After the cancellation of the 27th annual Unity Conference, The Wildcat Collective, a branch of the American Federation of Teachers Utah College Council, organized an alternate conference on the front steps of Stewart Library.

Organizers contacted Weber State University Police before the event as a precaution, ensuring public safety.

Barret Bonella, the chief steward of The Wildcat Collective, said regardless of legality, he wanted to make sure original participants still had an opportunity to speak.

“The rain hit us hard, but people were still willing to stay for it. That’s encouraging to me,” Bonella said. “People really wanted to hear and be a part of this.”

At approximately 11 a.m., rain began to pour and proceeded throughout the event. The Wildcat Collective worked with police to accommodate a temporary space indoors for the conference to be held in the event of turbulent weather.

The event, organizers named “Unity Conference: Uncensored version,” included open-mic opportunities and speeches, featuring presenters from the original canceled conference. A crowd of approximately 50 people attended the event, as the speakers discussed a wide range of topics on book banning and limitations of censorship of scientific research and papers.

After persistent rainy weather, organizers paused the conference and moved to a lecture room in Lindquist Hall where attendees were told discussions must adhere to topics under HB 261. At this point, the event shifted to small-group discussions.

“It’s wild to me to be living out this censorship in real-time,” Stacy Bernal, a Weber State Alumni and member of the Ogden School Board said. “To be just someone watching it as it was coming up in the news and on social media, I just truly couldn’t believe it.”

Since the cancellation, Weber State has felt scrutiny from panel members, staff, community members and students.

In an email sent from the Weber State president’s office to faculty and staff, the administration addressed the cancellation, citing poor communication and unclear definitions of HB 261.

“We recognize that this has been difficult to navigate and that there have been times when communication could have been clearer,” the administration wrote in the email. “We apologize for the frustration this has caused. We are truly working to move forward, through what has sometimes been shifting guidance, together.”

The statement went on to cover the distinction between academic and non-academic settings, and what is permitted to be discussed in the respective setting. Faculty are free to teach, conduct research, join scholarly events and discuss complex or controversial issues in their field, the administration said in the email.

HB 261 restricts how certain topics — such as anti-racism, bias, critical race theory, oppression, intersectionality, discriminatory practices, systemic bias or personal identity characteristics — can be addressed in non-academic programs.

Faculty have academic freedom protections that cover their teaching and research in their discipline, and their participation in scholarly events. This means they may engage in critical analysis, present findings and discuss complex or controversial issues tied to their disciplines.

However, Student Access and Success, the department the unity conference was programmed under, does not fall under these protections. Meaning, certain discussions do not abide under HB 261.

“Because of this difference, some proposed Unity Conference sessions were better suited for academic venues, while others raised compliance concerns because this was a conference hosted by Student Access & Success,” the email stated. “The conference committee ultimately decided to cancel the event after several presenters withdrew.”

Organizers decided to cancel the conference after multiple presenters did not feel comfortable presenting within the limitations of the SAS held program, Jessica Oyler, vice president of Student Access and Success, said.

When asked for comment, conference organizers said all requests were being directed to an email: [email protected].

Richard Price, a political science professor at Weber State and an original panelist who was to speak at the canceled unity conference, said that while in theory HB 261 shouldn’t affect their teaching the reality is that there’s no way the bill won’t impact the teaching taking place in Utah’s universities.

The bill doesn’t currently restrict what Price can teach in their own academic discipline, but Price said Utah is only a few years behind other states that do restrict what professors can teach in their own classrooms.

“Texas Tech, which is one of the three major university systems of Texas, just prohibited all of their faculty from talking, instructing, mentioning transgender existence and told them that they’ll be fired,” Price said. “We’re not there yet, but they would be happy if I stopped talking about it because if a student complains, they’re going to have to deal with it, even though this law does not apply to my teaching.”

However, HB 261 does restrict what Price can say to a general campus audience.

“I could teach what I want in theory within the confines of my academic discipline, which is what I do,” Price said. “But I can’t talk to a general audience on campus about it because they start to worry that looks like the university endorsing what I’m saying.”

Last fall Price gave a talk on LGBTQ history and received pushback from the administrators. According to Price, the administrators only had access to the title of their talk which was “LGBTQ Education and Higher Ed”.

“The perspective that administrators are taking essentially are that anything that references groups of people, whether it’s queer people, Black History Month, whatever, can’t be done because it might piss off a legislator,” Price said.

Price said that some sideffects of HB 261 and the culture it’s instilling within administrators was cutting certain educational programs. Price said that the explanation of efficiency given by administrators was a way to cover up cutting programs they didn’t like.

“Women and gender studies, including queer studies got cut despite the fact that they cost virtually nothing to the university,” Price said. “Under the rubrics that they were using to evaluate programs, it should not have been cut, but it was because they knew the legislature wanted them to be.”

Price stated that on paper HB 261 tries to stop teachers from telling students that their moral worth is tied to their identifying factors, but in practice the bill has a very different outcome.

“What they take it to mean is don’t talk about queer people, don’t talk about black folk, just talk about Americans,” Price said.

Price said that everyone’s experiences are important to talk about and each can enrich the full story of the human experience. Price worries that HB 261 sets a false standard regarding the exploration stories from minority communities.

“The assumption is anything that studies a minority is judgmental against whatever the majority is. If I’m teaching queer history, it must be because I hate straight people,” Price said. “The fact that doesn’t reflect any kind of reality of my classes, straight students have taken the class and survived.”

In their final remarks of the email, the administration said they plan to discuss the situation further within faculty senate and staff advisory council meetings. They went on to say that additional questions brought directly to them will be addressed, regarding HB 261 and institutional neutrality, in the coming weeks.

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