Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a pair of the 2024 Legislature's most controversial bills Tuesday night, just two weeks into the session.
Cox had signaled support for the bill - without directly promising to sign it - saying soon before the session began that he's concerned with protecting "Women's spaces" while treating LGBTQ people "With dignity."
"There is more work to be done. And it's up to all of us, and all of the people in our communities as we move forward, to treat each other with kindness and reach out to people in our communities and lift them up," bill sponsor Rep. Katy Hall, R-South Ogden, said in a hearing on the bill last week ahead of its passage.
Cox said in his statement the bill "Offers a balanced solution" to concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Critics of the bill worry students of color and others who have traditionally benefited from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives could lose out.
Former 4th Congressional District candidate Darlene McDonald - who runs nonprofit 1 Utah Project - pointed to the Utah Compact on Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion signed by then-Gov. Gary Herbert and Cox, who was lieutenant governor at the time, in December 2020.
"The compact represented a 'first step' toward addressing systemic racism by recognizing it as a structural issue, not an individual one. Tonight, just a little more than three years later, Utah joined a number of conservative red states to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs from institutions of higher learning as well as political subdivisions," she said in the prepared statement on behalf of the 1 Utah Project.
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