Utah News

Utah has long been celebrated as a premier state for business ventures. However, the narrative often overlooks the pivotal role of women in driving this success. Their entrepreneurial spirit and leadership undeniably contribute to Utah’s economic dynamism and resilience. While progress has been made, a concerted effort is needed to address persistent disparities and fully unlock the potential of women in the state’s business sector.

Acknowledging strengths and addressing challenges

Despite Utah’s favorable business climate, it consistently ranks low in national studies regarding women’s equality, particularly in areas like income and representation in executive positions (e.g., WalletHub’s 2025 Best and Worst States for Women’s Equality and the USU Utah Women & Leadership Project’s 2021 Women’s Equality in Utah). This disparity underscores the need for targeted interventions to ensure equitable opportunities for women.

Conversely, Utah’s growth of women-owned businesses is a testament to the state’s evolving support structure. Data from the U.S. Small Business Administration reveals that women own over 44% of Utah’s small businesses. Notably, the state has witnessed a remarkable 77% surge in women-owned firms over the past two decades, a growth rate second only to Nevada. This significant increase highlights the state’s growing economic influence of female entrepreneurs.

Key resources and initiatives driving progress

Several Utah organizations are instrumental in fostering a supportive environment for women in business.

The Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity’s (GOEO) Startup State Initiative plays a crucial role by providing resources, mentorship and funding opportunities that address barriers disproportionately affecting women, such as access to capital and networking. Furthermore, the office’s 100 Utah Companies Championing Women initiative recognizes and encourages businesses to adopt policies that promote gender diversity and support women’s advancement, including family-friendly practices and programs designed to improve recruitment, retention and leadership opportunities. (The 100 Companies initiative is a partnership with USU’s Utah Women and Leadership Project and the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs.)

The Women’s Business Center of Utah (WBCUtah) has achieved significant milestones, assisting in launching 292 new companies in 2024 alone, engaging with clients across a vast majority of Utah’s counties, and serving over 1,500 business owners. These efforts have created over 1,300 jobs and generated over $160 million in revenue statewide, demonstrating the tangible impact of targeted support. Last month, the U.S. Small Business Administration announced WBCUtah as one of its 2025 Women’s Business Center of Excellence award recipients.

Further contributing to this momentum is the Utah Women’s Leadership Institute’s (WLI) ElevateHER Challenge, which encourages organizations to increase the impact of women’s leadership. This initiative prompts companies to commit to measurable actions, such as increasing the number of women in senior leadership, improving retention rates, and addressing pay disparities. By fostering a culture that values and promotes women, the ElevateHER Challenge is critical in shifting Utah’s business landscape towards more significant gender equity.

Strategic recommendations for enhanced support

Drawing on insights from initiatives like 100 Companies Championing Women and research from the Utah Women and Leadership Project, the following strategies are crucial for fostering a more inclusive and supportive environment:

• Enhance access to capital. Implement funding programs and incentives specifically designed to bridge the venture capital gap for women entrepreneurs.
• Promote leadership diversity. Encourage companies to adopt policies that facilitate women’s advancement into executive roles, including mentorship programs and transparent promotion practices.
• Implement flexible work policies. Adopt flexible hours, remote work options and part-time professional roles to accommodate diverse employee needs and promote work-life balance.
• Provide family-friendly benefits. To support employees’ family responsibilities, offer paid family leave, childcare support, and adoption and fertility benefits.
• Establish women-focused initiatives. Develop mentoring programs, leadership development opportunities and employee resource groups specifically for women.

By implementing these strategies, Utah can solidify its position as a leader in fostering opportunity for all. The businesses and organizations championing gender equity today are laying the groundwork for a future where women are fully empowered to contribute to the state’s economic prosperity. When women receive the tools and opportunities to succeed, communities thrive, innovation accelerates and businesses grow, benefiting the entire state.

A stubborn and unthinking devotion to using fossil fuels to power Utah’s energy future can only lead to our state’s economy becoming as dry and dead as all those dinosaur bones.

The future is renewable energy. The technology is advancing. The costs are declining. Even oil-centric states such as Texas are loading up on the solar and wind infrastructure, as Utah — almost deliberately, it seems — is being left behind.

Legislative interference in plans by private industry and energy-producing co-ops, pushing back on moves to renewable energy and clinging to dirty and ever-more-expensive coal, have hobbled what should be Utah’s opportunity to lead the way on moving to clean and abundant energy.

There is reason to be hopeful that innovation and market forces have already begun an inexorable march toward renewables such as wind, solar, geothermal and new nuclear technology, supported by ever-more-efficient batteries and other forms of energy storage.

The share of Utah’s energy that comes from coal has already plummeted from 75% in 2015 to 46% in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Administration. Of all the energy capacity added in our state since 2015, 93% of it is from solar.

Nationally, coal is already down to 15% of our power production, while solar and wind together outpaced coal in 2024, for the first time ever, at 17%.

Advocates at Utah Clean Energy figure that from 2007 to 2023, sustainable energy growth in the state brought $4.1 billion in construction and investment, $24.6 million in property tax revenue and $6.3 million in lease payments to farmers and other landowners.

Much of the short-term promise going forward comes from the grants, tax breaks and requirements that were part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. That’s an act of Congress that might better have been called the Increasing Energy Act, given how much of that bill’s focus was on clean and sustainable energy projects.

The Trump administration, eager to reduce spending on useful things so it can cut taxes for the rich, is threatening to end IRA funding. That would be a bad idea, and Utah’s all-Republican congressional delegation should oppose such backward steps.

Calculations from groups including the Energy Innovation think tank in California to the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy at the University of Utah show that IRA incentives to new renewable energy projects stand to boost Utah’s gross domestic product significantly over the next decade.

Those numbers also show that removing IRA grants and incentives threaten to cost the state jobs even as it increases our energy costs. Or, perhaps more properly, cost the state jobs because it increases our energy costs.

The case for Utah’s move to sustainable energy is so strong that it isn’t necessary to raise the specter of, you should excuse the expression, climate change. The plummeting cost of solar energy infrastructure and the market’s overall move away from coal — far beyond Utah’s poor power to add or detract — are reason enough.

Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

Three years ago, Keilani Ngatuvai sat in her car outside what was then known as Vivint Arena, called her mom and cried for 10 minutes.

The then-senior at Bingham High School in South Jordan, Utah, had just learned her college education would be completely paid for, thanks to Utah Jazz owners Ryan and Ashley Smith.

Ngatuvai had applied for the Utah Jazz Scholarship program and then been invited to the arena for a final interview earlier that day.

After a tour, Ngatuvai and the other finalists sat in the Jazz locker room, where they were told they’d been awarded the scholarship.

“I probably had the least satisfied reaction of anyone else in that room because I just sat there. I was so shocked. It took me a second to process that, and so I was just kind of sitting in the room like, ‘Did that actually happen?’” Ngatuvai said.

The emotions would come later when she was on the phone with her mom.

“I was so, so grateful, and I never in a million years thought that would happen,” she said.

Fast forward three years, Ngatuvai is double majoring in marketing and strategic communications at Southern Utah University and leaving for a study abroad trip to Sicily on Sunday.

“Honestly, I have no words, and I could never have enough words to express how big of a gift this was in my life. It has 100% changed the trajectory that I had pictured for myself,” Ngatuvai said of the scholarship.

114 wins, 114 scholarships

In March 2021, shortly after purchasing the Utah Jazz, Ryan and Ashley Smith announced the Utah Jazz scholarship program.

For every Jazz win in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, they awarded a Utah high school student from an underrepresented group with a four-year scholarship to a Utah university.

The scholarship covers the cost of tuition, fees, books, supplies, and room and board, and it’s “the biggest scholarship in the state,” according to Mike Maughan, an executive with Smith Entertainment Group and president of the SEG Foundation.

Maughan said the Smiths view their team leadership as a form of stewardship. They’ve regularly considered how to “invest in and ensure a very strong community element to everything that they were doing,” he said.

The Utah Jazz Scholarship program was their first way of doing that.

“They’ve always believed deeply in the power of education and the importance of education, and the ability of education to help people kind of advance in their lives and careers and do something really impactful and meaningful,” Maughan said of the Smiths. “They wanted to make sure they could find a way to invest in this rising group of high school graduates in the state of Utah.”

The program has awarded 114 privately funded scholarships to Utah students, all of whom demonstrated financial need. Among the recipients, 87% are first-generation college students.

With their scholarships, 114 scholars have been able to pursue degrees in various fields, including finance, law, education and medicine.

Two of the program’s scholars have already graduated, and another 15 are set to do so this year.

Maughan said the feedback SEG hears the most from scholars is that the scholarship “has fundamentally changed their lives.”

“Sometimes in life, we just need someone to say, ‘I believe in you,’ and that’s enough to help us start to believe in ourselves, maybe in a way that we didn’t even do that before,” he said. “These are really incredible kids who have bright futures, and no one needs to give them permission to be great. They already are. Sometimes it’s just removing a few of the barriers that might have been in the way to allow them to kind of achieve the potential that they have.”

In October, the scholarships were integrated into the newly formed SEG Foundation.

Caroline Klein, SEG’s chief communications officer, said Ryan and Ashley Smith’s goals for the foundation go hand-in-hand with the scholarship program.

“It’s really using the platform to do good, and, as Mike (Maughan) said, create a lasting impact, very focused on a growth-oriented mindset … and then engaging with the youth, because, again, they’re our future and can make a lasting difference. So all of that really plays very well into exactly what the Utah Jazz Scholarship Foundation is and does. It’s incredible to wrap that all into one,” Klein said.

Mentoring the next generation

The scholarship does more than cover the financial burden of college. It provides the scholars with mentorship from the entire SEG organization.

Ngatuvai recalled sitting alone at a Jazz scholars event in September 2022. She was debating whether she should leave when Klein sat down and introduced herself.

Unaware of Klein’s job, Ngatuvai lamented that she was torn between majoring in marketing or communication, “but I told her I was leaning towards marketing because I just didn’t see a lot of benefit with communications,” Ngatuvai said.

Klein told her, “If you are passionate about communications, communications is a skill that is transferable across anything that you do.”

The next time they saw each other, Ngatuvai told Klein she was double-majoring in the two and loving her communication classes.

The mentorship goes both ways, Klein said, describing the spark the scholars provide in her life.

“I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my time than mentoring the next generation of leaders, especially ones like the Utah Jazz scholars, who are so passionate, so motivated, so engaging and so willing to soak everything up that they have,” Klein said.

In addition to mentorship, SEG helps every interested scholar, regardless of their field, land an internship each year. Many of those internships are with the Jazz’s partner organizations.

“We have them interning in everything from the medical field to marketing to real estate to architecture to civil engineering, and a lot of those work out pretty easily,” Maughan said.

For the harder to place internships, Utah businesses step up to help.

“I make a call to a couple of CEOs and say, ‘Hey, we need to place someone doing this or that,’ and people immediately say, ‘We’re in. How can we help?’” Maughan said.

Changing lives and relieving financial burdens

Daniel Nguyen, the son of refugees, first learned about the Utah Jazz Scholarship while watching a Jazz game.

A few months later, he found out he was a Utah Jazz scholar.

“I think my mom and dad were really relieved because I remember talking to them about college, and they said that wherever I choose to go for (college), they are willing to work a little bit more to help pay for college. But then, I didn’t want that for them,” he said.

The scholarship meant Nguyen, a first-generation college student, could dive headfirst into the opportunities available through the University of Utah without the burden of having to work his way through school.

Nguyen has done that and more. In addition to majoring in biology and pre-med, he is minoring in human rights and resources, chemistry, and Spanish.

He has also been heavily involved in extracurriculars. Nguyen has been a part of at least 10 clubs and served as a campus ambassador, a Union programming council freshman ambassador and study abroad ambassador.

He’s currently a residential adviser for the Honors College and teaches roughly 60 students in the university’s first-generation scholars program. He also does cancer research at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.

“All these opportunities, I feel like I wouldn’t have been able to do without that scholarship because I would been so focused on working instead,” he said.

Last fall, Nguyen was named homecoming king. Standing on the field of Rice-Eccles Stadium in front of thousands of people, he reflected on the opportunities he’s been given through the scholarship and the example he’s set for other students.

He thought, “Without the Utah Jazz, I wouldn’t be standing here today representing all the first-generation students, representing all the students who had little when growing up, but chose to pursue more and to ask for resources and to ask for help. I feel like it was really cool just to stand there and be like, ‘Wow, if I can do it, then I can inspire a lot of different students to do it too.’”

The first thing Tavan Russell did after learning he was a Utah Jazz scholarship recipient was hug his mom.

“It was an amazing thing and really heartwarming to just see my mom, kind of like break down, and with her being a single mother, it was very nice to see all of her hard work just get paid off,” he said. “I think as any child of a single mother, you’d love to just see, you know, paying it back forward to your mom for everything that she’s done. So, that was a really heartwarming moment for me, and definitely a moment I won’t ever forget.”

Paying for her three children’s education was a “really big worry” for his mom as she strived to provide her children with opportunities, he said.

Russell realized that his scholarship is a way he can reward his mother for her sacrifices. He has used that as motivation to make the most of what he’s been given.

“You better go out there every day of the year during the school year and just put in everything you have, everything you got. There’s no excuse. There’s no obstacle that should stop you, and you should just keep on going. Because those two things right there, those are just enough reasons to put your head down and just keep on grinding,” he said.

Russell, from North Salt Lake, is now a student at the University of Utah, studying pre-dental. He plans on applying to dental school this summer.

He said he’s benefitted from the mentorship the scholarship has provided, especially through conversations with Maughan and Ryan Smith.

“Whenever we have these little meetings and I talk to them one on one, they really open my eyes to some kind of new life lesson that I can apply at the time,” he said. “Two of the best people I’ve ever talked to, like mentors I ever met are just right there, anytime, anywhere, and it’s been a blessing to have them be right there.”

Russell expressed his gratitude for the scholarship and the difference it has made in his life.

“I truly, really don’t know where I’d be without them, and I’m just super blessed to be able to pursue my career and dreams because of them,” he said.

While credit might be given to SEG for changing these students’ lives, Maughan believes it’s more accurate that the credit be given to the students “who are committed to changing their own lives, changing their own future, taking advantage of this opportunity, of the amazing place that Utah is to really go live out their dreams.”

A person on horseback found what appeared to be human bones in a park in Utah County on Friday night.

In an announcement Saturday, the Lone Peak Police Department said it responded to a report of suspected human remains on the east side of Lambert Park. The park, in Alpine, is an area that’s “largely undeveloped and used for biking, equestrian, and foot traffic,” the department said.

Police cordoned off the scene and kept it secure until Saturday, when investigators from Lone Peak and the state Office of the Medical Examiner went out and processed the scene.

The individual’s identity and the circumstances surrounding their death are not yet known. The remains have been turned over to the medical examiner’s office for further investigation and identification.

For more on the story, visit https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/northern-utah/human-skeletal-remains-found-in-utah-county-nature-park

Four catches for four touchdowns in his only season playing football at the collegiate level has turned into an NFL shot for Utah tight end Caleb Lohner.

The Denver Broncos, who have taken a liking to adding former Utes to their team in recent years, took a chance on the former BYU and Baylor basketball player turned football tight end, drafting him with the No. 241 pick in the NFL draft Saturday.

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Lohner’s selection marks the fourth consecutive year that a Utah player was selected in the draft, a streak that started in 2022 when the Jacksonville Jaguars picked linebacker Devin Lloyd in the first round.

Last fall, Lohner tried his luck on the gridiron, and it all started from a conversation with Ute tight ends coach Freddie Whittingham, who has known the Lohner family for quite a while.

After finishing the basketball season at Baylor, where he settled into a bench role and averaged 2.4 points and 2.3 rebounds in his last season in Waco, Lohner entered the transfer portal — but it wasn’t just basketball he was looking to play.

Despite the fact that he hadn’t played organized football since eighth grade — deciding after that to completely focus on basketball — Whittingham was interested in converting the hoops forward to a tight end.

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“Caleb is a guy that has all the traits that you look for in a tight end,” Whittingham said last fall. “He’s tall, he’s 250 pounds now, he can run, he’s got good hands and I would say from when he arrived in May through all of the summer work that was done, he’d get a grade of an ‘A’ for everything that he was able to do in summer ball.”

It was a tough process — essentially, Lohner was relearning the sport — but the potential was there from an athletic standpoint. Once he began learning everything he needed to about football, the results started showing themselves in practice, and it started translating in-game.

All four of his receptions were touchdowns, with the 6-foot-7, 250-pounder providing a big target for Utah’s quarterbacks in the red zone and coming down with jump balls in the end zone.

He also blocked a kick on special teams.

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After finishing the football season, Lohner also played basketball for Utah, averaging 2.8 points and 2 rebounds while playing 9.9 minutes per game.

The combination of Lohner’s size, frame and athleticism proved to be enough for the Broncos to want to nab him near the end of the draft before he reached the undrafted free agent market.

Lohner played just 57 snaps the entire year and was targeted just nine times, but he made every single snap count en route to getting his shot at the next level.

“I just had some people at the University of Utah that just believed that I could be a high-level tight end, and so I took the time to watch some film and take a visit there after I had graduated from Baylor, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” Lohner said, per the Broncos website.

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“I couldn’t be more grateful for all the schools that I was at, but especially University of Utah, their football program, the Whittinghams — coach Kyle (Whittingham) and Freddie Whittingham.”

Broncos coach Sean Payton has loved to use unconventional players before — see Taysom Hill — and will love the idea of scheming up different ways to use Lohner, if Lohner impresses enough in camp to make the final roster.

“I couldn’t have been happier,” Lohner said, per the Broncos website.

“I just wanted an opportunity, and I genuinely believe that wherever I am — and now being part of the Broncos organization — I’m going to do everything I can to help win. I know I don’t have a ton of football under my belt, but that’s exactly why I’m playing the game, because I’ve developed a passion and love. I was so excited. I think it’s something you dream about in sports.”

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Lohner will join five former Utes in the Mile High City — offensive tackle Garett Bolles, outside linebacker Jonah Elliss, wide receiver Devaughn Vele and fellow tight end Thomas Yassmin.

Linebacker Karene Reid, Lohner’s teammate in his sole season as a Ute, will be with him as well, as the Broncos reportedly signed Reid to an undrafted free agent contract shortly following the draft.

The last Saturday in April — this Saturday — is a new state holiday.

The Utah Legislature created Utah Social and Community Health Day to nudge people to mind their relationships. The day is a reminder to nurture friendships and to reach out to others to counter the growing problem of loneliness, a challenge that has seeped through communities across the country.

“Think of it as a day to level up your friendships,” said Brent Reed, one of the architects of the holiday and a strong advocate for the value of forging connections. “Every major problem — and every joy — is easier to face when we’re not alone.”

The holiday’s goal, he told Deseret News, is to get everyone to do something, however small, to connect with someone else. He’ll be having lunch with an old friend he almost lost track of as both of their lives got busy.

Making a day to encourage action

Reed, 59, is a Highland dad with seven kids, who range from teens up to their 30s. He owns a window cleaning business. Reed said he got interested in the issue of social connections in 2023, when news stories were chronicling a loneliness epidemic. He took stock of his own life and realized he’d let many of his social connections drift away.

About the same time, Reed said he saw some of the work done by BYU professor of psychology Julianne Holt-Lunstad, who had been studying and publishing research on the impact of loneliness and isolation — which may not be the same thing. You can have people around you and still feel lonely. You can be by yourself and not feel lonely. But many people do suffer from feelings of one or the other — or both.

Reed got involved with “friendship labs,” coming up with tools to help people increase the quantity of their friendships and improve the quality. He kept trying different things, plagued by the notion that disconnection was a solvable societal problem.

But loneliness is tricky, he said, because no one wants to own that they feel that way. “Being lonely seems to be generally frowned upon,” he said.

He took his concerns to a legislator, who agreed that a day of recognition might be “leverage to tell people to take it more seriously.” State Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Pleasant Grove, sponsored SCR4, while state Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, carried it in the House. The resolution says the day, which became official in 2025, “recognizes loneliness and social isolation as critical public health priorities” and “urges individuals to prioritize building positive relationships and fostering social connections.”

Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University and director of the university’s social connections lab, believes having a designated day could be “an opportunity both for increasing awareness as well as for taking action.” She helped polish the resolution’s language.

She’s long been heavily involved in sounding the alarm about the very real dangers of loneliness and isolation, noting health risks more dangerous than obesity, air pollution, physical inactivity, excessive alcohol consumption or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

“No factor is more consistently associated with long life and happiness than strong social connections,” she said, pointing to findings from Harvard’s Study of Adult Development, which is the world’s longest study of happiness.

When U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued his advisory on loneliness, which he characterized as an epidemic, she was the scientific editor. She’s also a technical adviser to the World Health Organization’s commission on social connection. The commission will issue a new report in July.

Despite recent attention from officials, Holt-Lunstad said she thinks there’s a “significant lack of awareness around this issue” among the public. So besides the push to get people involved with each other on a personal level, she believes an awareness day provides an opportunity to “create messaging and campaigns and dialogue that can help us start to increase awareness around just how critically important our social connections are, not only for individuals, but the thriving of our communities and society.

“We know it impacts health, education, safety, prosperity, several different kinds of outcomes — and for far too long, our social connections have been taken for granted and so this is an opportunity for us to create awareness but also for communities to plan events, for individuals to take action in their own relationships and communities,” she said.

The day should remind people how important connections are, said Holt-Lunstad.

Reed said his own focus is on fortifying spiritual, relational health. “Lots of groups are building parks and paths, and there are lots of things that build community. But until you start talking to someone, making friends, going to lunch, it’s for naught.”

What he wants to do, he said, is “level up as a friend. If people did that, it would be fantastic.” It’s easy to let a relationship slide if it’s not minded, according to Reed, who is pretty sure that on Saturday he’ll be having lunch with someone who’s been his friend for 30 years, but with whom he almost lost touch, then working in the man’s backyard for a bit.

One small step

Helping others, doing things together — even chores — forms or strengthens bonds.

Holt-Lunstad talks about a randomized controlled trial she was part of that asked people to do just small acts of kindness for their neighbors over the course of a month. “What we found was that when people did that, that reduced loneliness, it reduced stress and it also reduced conflict in neighborhoods.”

Action on behalf of others is free, simple and anyone can do something, she said.

A single commemorative day is not going to change much, she adds, or be as helpful as something done consistently over time. But it could get people started thinking about others and launch some new connections.

Doing things with and for others makes people feel good. So it can lead somewhere important on a personal level.

“Relationships take time to develop and time to maintain,” she told Deseret News, noting the day “really should be a reminder, more than a one-off.”

There’s a website under development at Utahsocialhealthday.com. It will be built out with ideas for connecting and with different resources, Reed said.

Holt-Lunstad added that she’s glad the holiday focuses on social connection, rather than targeting loneliness explicitly.

“I think oftentimes we focus so much on the problem that we lose sight of what we’re aiming for. Social connection is something everyone needs and everyone can take part in. I’m happy that Utah is focusing on the bright spots.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a slate of education-related executive orders this week, with lawmakers already preparing legislation to codify those directives into law.

Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, is among those making efforts, with one bill making its way through Congress on the college accreditation process. The Accreditation for College Excellence Act, or ACE Act, would prohibit college accreditors from implementing certain standards related to diversity, equity and inclusion as part of their approval process.

“The ACE Act would make sure … (credits) are focused on merit and not DEI,” Owens told the Deseret News in an interview. “Those kind of things will be very important for us to make sure we have transparency (and that) those who are supporting our colleges are friends and not putting ideologies and their thought process into our kids’ minds.”

Owens introduced that bill earlier this month, and it is currently making its way through the House Committee on Education and Workforce, of which the Utah Republican is a member. A similar bill passed the House last year, although it was never considered by the then-Democratically controlled Senate.

The bill closely mirrors the executive order signed by Trump on Wednesday, which directs the Department of Education to consider revoking the recognition of some accreditors if they mandate DEI standards.

Trump’s executive order would direct the secretary of Education to hold accreditors accountable “through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition” if they are found “to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives.”

Accreditors have pushed back on accusations that they mandate DEI standards, pointing to colleges in states with DEI-related bans that have not had issues getting accreditation.

Owens’ bill has similar language that would prohibit agencies from requiring, encouraging or coercing an academic institution “to support or oppose specific partisan or political beliefs, viewpoints on social or political issues, or support the disparate treatment of any individual or group.”

Although the bill did not make it through Congress last year, Owens expressed confidence that Trump’s executive could help spur a vote on the legislation relatively soon.

“No question about it,” Owens said when asked if the executive order will help speed along the process.

“We’re getting things done the quickest way possible through executive orders,” Owens said. “The people can understand what we’re trying to get accomplished from the president from his pulpit, we can talk about why it’s necessary — and all we do is just follow up with the legislation that will make sure that it stays there forever.”

Trump wants universities to reveal foreign gifts

While presidents have the authority to issue executive orders, those can be easily overturned by the following president with a similar stroke of the pen. As a result, lawmakers in the president’s party will typically seek to pass legislation codifying those orders into law so that it would be far more difficult to be repealed later on.

Trump signed another executive order to require “full and timely disclosure by higher education institutions” when they receive gifts by foreign nations. That order is similar to a bill that already passed the House earlier this year, which contained proposals drafted by Owens.

The Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions, or DETERRENT Act, seeks to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to expand current requirements and in some cases ban certain contracts that have not received a waiver from the Department of Education.

Under the DETERRENT Act, the foreign gift reporting threshold for colleges and universities would be significantly reduced from $250,000 to $50,000. That threshold would be further reduced to $0 for countries of concern.

The bill includes several provisions in Owens’ Reporting on Investments in Foreign Adversaries, which implements increased reporting requirements for private universities with endowments above $6 billion or investments above $250 million.

Trump signed other orders, including one looking to crack down on behavioral issues in K-12 schools, which Owens says could be quickly followed by legislation.

“The upside is that we have things that we can push through. It’s a slow process, but because of what the president can do with executive orders, we can start implementing it quicker and people can start to see the results of it,” Owens said. “And it helps us on our side to get the support, the groundswell that we need to push things through.”

More than 400 university and college leaders across the country have signed onto a letter condemning the “unprecedented” attempts by President Donald Trump to control higher education.

Just one school president in Utah has added her name.

Westminster University President Beth Dobkin — who oversees the state’s smallest traditional higher education institution — is the only Utah signee speaking out to defend the autonomy of schools from federal overreach.

“The same core values that have guided Westminster for the past 150 years are the same values that are under attack today: authentic and inclusive affirmation of individual identities, and knowledge from openness, questioning, discernment and personal passion,” she said in a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune.

It’s likely Dobkin, who took the helm of the Salt Lake City school in July 2018, is the only school leader in the state who could join the effort without facing repercussions — as a private university president.

Late in 2023, the state — with the backing of Gov. Spencer Cox — formally approved a policy prohibiting Utah’s public higher education leaders from taking any political stance. They must remain neutral “on political, social or unsettled issues that do not directly relate to the institution’s mission, role or pedagogical objectives.”

The Utah Board of Higher Education set that policy and could take action, as it has the authority to hire and fire presidents.

But where does the line fall when an issue does relate to education? So far, that boundary hasn’t been tested.

The letter to Trump, for instance, deals with the ability of schools to govern themselves, without federal interference or threats to funding. And it comes shortly after the Trump administration froze billions of federal funds earmarked for Harvard University. Harvard has since sued over the funding freeze, and its leader also signed onto the message.

Higher education has been repeatedly targeted by Trump since he took office in January. Universities have been facing significant cuts proposed for federal research funding, as well as project terminations because the work has been focused on diversity or inclusion.

The letter, released by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, reads, in part: “As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live and work on our campuses.”

Notably, several public schools in Utah are formal members of the association, including the University of Utah, Utah State University, Utah Valley University, Weber State University, Salt Lake Community College and Snow College.

Trump has also pushed for his administration to revoke the visas of more than 1,000 international college students nationwide. In Utah, 50 have been affected. Most do not have criminal records and are unclear why they have been told to immediately self-deport.

Dobkin said she’s proud to stand with other school leaders. And she has been outspoken in Utah, defending diversity and inclusion efforts as vital.

“While we welcome a national conversation about the value of higher education, this particular attack is motivated by political gain,” she said.

Her comments in response to signing the letter also align with her annual spring address that she made to the campus last week. During that, she specifically called out the visa revocations.

“Our world is increasingly chaotic: whiplash from economic policies, deportations and canceled visas, federal programs and services cut, ideas banned, histories erased,” she said.

Even though Westminster is a small school, with about 1,200 students, the stakes are still high for Dobkin to speak out. The university has one of the highest percentages in Utah of students who rely on federal loans — 69% — to attend. Those are currently managed by the U.S. Department of Education, which Trump is pushing to dismantle.

“Our students, and our country, cannot afford to lose this support,” she said.

Westminster also uses federal funding, Dobkin said, to operate its tax clinic and McNair Scholars program, which supports underrepresented students going onto graduate studies.

Schools that have pushed back against Trump have seen their funding put at risk. Dobkin mentioned Harvard in her address.

“The current confrontation between Harvard and the federal government has the potential to affect all of higher education, despite the fact that Harvard is private, and possibly financially independent,” she said.

The letter, she said, is a plea from university leaders to protect academic freedom and the benefits that higher education provides to the country — economically and philosophically.

“These values are intertwined, and they are under attack — easy to ridicule and distort, and complicated to explain and defend,” she told The Tribune. “But if we give up on them, we give up on higher education, we give up on democracy and we give up on the future. I’m not ready to do that.”

Tony Latimer takes pride in the state of his office. He knows every speck of soil and bed of blooms like he has planted each one himself.

From bright blossoms to keen koi fish, Latimer’s office spans some 50 acres. For 25 years, Latimer has been the go-to horticulturist at the Thanksgiving Point Institute, which facilitates one of Utah’s most well-known spring attractions: the annual Tulip Festival.

Latimer knows why one bed of tulips is growing slower than the other (it’s in the shade), why they added tulips to an area with roses (roses take longer to bloom) and which tulip blooms don’t last long (but give a bright pop of color).

This year’s festival, open until May 17, is Latimer’s largest challenge to date — with over 900,000 flowers adding pops of color to Lehi’s Ashton Gardens.

“The garden changes so much so quickly,” he says, walking through his office on a Monday in late April. “If you don’t get it watered when it needs to be watered, you can do a lot of damage fast. It’ll take months to recover.”

Over 400,000 of this year’s flowers are imported tulips, while the 550,000 others are various spring blooms like daffodils, hyacinths, poppies and more. There are 129 different varieties of tulips, each one blooming at a different time, so visitors get a different perspective of the event no matter when they come during the six weeks it’s open.

While the festival has become something of a spring destination — a place where families come to take photos, enjoy the outdoors after a lingering winter and learn about flowers — it wasn’t always that way, according to Latimer.

“In 2000 in the fall, we planted our first tulips, and then spring came in 2001 and we really didn’t get any uptake, or too many people who came out,” Latimer recalled. “We did that for a couple years, and then finally, somebody had the bright idea in 2004 to have a Tulip Festival.”

The event took off from there, going from three days to two weeks, then to three weeks and now six.

“We laugh at what we used to call the tulip festival, just because we would probably have about 250,000 tulips,” Latimer said. He estimates that it takes around 5,000 hours of prep and getting the plants in the ground to get the festival up and running.

They plant in late September or early October, and by the time the festival opens for the public, they already are planning for the next one.

While Latimer leads the planting push, the team consists of 16 gardeners, a mowing and landscape crew, and designer Esther Hendrickson, an expert in colors and textures who helps design the beds to make the garden the most visually appealing.

Every year, the festival layout changes, Latimer said.

“We’ll buy all brand new, that way we can totally redesign every single bed. You won’t see the same thing you saw last year,” he said.

Even as the landscape changes, Latimer knows every inch of the garden. He walks through it as often as he can, taking notes of things he notices or feedback he overhears from visitors.

His team takes that feedback into account: like changing an umbrella activation to paper lanterns in the trees, or adding a more Dutch-feel to the festival.

Hallie Gehring, from Pleasant Grove, has gone to the Tulip Festival with her family for 20 years. A trip to Ashton Gardens is a tradition in her family, particularly because her great grandmother loved going every year, and stopping at the Trellis Café for a treat.

“We still do it. We always think of her,” Gehring said. Now, at 22, Gehring takes her three-year-old brother every year.

Gehring said for her, attending the Tulip Festival is akin to stepping into “a new world.”

“I almost feel like I’m transported to a different place … of peace and tranquility and just absolute beauty,” she said. As she has grown older, Gehring has learned to appreciate the work that goes into creating that beauty, and the other elements that add to the garden, such as the architecture.

“The scale of it is impossible for me to comprehend,” Gehring said.

On a recent walk through, Latimer overheard a patron comment on how lucky the timing was for a crab apple tree to bloom at the same time as a patch of tulips underneath it — the bright magenta floral color reflected on top in the branches and in the bed of flowers beneath it.

That, of course, was all by design.

Latimer’s favorite part of his job is walking through his office and overhearing people’s reactions. Hearing a “wow” is his greatest joy.

“I do gardens at my house, and sometimes it looks good, but I’m really the only one that enjoys it, and so it’s nice to see other people enjoy it,” he said.