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Southern Utah University President Scott Wyatt's caving in to narrow special interests in the tea party pocket of southwestern Utah is the latest example of political bullying of timid officials that allows the minority to dictate to the majority.

Wyatt, in a move that has once again shown Utah to be a land ruled by petty political potentates, removed the name of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from the university's Center for Outdoor Engagement.

The center is not a building, mind you. It's an academic program that has an office. The university, under the bolder and more scholarly leadership of former president Michael Benson, named the center dedicated to research of the outdoors after Reid three years ago.

Reid, a 1959 graduate of the school when it was a two-year college, is arguably, along with former Utah Gov. and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, SUU's most distinguished graduate.

He also has taken a leadership role in the Senate in issues pertaining to conserving the Earth's vast resources.

So it was logical at the time to name a center dedicated to researching conservation issues after Reid.

But Wyatt, under pressure from a small hive of right-wingers loathe to having a Democrat's name associated with the Cedar City school, removed the name.

Laughingly, he said it had nothing to do with politics.

The reality is, it had everything to do with politics, and not in a good way.

The fact that Wyatt's explanation of removing Reid's name took all sorts of twists and turns lends credibility to the suspicion he hasn't been completely forthright on this issue.

He said the center, with Reid's name, hasn't been successful in raising money from donors.

Well, that wasn't part of the deal in the first place.

Wyatt said there are plans to name a future building after Reid, once funds are raised to construct the building. Well, he and everybody else knows that's not going to happen.

He said Reid's name will still be associated with the school. It just won't be attached to anything.

He said Reid still commands much respect from those affiliated with the institution. He said that right after disrespecting Reid by removing his name from the center.

The pressure to remove Reid's name supposedly came from a grassroots movement. But only two names of protesters have been made public: Cedar City Council member Paul Cozzens and Iron County Commissioner Dave Miller.

The fact that Cozzens' name is attached to this is telling.

Cozzens is a longtime Republican operative in Iron County with a reputation for aggressively pushing through his right-wing brand of politics. He has been known to persistently fight for a cause until those resisting that cause finally give up.

He seems to have influence over a segment of the Republican Party in his county, especially among the Republican delegates chosen in Utah's uniquely exclusive system of nominating candidates. But he doesn't seem to have the support of the broader base of the Republican Party, which hints as to just how groundswell this groundswell movement against Reid really was.

Cozzens told The Spectrum newspaper of St. George that many people in Nevada were opposed to Reid's name on the center. But those people are unnamed and, if you recall, Reid was recently re-elected in Nevada.

Cozzens' son, Blake, was in the center of controversy earlier this year when, as the sitting chairman of the Iron County Republican Party, he ran for the House against popular and conservative Republican Rep. John Westwood.

Cozzens, who as chairman of the Iron County GOP has been one of the most strident opponents of a compromise bill to make the candidate-nominating process more inclusive, did well in the county convention and forced Westwood into a primary.

But once a broader electorate among Republicans had a chance to vote, Westwood defeated Cozzens by a nearly three-to-one margin.

So the Cozzens are the so-called broad base Wyatt listened to when making the decision that has become an embarrassment to Utah.