In a recent Salt Lake Tribune op-ed, several professors from Utah State University’s English department mischaracterized SB334 — which establishes the Utah State Center for Civic Excellence — as undermining academic freedom and betraying faculty trust.
None of their assertions are valid, in my view, but their scoffing at the idea that students might read Boethius — the 6th-century Roman statesman whose “Consolation of Philosophy” shaped generations of thinkers from Aquinas to Dante — may tell us far more about the state of higher education in Utah than it does SB334. In fact, it illustrates quite well why SB334 is necessary.
Boethius wrote from a prison cell, confronting fate, virtue and justice. His work bridged the classical and medieval worlds. If today’s humanities faculty find Boethius irrelevant, the problem isn’t SB334. And it’s not just Boethius. That attitude produces graduates who hold a firm grasp on sloganeering but lack the ability to research and understand the great questions of history.
Let’s be clear: SB334 does not mandate Boethius — or any other specific text. It establishes the Center for Civic Excellence at Utah State University to oversee a faculty-designed, four-course general education sequence focused on civic knowledge, philosophical inquiry and serious writing. Students will explore timeless questions of justice, freedom and human purpose — questions sadly absent in today’s fragmented distribution of curricula.
SB334 is not a partisan takeover so much as a civic recovery mission. And at a time when universities are fighting to remain broadly relevant and to justify their cost, to offer learning of lasting import enhances the institution’s value proposition to students and parents alike.
The professors criticizing the bill also accused SB334 of having the “political goal” of promoting the rise of Christianity. This claim misrepresents the bill’s true purpose. SB334 is aimed at providing students with a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural forces that have shaped civilization — far beyond any single religious narrative. Yes, a course might well include Augustine, but it is equally likely to include Marx, Douglass, Confucius or Achebe. The Western canon is not a sermon — it’s a centuries-long conversation. SB334 does not dictate answers, it invites students to grapple with the timeless questions and debates that shaped the world they are inheriting.
And far from undermining faculty autonomy, SB334 depends on it. The bill sets a civic mission, and the faculty shape the map. Professors will choose the readings, design the courses and lead the instruction. That is collaboration, not micromanagement.
If certain faculty felt excluded in the SB334 process, that can be addressed in the implementation. This is an opportunity to help craft a curriculum that meets the moment. Civic ignorance is tragically real — only 47% of Americans can correctly identify the three branches of government laid out in the U.S. Constitution. It is not innovative to deprive university students of a foundation in American history, government and political philosophy, it is malpractice. And we lawmakers make no apology for our efforts to address the problem.
SB334 bill does derive in part from my time as an academic, seeing close up what was lost in our approach to general education. But it is equally driven by constituents — my own and others — who question why their tax dollars are funding the propagation of the Neo-Marxist nihilistic narcissism of the hard left.
Voters rightly question whether a curriculum hostile to American and Western thought and institutions is a proper application of Utah’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars. More and more Utah taxpayers are concluding that it is not, which in part accounts for last session’s push for across-the-board budget cuts.
We call them “public universities” because they are, well, public. Publicly funded, publicly owned. I believe the modifier “public” implies a compact between a given institution and the citizens who fund it. SB334 assumes that public universities must serve not only the individual, but also our communities, our state and our republic.
William Faulkner’s great passage from “Requiem for a Nun” is often paraphrased, but the entire quote is worth recalling: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity.” Does the past not thus merit our attention?
Thomas Jefferson believed that “if a nation expects to be ignorant and free … it expects what never was and never will be.” In his farewell address, George Washington warned that public opinion must be enlightened. SB334 heeds that warning: Liberty requires literacy — not just in language, but in law, history and moral reasoning.
Let us elevate the level of conversation. The Constitution should be a touchstone, not a third rail. Civic education isn’t coercive, it is the covenant of a republic. If we fail to teach students how freedom works, we should not be surprised when they don’t know how or why they should defend it.
Utah is leading. And I hope that more of our Utah institutions — and more of the nation — will rise to meet this moment.
(John D. Johnson) John D. Johnson is a Utah state senator.
John D. Johnson is a Utah state senator, serving since 2021, and was the sponsor of SB334. He is a graduate of Weber State University and Texas A&M University and has worked as a professor of management information systems at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business since 2012.
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