Updated Dixie State name change bill advances in Utah Senate
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A push to change Dixie State University’s name advanced Monday in the GOP-dominated Utah Senate after students rallied at the Capitol last week and urged lawmakers to revive a stalled plan to change the name.
A new version of the legislation was released during a Senate Education Committee meeting that would open the possibility of the Dixie name to remain and give the community more input on the name change process. Senate Republicans agreed last week to hear the legislation after appearing to stall the bill after it passed the House.
The amended bill calls for a heritage committee to be formed if the university's board of trustees recommends a name change to help preserve the region's history on campus, said bill sponsor Rep. Kelly Miles.
Sen. Don Ipson, the updated bill's floor sponsor, said lawmakers had reached a consensus after receiving input from students and community members.
“With the substitution and removing the name Dixie from the bill, it now enables community input, which will preserve the heritage of our great community.” Ipson wrote in a statement.
The bill will now advance to the Senate floor. If it passes and is signed by the governor, the university and state board of higher education would be required to bring a new name recommendation back to the Legislature next fall.
Dixie State faced scrutiny in the past over its name but resisted changing it. The area was nicknamed Dixie, a reference to Southern states, when settlers with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many of them from the South, tried to make it a cotton-growing mecca in the 1800s.
Supporters say the name is important to the area’s heritage and is separate from the history of slavery. But efforts across the U.S. to remove monuments, names...