“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”― Desmond Tutu
So far, it is just a few glimmers. But there are hopeful signs that some of Utah’s leaders are starting to take a stand against the many power-grabbing excesses of the Trump administration.
Utah voters should make it clear that they expect a lot more of this.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Sen. John Curtis and Rep. Blake Moore, Republicans all, have dared to question, softly, the administration’s cruel and illegal approach to immigration.
Much of the focus has been on the case of a Maryland resident who was illegally — and, the administration admits, mistakenly — spirited away to a prison in El Salvador despite a standing court order allowing him to remain in the U.S.
Moore, Curtis and Cox have said that due process should have been followed and that the administration should obey a unanimous ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court to have the man returned.
Moore correctly said that actions to deal with illegal immigration will earn more public support if people see that legal and constitutional guarantees are not being swept aside. And Cox reasonably argued that, if the man in question really deserves to be deported, the government still has the option of doing so, within the law.
We should be hearing a lot more of this kind of concern from every member of Utah’s political class. The reported thuggish behavior of immigration agents, grabbing people and sending them to other countries without proper authority, sometimes attacking the wrong house and arresting the wrong people, has too many echoes of Nazi Germany to be ignored.
Rep. Mike Kennedy, sadly, has fallen into the MAGA line, wrongly arguing that what the administration is doing is protecting Americans, when any actions that trample on due process in fact endanger us all.
Academics should be speaking up, too
Meanwhile, back in Salt Lake City, the president of the independent Westminster University has been the only academic leader in Utah to join a letter from many colleges and universities deploring the administration’s efforts to curtail academic freedom and capriciously cancel visas of international students.
Beth Dobkin appended her name to the letter from more than 400 academic leaders, organized by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, calling on the government to respect the independence of academic institutions.
That’s a stand made necessary by the Trump administration’s many actions to cancel grants and threaten punishments for schools that, in the government’s view, don’t do enough to restrict campus demonstrations or haven’t turned their backs on efforts to make their student bodies more diverse and inclusive.
Leaders of the public universities, in Utah and many other states, have sadly not joined this effort. Clearly they fear repercussions from both the federal government and state officials who control their budgets.
Utah even has a state policy, laid down in 2023, requiring public university officials to remain neutral on political issues. Though it includes a loophole that allows academic leaders to speak out on matters that “relate to the institution’s mission, role or pedagogical objectives.”
It is difficult to imagine an issue that relates more to a university’s mission than federal interference — something Utah politicians are usually happy to denounce.
If Utah’s academic leaders won’t speak up for the interests of their institutions and the rights of their students, what will they speak up for?
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.
Correction, May 5 at 9 a.m. • This editorial was updated with the correct spelling of Beth Dobkin‘s name.
