Don't Say Gay, the Weber State Way

Quick Disclaimer: Just a reminder that this blog is solely my personal speech representing my opinions alone and derived from my expertise as a scholar of censorship, queer educational activism, and free speech with no endorsement from my employer. The following relies upon two GRAMA, Utah’s public records law, request disclosures. I’m at the mercy of that law and cannot guarantee that there isn’t something else but the paper record is the only thing I have. First and second disclosures here. Oh, and,

My academic freedom is totally protected.

Being a professor today is to be under assault from multiple angles. By far the greatest is from Republican legislators bent on ending academic freedom and censoring educational speech so that it reflects conservative ideology. The modern version of this began around 2019 with the conservative backlash against the New York Times’s The 1619 Project which had the gaul to explore American history through the centering of slavery and racism in America. For conservatives this is unacceptable because America must be a triumphant nation, perfect in all ways. Anything that points to failings in the American experiment - such as the history of racism and slavery that defined American identity for more than 400 years - must be suppressed. This was then enhanced by some activists, like Chris Rufo, who targeted what they called critical race theory (CRT). Now CRT is a pretty basic theory arguing that things that appear facially racially neutral may still be designed and enacted in ways that reinforce racist ideologies. This is a pretty basic theory that is extremely well documented in housing policy, for example. Rufo and others constructed a make believe vision of CRT where schools, even elementary schools, teach that white students are inherent racist and Black students are morally superior. This is an absurd idea without support anywhere but so long as one can lie easily, and modern politics embraces liars as seen in Donald Trump, it became an effective message. Then as CRT panic started to disappear, they turned to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. These are pretty simple programs that sought to encourage less racially and sexually isolated institutions. In practical terms, honestly, they were often mostly just window dressing that pretended at inclusion rather than any real change. But again, in the hands of white supremacist conservatives like Rufo, DEI became code for some kind of nefarious system where white people were expunged from public life.

So this past year the Republican purge came to Utah. In particular, the state adopted HB261 as its major first step against DEI. (Here is a FAQ from Weber State as well.) Importantly, this law mirrored core aspects of the white supremacist project in the definition of DEI but pulled short of the full war in states like Florida or Texas by declaring that the law does not apply (yet) to academic research or teaching.

My academic freedom is totally protected.

So we are left wondering what exactly this law requires, or forbids, exactly. I ran into in a LGBTQ History talk delivered in October 2024. As a scholar of queer educational history and censorship, I frequently volunteer to talk on aspects of American queer history and offered to do a talk entitled “From Anita to Ron: History of Anti-LGBTQ Education.” In brief, the talk was a simple 40 minutes or so on three key stories of the state using public education to censor the existence of queer people. I delivered it to a decent crowd of faculty and students of about 20 and got interesting questions. When I offered to do the talk, the staff in charge sent me this document that our university uses for implementing HB261. In particular I was asked to confirm that I did none of the below forbidden practices.

Now this list made me laugh. Hard. It’s fucking absurd. The idea that I, or any competent speaker, tells students that queer students are inherently superior than straight, that they are morally superior, or that I close with a demand that straight students weep for the actions of prior straights in society. Only white supremacists think like this but the law was drafted was drafted by white supremacists so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I happily informed the staff member in charge that my talk would not violate any of these absurd terms. But don’t worry,

My academic freedom is totally protected.

Two days after my talk I was informed that complaints were made about it and that LGBTQ themed talks were now required to be co-sponsored by academic programs and slides had to be disclosed in advance for clearance apparently. I wasn’t surprised so much as amused by this development. And so I figured I’d explore the application of HB261 in practice by submitting two GRAMA requests for communications related to my talk to understand this development. The most interesting declaration of my first request was this:

This was made by the Vice President of Student Affairs and Access Jessica Oyler and it intrigued me for two reasons. First, there was no external complaint. I tried a second GRAMA to make sure of this and there was no complaint of the content of my talk from anyone outside of Weber State or any student. (Unless of course the university illegal withheld documents which I do not assume). Second, this assertion from Oyler assumes that my talk violated the law. The only thing she had was the title, that mentioned anti-LGBTQ education. That’s it. So I emailed Oyler seeking an explanation of how my talk violated HB261. She refused to provide any substantive response. But I was assured that

My academic freedom is totally protected.

So what I’m left with is implication from the facts. The talk, which garnered no complaints and she had no access to the substance of the talk, was forbidden because it talked about queer issues. That’s all the title communicated. Weber State should be a place where we don’t say gay. I’m assured that I have the academic freedom to study queer people and teach about it, but I cannot share that research with a general audience on campus. Well, I cannot without an academic cosponsor supposedly but I’ve also heard whispers that academic sponsors of such talks have been harassed by administrators - this I cannot document, in part because any pressure was done verbally precisely to avoid a paper trail. But

My academic freedom is totally protected.

Well that is for now. You see universities in Texas and Florida are already reportedly forbidden faculty who engage in disfavored research and teaching topics. And powerful members of the Utah legislature are threatening a budget cut, despite high enrollments and a strong state budget, solely to force us to cut disfavored academic programs. Where a few years ago Weber State administrators cheered the creation of Utah’s first queer students program, which runs mostly on nearly free faculty labor, now the experience with DEI legislation demonstrates that this commitment to diversity and inclusion was just performative and the university will happily jettison programs to win back the legislature’s joy by demonstrating our commitment to being a straight, white institution.