A lawmaker wants Utah Tech University to return to its old ‘Dixie’ name. Here’s what the school says.

A Utah lawmaker known for courting controversy has made it his latest push to reignite the debate over Utah Tech University’s name change — suggesting the St. George school should restore its previous “Dixie” title.

In a social media post late Monday night, Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton, pointed to the Utah university in response to a national effort from President Donald Trump to force two professional sports teams to revert back to old names that refer to Native Americans.

Trump specifically threatened to block a stadium deal for the Washington Commanders if the NFL team doesn’t return to its old name, the “Redskins,” which many Indigenous groups view as racist. The president also later mentioned Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians, which dropped its “Indians” moniker in 2021.

Lee quoted a post on X about Trump’s efforts and argued that Utah should follow suit. He asked: “What are Utahns thoughts on changing @utahtechu back to Dixie?”

The name of the university, he added, “should have never been changed in the first place.”

By Wednesday afternoon, more than 180 people had commented on his post, many in support of his position.

“I hated when they bowed to the mob and changed the name. It will always be Dixie to me,” one person said.

Another wrote: “100% they hurt the community by changing it. Dixie State Rebels Forever!”

The Salt Lake Tribune reached out Wednesday to Lee for further comment. Lee responded in an email, “The Legislature doesn’t comment to activist organizations like The Salt Lake Tribune.”

Utah Tech University changed its named from Dixie State University in 2022. The old name had ties to slavery and the Confederacy of the Civil War South.

A look through the school’s old yearbooks shows athletes wearing the Confederate flag on their uniforms, students holding mock slave auctions and many pictures of people in blackface. The school’s old “Rebel” mascot, dropped in 2007, was a direct reference to a Confederate soldier.

The university’s board voted to change the school name after conducting a study that found 64% of respondents outside of Utah related the term “Dixie” to racism. The school also said students had reported that the name was hurting their chances in job interviews and graduate school applications. And students of color have said that the name made them uncomfortable.

The school said it wanted a new name to reflect its updated mission.

The proposed change ignited fierce debate, though, among residents who stood by the “Dixie” name — led by a group called Defending Southwestern Utah Heritage Coalition — and some GOP lawmakers who suggested abandoning that history amounted to “being oversensitive.”

Many said “Dixie” was not tied to slavery or racism, but rather the pioneering spirit of the southern Utah region. However, some 19th-century pioneers there were growing cotton, and a few of the area’s early settlers had slaves.

After protests and delays, the Utah Legislature gave final approval to the name change, and Gov. Spencer Cox signed it into law.

In response to Lee’s post, Utah Tech University said in a statement that in the three years since changing its name, “we have been on an upward trajectory — demonstrated by our largest-ever student enrollment last fall, significant growth in philanthropic support and our transition to the Big Sky Conference in 2026.”

The boom is real. Utah Tech’s fall enrollment was 13,167 for fall 2024 — 600 more students than the previous year. And the trend is expected to continue this fall, though it likely won’t hit the 16,000 projection school officials had hoped for.

The school also reported in fall 2022 that donations were up 33% from 2021 under the old name, from $2.7 million to $3.6 million.

“We are proud of the student accomplishments and institutional successes that have taken place under our new institutional name and are excited to continue offering premier active learning experiences that prepare our students to graduate ready to fulfill workforce needs,” Utah Tech wrote in its statement.

The university also reiterated in its statement that it hasn’t purged the “Dixie” name from campus.

“We have placed a renewed emphasis on honoring Utah’s Dixie, building community support and developing our identity as an open, comprehensive polytechnic university.”

A compromise was reached to name the university’s main St. George campus “the Dixie campus.” The school has also created a heritage committee to preserve the name’s legacy. And it continues in other places around the community, including at Dixie Technical College, which partners with Utah Tech University.

Several commenters on Lee’s post defended the name change. Michael Mower, a senior advisor to Gov. Cox, said he liked the new Utah Tech name.

Lee responded to him with an image that said, “Boo this man! Boo!”

Another person wrote: “I always thought Dixie was a weird name because I don’t associate that area with Dixie. If the area was well known as Dixie, I would be in favor of changing it back. But it’s not, so I prefer Utah Tech.”

Several others, though, mentioned not only stopping at returning Utah Tech University back to its previous title. A handful of people also said Bountiful High School, in Davis County, should revert back to its “Braves” mascot and Cedar High School, in Iron County, should bring back its “Redmen” mascot.

The Utah Tech debate also isn’t the first time Lee has followed in Trump’s footsteps in recommending a name change. Last month, the Utah lawmaker — who pushed the bill this legislative session that banned pride flags at government buildings and in schools — suggested erasing the name of LGBTQ activist Harvey Milk from the boulevard named after him in Salt Lake City.