Utah News

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Timo Meier scored the tiebreaking goal 14 seconds into the third period, and the New Jersey Devils beat the Utah Hockey Club 3-1 on Saturday night.

Nico Hischier and Curtis Lazar also scored as the Devils won for the fourth time in their last five road games. Nico Daws made 24 saves.

Mkhail Sergachev scored for Utah, and Karel Vejmelka had 26 saves. Utah snapped a four-game home winning streak.

The Devils opened the scoring at the 9:34 of the first on Hischier’s 25th goal of the season.

Sergachev tied it just past the midpoint of the second as he snapped in the puck from distance.

Meier put the Devils ahead in the opening minute of the third with his 16th, snapping home the puck 5 seconds after Nick Schmaltz gave it away in the neutral zone.

Lazar made it 3-1 with 7:16 left.

Takeaways

Devils: New Jersey has allowed just one goal over its last three road victories.

Utah: Sergachev set a new scoring career-high with his 11th goal of the season.

Key moment

Meier’s goal following Schmaltz’s turnover gave the Devils all the momentum in the third period.

Key stat

The Devils have won 16 times in 18 games this season when they lead after the first period.

Up next

Devils visit Vegas on Sunday, and Utah is at Detroit on Thursday.

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Over my 12 years in city office, I’ve seen the Utah Legislature impose scores of laws that take away a city’s ability to regulate its own land use. This legislation often not only usurps the conscientious, decades-long planning efforts of city planning commissions, councils and the will of residents, but it has also actually made our housing situation worse.

President Ronald Reagan famously stated that if government planning claims it can solve all our problems, it’s appropriate for government to read the score to us once in a while.

So, where does Utah stand after all this top-down state government action the last decade? We’ve gone from being one of the most affordable to now least affordable. All while the quality of life index has also fallen to an all-time low of 64 out of 100, largely based on home affordability.

Historically, Utah has thrived by empowering voters through local control. The housing needs and desires of Riverton City residents will be different from those of Salt Lake City. However, Utahns concerned with seemingly unfettered high-density housing construction in their neighborhoods will soon discover their local city council can do little to stop the state mandates.

These ideas were further promoted in a flawed Legislative Auditor General report in late 2023 that recommended the State Legislature compel municipalities to increase zoning density to pursue state-wide housing goals. The effect of these recommendations will be consolidating local land-use authority into the hands of a few in our state capitol, where a quarter of our state legislators have financial ties to the developer industry.

Their report attempts to scapegoat cities for Utah’s purported housing deficit, yet it failed to identify a single example of where cities have stifled construction. The Utah League of Cities and Towns defended cities by referencing the perplexing phenomenon of developers sitting on nearly 200,000 entitled housing parcels throughout the state, but choosing not to build. This is proof positive that market forces and developer timetables are to blame, not cities.

The state report doesn’t acknowledge this reality and instead recommends the State Legislature follow California’s failed model of imposing one-size fits all state housing goals.

The State Legislature is currently considering SB337, which is the latest culmination of these flawed narratives. Without any local government consent, the state wants to give state agencies total land-use authority over parts of the state they consider a significant community impact, regardless of established city plans.

There are actions the Legislature could take to immediately improve the availability and therefore affordability of housing for Utahns, while maintaining the principal of local control.

First, the State Legislature should be focused on proper infrastructure investments. Gov. Cox has stated that “when investment in infrastructure precedes growth, quality of life stays high. If growth precedes infrastructure, the quality of life goes down every single time.” Instead of following this correct maxim, state officials are advocating for creation of a paradox where state infrastructure funding will be tied to those who reach the state housing goals.

Second, the State Legislature should collaborate with federal partners to alleviate the burden of illegal immigration places on Utah’s housing supply. It could also work to support Sen. Mike Lee’s HOUSES Act and build on just 1% of the nearly 67% of our state that is owned by the federal government. That alone would nearly double the housing supply.

Furthermore, the state Legislature should not offer hundreds of millions in tax credits and incentives for out-of-state companies to locate along the already highly congested Wasatch Front. This has imported tens of thousands of immediate home buyers from other states who often can outbid Utahns when buying a home. Net migration, not native Utah births, now accounts for over half of all of our growth in the last several years.

Lastly, the state Legislature should address unfair corporate advantages in the buying of homes. Institutional buyers wield significant power on Utah’s housing market that create consequences for Utah’s housing availability and affordability. Commonly known as “Wall Street Landlords,” large corporations compete directly with Utah families trying to buy a home. In recent years, over a quarter of residential homes sales in the Beehive State were linked to investors.

Legislature should focus on massive roadway and water infrastructure improvements, policy changes to federal lands, proper incentives for out-of state businesses and ensuring owner-occupied housing is prioritized.

Utah’s future success will be achieved through continued partnership between the cities and the state, not a punitive relationship that will foster distrust and coercion. All Utahns should contact their legislators and encourage them to support local control over top-down, centralized state government land-use mandates.

With the grieving relatives of two slain teens looking on, Utah County Attorney David Leavitt announced at a news conference in 2019 that he would seek the death penalty for accused killer Jerrod William Baum.

“I am going to give power back to people, in the form of juries, to decide,” Leavitt said. “It is the jury’s role to determine the guilt or innocence of this alleged killer. If they find him guilty, then it is the jury’s role to decide whether he should receive the death penalty or not.”

But as Leavitt had answered a reporter’s questions about the brutal killings of 18-year-old Riley Powell and 17-year-old Brelynne “Breezy” Otteson, he made comments that the Utah State Bar considered unethical — with the potential to prejudice future jurors against Baum. The bar gave Leavitt a public reprimand, which he appealed, and attorneys representing the bar’s Office of Professional Conduct defended that discipline Friday before the Utah Supreme Court.

Leavitt’s attorneys have asked the Supreme Court to reverse the reprimand or lower it to an admonition, which would typically be private, appearing in the bar journal but without the attorney’s name. Leavitt declined The Salt Lake Tribune’s request for comment Friday on why he appealed the disciplinary order, but told Fox-13 inside the courtroom that the case “raises important issues. It’s good to have some of these issues clarified.”

It’s possible the Supreme Court’s decision could set a precedent for what evidence is required to prove professional misconduct in similar cases: Is such discipline allowed after an attorney simply says something problematic? Or must there also be evidence that the attorney said it knowingly, aware it was problematic?

A reversal or admonition would also benefit Leavitt if he was ever sanctioned again, since past discipline can be an aggravating factor in such cases.

Christine T. Greenwood, with the Office of Professional Conduct, told the justices that the public reprimand wasn’t meant to target Leavitt alone, but to warn other attorneys that “they should take caution” when speaking to reporters.

But Freyja Johnson, who represented Leavitt, argued that his comments didn’t meet the threshold for a public reprimand because Leavitt did not realize his statements were problematic until after he said them. The standard for such a reprimand requires proof that an attorney “knew or reasonably should have known” the statements could prejudice a case.

Leavitt, Johnson said, made the statements at issue during his first news conference as the county’s elected attorney, while answering a reporter’s “off the cuff” questions about the credibility of the lone witness to the crime. He was trying to say that the witness affirmed his decision to take the case to trial, Johnson said, when he made the comments and referred to inadmissible evidence.

But, Justice Jill M. Pohlman asked, didn’t Leavitt say as soon as the news conference ended that “he knew he’d messed up”?

“Him realizing after the fact,” Johnson said, “even soon after the fact,” doesn’t prove his mindset when he made the comments.

She added that Leavitt attempted to clarify his remarks later, by saying it was up to a jury to decide Baum’s innocence or guilt. She added that this misstep had only a minor impact on Baum’s prosecution — a “drop in the bucket” compared to other issues raised throughout the years-long process.

Toward the end of questioning, Associate Chief Justice John A. Pearce asked Greenwood for her office’s position on the difference between a reprimand and admonition. While admonitions are designed to be publicized without naming the disciplined attorney, that identity becomes public if the person — like Leavitt — appeals to a higher court, Pearce noted.

She conceded that it was perhaps an issue that needed to be clarified.

After Johnson noted that Leavitt had referred to inadmissible evidence but did not specify what it was, Pearce asked her: “Doesn’t that make it worse, though? If you don’t disclose the secret evidence?” In essence, he added, Leavitt was telling future jurors to just “trust me” about information they would never hear.

A jury ultimately found Baum guilty on all counts nearly five years after he killed the teens. He was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences in July 2022.

While Leavitt had promised to seek the death penalty at the 2019 news conference, he reversed course two years later, announcing in another news conference that he’d never seek the death penalty again. He said the cost of carrying out such a sentence “far outweigh its benefits to the community as a whole.”

“All of what we’ve spent, and more, would be worth it if it would prevent another senseless murder from occurring. But it doesn’t and it won’t,” he said. “Pretending that the death penalty will somehow curb crime is simply a lie. The answer to preventing these types of horrible crimes is in education and prevention before they occur.”

Less than a year after that announcement, Leavitt lost his reelection bid to Republican challenger Jeff Gray. Gray was widely perceived as a more conservative candidate, while Leavitt had advocated for criminal justice reforms and was seen as having a more progressive view.

Throughout Friday’s arguments, Leavitt sat in the courtroom directly behind his attorneys. The former prosecutor now splits his time between Utah, where his brother Mike served as governor and his father served terms in the state Legislature, and Scotland, where he and his wife, Chelom, are restoring a 19th century castle.

The Syracuse Orange men’s lacrosse team is on a two-game losing skid after consecutive losses against ranked opponents. Now they’ll travel to Salt Lake City and take on Utah Saturday at 2 p.m. ET.

How to watch: No. 11 Syracuse vs. Utah will stream exclusively on ESPN+.

Here’s what you need to know:

What: NCAA DI Men’s College Lacrosse

Who: Syracuse Orange @ Utah Utes

When: Saturday, March 1, 2025

Where: Rice-Eccles Stadium, Salt Lake City, Utah

Time: 1 p.m. ET

TV: N/A

Live stream: ESPN+

The Orange were upset 15-14 by Harvard over the weekend for their second straight loss. Before Saturday, the Crimson were 0-18 against the Orange.

If you told Syracuse (3-2) before the game it’d have a 28-4 advantage on draw controls, the Orange would’ve thought it was an easy win over the Crimson. Instead Syracuse wasted the massive face-off opportunities, turning it over a season-high 15 times. The Orange also had 27 shots on goal compared to Harvard’s 24.

Goaltender Jimmy McCool was pulled after allowing 10 goals and saving five shots. Syracuse replaced him with Michael Ippoliti, who allowed five goals on nine shots. Orange coach Gary Gait said that McCool would remain the starter going forward. It was McCool’s first game saving less than 50% of the opposing team’s shots this season.

On top of the lopsided advantage in draw controls, Syracuse started the game with a 5-0 lead. It also had a man advantage after a late-game cross check from Harvard, but only scored one goal in the final minutes.

Along with a week off, Syracuse has a break from ranked opponents this weekend. Utah is 1-3 this season, most recently losing 11-10 to Vermont. Syracuse beat Vermont 13-5 on Feb. 7.

Here’s the upcoming schedule for Syracuse men’s lacrosse:

• No. 11 Syracuse @ Utah, Saturday, March 1, 2 p.m. on ESPN+ (STREAM)
• No. 3 John’s Hopkins @ No. 11 Syracuse, Sunday, March 9, 2 p.m. on ESPNU (STREAM)
• Manhattan @ No. 11 Syracuse, Tuesday, March 18, 7 p.m. on ACC Network Extra (STREAM)

Dmitri Simashev

Nothing in Dmitri Simashev’s statistics would indicate improved play this season. His ice time has not changed significantly from last season. His point total may not even match last season’s total, and there are still nights when the top team in Kontinental Hockey League (KHL), Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, asks Utah Hockey Club’s 2023 first-round pick (No. 6 overall) to take a night off as a healthy scratch.

Not to worry. Utah’s development staff has been tracking him closely, and there are marked signs of improvement.

“He has improved his puck play and he’s showing more drive to add a little more offense to his game,” said development coach Kurtis Foster, who works with the organization’s defensive prospects. “I just think that he’s in a tough spot with a top KHL team that believes in veteran guys so here and there, he has to sit out a game to get some rest. For the most part, it has been a pretty successful year so far.”

Utah director of player development Lee Stempniak agreed.

“He’s playing a bigger role on a very good team in the KHL and he’s getting tougher matchups,” Stempniak said. “So even though his ice time is not shooting up dramatically, he’s playing tougher minutes which will only help him as he transitions to North America. It’s a really positive sign that he’s playing tougher matchups, playing on the PK (penalty kill). They’re not sheltering him at all, which is a testament to how well he’s actually playing.”

One of the aspects of Simashev’s game that intrigued the scouts and GM Bill Armstrong — aside from his 6-feet-5, 203-pound frame and his excellent skating ability — is how mature Simashev’s defensive game is. It’s not a stretch to imagine him one day occupying the spot opposite Mikhail Sergachev, even if it means playing his off side.

But Utah’s staff still doesn’t know how good the offensive side of Simashev’s game can become. The curve is still trending upward.

“Last year, there were times when he was bobbling pucks or not cleanly handling pucks and it was leading to turnovers or rush plays against or forced plays,” Stempniak said. “He’s showing improvement in that area, whether it’s his turnovers under pressure or, when he’s not pressured, how cleanly he’s making plays with the puck on his stick.

“When he gets the puck on his stick, he’s able to advance it out of his zone and make those plays. He’s more active. He’s jumping in as the fourth man on the rush. He’s activating in the offensive zone off the blue line. It hasn’t resulted in points or goals, but he’s getting more touches in the offensive zone. To me, that’s the first step. As he gets more touches and he gets confident with the puck, he’s going to make more things happen.”

The staff got to see some of those skills on display when Simashev played for Russia at the Channel One Cup in December. Russia’s coaching staff allowed a more free-wheeling style than Lokomotiv does and Simashev flourished.

“He was able to be more offensive, to carry the puck, to be in the play,” Stempniak said. “Just from talking to him, I think that’s a part of the game he enjoys and he’s comfortable with, and you saw it in his draft year when he was playing in the MHL (Russia’s junior league).”

For the time being, Simashev will focus on helping Lokomotiv chase the Gagarin Cup; a trophy the team has never won. Lokomotiv currently leads the KHL with 89 points. The Gagarin Cup Playoffs begin March 26.

“The KHL is a much different game,” Foster said. “If they break a puck out and he’s the weak-side D, he can join the rush. But I don’t find that the D are leading the rush in the KHL. They’re more joining the rush. It’s almost like a soccer match. It’s a possession-based game where if they don’t have a play, they’d rather flip it into the neutral zone, get into their structure of their 1-2-2, and almost make teams make mistakes, and then they pounce on their mistakes.

“There will be an adjustment from that when he comes to the NHL, but the message to Dmitri is always, ‘Do what your coaches want. We want you playing as much as possible so focus on the team and winning, but work on your offensive game as much as you can in practice and make sure that you’re using your feet as much as you can to put yourself in positions to add as much offense as possible.'”

It is possible that Simashev could join Utah Hockey Club as soon as next season with his KHL contract expiring this season. Foster has developed a tight relationship with the prized blue line prospects so he has a good sense of Simashev’s mind set.

“He’s a lot more open about how he’s feeling with me, and how he’s playing,” Foster said. “He’s a very driven kid. He does all the extra stuff after practice and away from the rink. He’s focused on his eating and his habits. He wants to play in the NHL and he’s made mention that that’s his dream. We’ve got him into a position where I’m hoping he can come over and contribute.”

Utah’s senators weighed in after a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office Friday morning ended in a heated argument between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

During the 50-minute meeting, held in front of media and during which the top leaders spoke over one another, Trump accused Zelenskyy of being ungrateful and that he was “gambling with World War III.”

Vance added, “Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”

Zelenskyy asked Vance, “Have you ever been to Ukraine? Have you seen the problems we have? Come once.”

The world leaders were expected to discuss ongoing negotiations regarding the Russia Ukraine war and sign a minerals deal between the United States and Ukraine. After the meeting, the White House canceled its scheduled joint press conference between Trump and Zelenskyy — where the pair were expected to sign the minerals deal. The deal was not signed.

Both of Utah’s senators took to social media after the meeting and had decidedly different reactions.

“Thank you for standing up for OUR COUNTRY and putting America first, President Trump and Vice President Vance!” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in a post on X.

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, encouraged the leaders to “get back to the table.”

“Diplomacy and statesmanship seem to have been checked at the door of the Oval Office today,” he wrote in a post on X. “Ukraine is an ally in pursuit of free markets, free speech, and free people—Western values that align with our own. A win for Putin, on the other hand, does not. I am hopeful that our countries can get back to the table and advance the prospects of a just and lasting peace.

On his @BasedMikeLee account, Lee called the exchange between Vance and Zelenskyy epic.

“When @JDVance started calling out Zelenskyy (epic moment by the way), Zelenskyy immediately asked Vance if he had been to Ukraine — as if that determined whether he was qualified to opine on anything related to Ukraine. One of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen any leader—foreign or domestic—do in Washington And I’ve seen a lot of dumb moves in that town!”

This winter in Utah, the grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side, but the snow is deeper.

The northern and southern halves of the state have been experiencing two different winters. The north, including in the Wasatch and Uinta mountain ranges and their skiers and snowboarders, can delight in a snowpack that’s slightly above average — thanks in large part to last week’s storm that dropped more than to six feet of snow in the Cottonwood Canyons.

The southern part of the state? Even for a desert climate, it’s dry.

The Wasatch Mountains are at 110% of average snowpack, according to Glen Merrill, a hydrologist based out of the National Weather Service office in Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, the Pine Valley Mountains, which are situated near Utah’s southwest border and feed the Santa Clara River and the St. George area, are at 12% of average.

“That’s a record low,” Merrill said. ” And to really highlight this, elevations below 9,000 feet have no snow.”

Southwest Washington County and portions of Iron County are in an extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. That is one step above the worst possible drought status. A little more than three-fourths of the state is in drought, according to the monitor. The rest is “abnormally dry.”

It started to feel dry in northern Utah early last week, as brown replaced white on the sides of Mount Olympus rising above the Salt Lake Valley, and the same happened at Round Valley in Park City. Jim Steenburgh, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah, posted on his Bluesky account on Feb. 17 that the 9.2 inches of snow Salt Lake City had received since October was the second lowest in history. The lowest, 6.8 inches, came during the 2014-15 season. That season went on to become the least snowiest in Utah history.

But last week, a major storm rode to the rescue. It started snowing Feb. 20 and continued for the better part of four days. That added to the bounty from the weekend of Feb. 13-15. In all, about 50 inches dropped in the northern half of the state, with a snow-water equivalent of about five inches, according to a report from OpenSnow forecaster Evan Thayer.

“The storm cycle since February 13th sure has been good to us!” Thayer wrote in his report. “We saw up to 75 [inches] of new snow and quite a bit of water content in the snow to help bolster our snowpack.”

Southern Utah also got some moisture from that storm cycle. Merrill estimated most mountains saw a couple inches of snow. But it has already melted, he said, with most of that moisture going into the soil and little, if any, making it into the streams and rivers.

Southern Utah needs more storms like that to catch up, Merrill said. A lot more.

“We’re essentially saying that we’re nine storms behind,” he said, “as we enter into March.”

To come to that determination, Merrill looked at the highest and typically snowiest SNOTEL site in the southern mountains — one located near the Brian Head Resort ski area, which has the highest base elevation in the state at 9,600 feet. It has received the snow equivalent of 7.5 inches of water. That’s the second lowest on record for that site and nine inches less than normal. And Merrill estimates a decent winter storm carries about an inch of water on average.

Trying to look at the bright side, Merrill noted that municipalities in southern Utah still have plenty of water stored in reservoirs as a result of the past two winters — one of which was the snowiest on record.

In addition, Thayer reported he expects the southern part of the state could get some moisture Sunday, with mountains across the state potentially seeing snow Monday or Tuesday. More storms, he noted, could be on the horizon for the following weekend.

That could be good news for skiers and city managers statewide. But like the longevity of its snow, the relief in the south is expected to be fleeting.

“The pattern does look more favorable,” Merrill said. “But we’re getting late in the season, especially for the southern Utah mountains.”

SALT LAKE CITY — Nevaeh Parker, president of the Black Student Union at the University of Utah, has spent much of the school year scrambling to salvage her organization, undercut by matters far beyond student control.

A new Utah law banning diversity, equity and inclusion programming at public colleges took effect July 1, eliminating the Black Student Union’s $11,000 in university funding, shutting down its gathering center and taking away staff support for an organization that for more than 50 years has been helping Black students succeed in college.

As a condition of remaining a university-sponsored and funded organization, the group had to agree to never talk about bias, discrimination and identity politics on campus. The students refused — along with three other campus affinity groups.

Now the Black Student Union, the Asian American Assn., the Pacific Islander Assn. and LGBTQ+ students are fending for themselves, scrambling to find community support, advisors, mentoring and a place to meet, while feeling they are no longer valued on campus.

As President Trump sets out to ban DEI efforts across the federal government and in schools, colleges and businesses, Utah’s law and its impact at the University of Utah offer a case study on what a college campus looks like without race- and gender-based campus programs. Utah is among at least 15 states with DEI bans in schools and higher education institutions.

Utah’s law prohibits public universities, K-12 schools and government offices “from engaging in discriminatory practices” based on a person’s race, color, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, religion or gender identity. The law states it “does not impact” academic freedom or research and classroom instruction, among other issues.

When it comes to speech, “an institution may not take, express, or assert a position or opinion” on anti-racism, bias, critical race theory, implicit bias, intersectionality, prohibited discriminatory practices, racial privilege,” the law states. Diversity training is also banned.

Parker and others said that agreeing to limit their speech on issues important to them was the line they could not cross to keep their university support.

“Those things are not political, those things are real, and they impact the way students are able to perform on campus,” Parker said.

Alex Tokita, a senior who is the president of the Asian American Student Assn., said obeying the law is “bonkers.”

Alex Tokita, a senior at the University of Utah, is the president of the Asian American Student Assn.

(Olivia Sanchez / Hechinger Report)

“It’s frustrating to me that we can have an MLK Jr. Day, but we can’t talk about implicit bias,” Tokita said. “We can’t talk about critical race theory, bias, implicit bias.”

As a student, Tokita can use these words and discuss these concepts. But when speaking as part of a university-sponsored organization, using such speech is against the law.

The university responds

Utah’s law, House Bill 261, known as “Equal Opportunity Initiatives,” arose from a conservative view that DEI initiatives promote different treatment of students based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. Violators risk losing state funding.

To comply with the law, the University of Utah closed its Black Cultural Center, the Center for Equity and Student Belonging, the LGBT Resource Center and the Women’s Resource Center — in addition to making funding cuts to the student affinity groups.

Instead, the university opened a new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement to offer programming for education, celebration and awareness of different identity and cultural groups. A new Center for Student Access and Resources offers practical support services such as counseling to all students, regardless of identity.

A student looks at a National Coming Out Day exhibit in the student union at the University of Utah. The exhibit was set up by the new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement.

(Olivia Sanchez / Hechinger Report)

The law allows Utah colleges to operate cultural centers, so long as they offer only “cultural education, celebration, engagement, and awareness to provide opportunities for all students to learn with and from one another,” according to guidance from the Utah System of Higher Education.

For many students, the changes had little effect. Utah’s undergraduate population is about 63% white, 14% Latino, 8% Asian and 1% Black. Gender identity and sexuality among students are not tracked.

How students are coping

Parker said she is dedicated to keeping the BSU going because it means so much to her fellow Black students. She said several of her peers have told her they don’t feel they have a place on campus and are considering dropping out.

“The students are hurting,” she said, adding that she too is struggling.

“I feel as though me living in this Black body automatically makes myself and my existence here political, I feel like it makes my existence here debatable and questioned,” Parker said. “I feel like every single day I’m having to prove myself extra.”

So she continues her work, organizing the group’s monthly meetings on a bare-bones budget — about $1,000 from the student government, which serves more than 100 clubs. She often drives to pick up the pizza to avoid wasting precious dollars on delivery fees. She’s helping organize community events outside the purview of the university to help Black, Asian and Latino students build relationships with one another and connect with professionals working in Salt Lake City for mentorship and networking opportunities.

A group of queer and transgender students formed a student-run Pride Center, with support from the local Utah Pride Center. A few days a week, they set up camp in a study room in the library. They bring in Pride flags, informational fliers and rainbow stickers to distribute. Without an official center, they sit at a big table in case other students come looking for a space to study or spend time with friends.

What the university is doing

Lori McDonald, the university’s vice president of student affairs, said so far, her staff has not seen as many students spending time in the two new centers as they did when that space was the Women’s Resource Center and the LGBT Resource Center.

“I still hear from students who are grieving the loss of the centers that they felt such ownership of and comfort with,” McDonald said. “I expected that there would still be frustration with the situation, but yet still carrying on and finding new things.”

Katy Hall, a Republican state representative who co-sponsored the legislation, said in an email she wanted to ensure that support services were available to all students and that barriers to academic success were removed.

“My aim was to take the politics out of it and move forward with helping students and Utahns to focus on equal treatment under the law for all,” Hall said. “Long term, I hope that students who benefitted from these centers in the past know that the expectation is that they will still be able to receive services and support that they need.”

A student wears a beaded bracelet made at a “Fab Friday” event hosted by the LGBT Resource Center at the University of Utah. The center was closed recently to comply with a new state law.

(Olivia Sanchez / Hechinger Report)

Concerns ahead

Research has shown that a sense of belonging at college contributes to improved engagement in class and campus activities and to retaining students until they graduate.

“When we take away critical supports that we know have been so instrumental in student engagement and retention, we are not delivering on our promise to ensure student success,” said Royel M. Johnson, director of the national assessment of collegiate campus climates at the USC Race and Equity Center.

Kirstin Maanum is the director of the new Center for Student Access and Resources; it administers scholarships and guidance previously offered by the now-closed centers. She formerly served as the director of the Women’s Resource Center.

“Students have worked really hard to figure out where their place is and try to get connected,” Maanum said. “It’s on us to be telling students what we offer and even in some cases, what we don’t, and connecting them to places that do offer what they’re looking for.”

That has been difficult, she said, because the changeover happened so quickly, even though some staffers from the closed centers were reassigned to the new centers.

The new way of doing things

Last fall, the new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement hosted a fall event around the time of National Coming Out Day in October, with a screening of “Paris Is Burning,” a film about transgender women and drag queens in New York City in the 1980s.

Afterward, two staff members led a discussion with the students, prefacing that talk with a disclaimer saying that they were not speaking on behalf of the university.

Center staffers also created an altar for students to observe Día de los Muertos, held an event to celebrate Indigenous art and has hosted events in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month. But some students lament the loss of dedicated cultural spaces.

For Taylor White, a recent graduate with a degree in psychology, connecting with fellow Black students through BSU events was, “honestly, the biggest relief of my life.”

At the Black Cultural Center, she said, students could talk about what it was like to be the only Black person in their classes or to be Black in other predominantly white spaces. She said that without the support of other Black students, she’s not sure she would have been able to finish her degree.

This article was produced by the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.