An effort by any Utah university to be designated as a sanctuary campus would conflict with guidance from the Utah System of Higher Education, the state’s top higher education official said.
In a Sept. 30 letter to University of Utah President Taylor Randall, Utah Commissioner of Higher Education Geoffrey Landward said the system’s institutional neutrality policy prohibits public colleges and universities from adopting sanctuary campus designations because they take a position on a political issue, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
Utah Commissioner for Higher Education Geoffrey Landward
The letter came in response to a request from Randall and members of the university’s Board of Trustees for guidance on whether the designation was permissible. Students first inquired about making the university a sanctuary campus in 2017, during President Donald Trump’s first administration, and have pushed for the designation for much of the last two years, according to reporting from The Salt Lake Tribune.
Sanctuary campuses emerged in 2016 as students called on colleges and universities to adopt policies protecting undocumented students from deportation and resisting federal immigration enforcement.
“The designation of an institution as a sanctuary campus is inherently political, and an institution that takes this action would be viewed as endorsing a particular position in an ongoing political and policy debate,” Landward wrote.
The system’s institutional neutrality guidance bars institutions from taking positions on political, social or cultural controversies unless those issues affect their mission or functioning, their role in disseminating knowledge or their commitment to free expression and inquiry.
Under the guidance, Landward wrote, institutions must refrain from “taking positions on political, social, or cultural controversies, public debates, or flashpoint moments except when those issues impede the institution’s mission or functioning, its role as a discoverer and disseminator of knowledge, or its values of free expression and inquiry.”
He acknowledged the impact federal immigration policies have on some University of Utah students but said federal enforcement on campus did not meet the policy’s exception.
“Although we acknowledge the described impact immigration policies have on some U of U students, there is no indication that immigration enforcement by the federal government on the U of U’s campus is impeding the U of U’s mission or functioning, its role, or its values of free expression and inquiry,” he wrote.
The letter comes amid broader legal challenges to policies affecting undocumented students. On Sept. 10, the U.S. Department of Justice, acting under the Trump administration, sued Utah and three other states over laws allowing some undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. The department argues the policies unlawfully give undocumented students tuition benefits that are not available to all U.S. citizens. Utah’s law, passed in 2002, allows eligible students who graduated from Utah high schools and meet residency-related requirements to pay in-state rates.
Landward said public colleges and universities must comply with state and federal laws and must not interfere with their enforcement. He also addressed the role of campus police, saying they should continue their roles and not be used for activities, including federal immigration enforcement, that fall outside their purview. He added that university officials should continue working to find ways to support students there as long as the support complies with applicable law.
