail.

As a union of public university employees, UCW Utah opposes any attack on employees and their ability to do the jobs they were hired to do. Administrators at UofU and USU cannot allow USHE’s board (populated by business leaders with minimal first-hand higher education experience) to defund vital student services and injure workers.

UCW Utah demands that UofU and USU stand with their workers against this undue and unjust interference by unaccountable government agencies who have no stake in student success.