Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
Less than 72 hours before Weber State University’s “Redacted: Navigating the Complexities of Censorship,” presenters got an email helping them navigate the complexities of censorship. Then-VP of Student Access & Success Jessica Oyler explained the conference wasn’t a “real” academic conference because student affairs had funded it, which, under Utah’s HB 261, meant academic freedom did not apply. The redaction had begun, as had the redaction of the redaction, and the one after that. Redaction.
No words were censored in the upload of this photo. (weberstate/instagram)
Days before the event, Navigating the Complexities of Censorship organizers asked a Weber State student to navigate the complexities of censoring every instance of “DEI” from a presentation studying the effects of anti-DEI legislation. Per 404 Media, which obtained the documents via FOIA, no one involved appeared to note the irony in writing. Or maybe that’s the point.
Brianne Kramer of Southern Utah University was separately asked to remove “the New Right” from a paper based on a published article titled, exactly, “The New Right.” Kramer agreed to edit the abstract but informed the university she’d say what she came to say at the actual event, “unless you gag me or drag me out of the room,” which is a contingency Utah appears to be working on. For their censorship event.
Asked to comment, PR director Rachel Badali noted Weber State has also closed its cultural centers and suspended both Queer Studies and Women & Gender Studies, citing insufficient workforce demand and a combined enrollment of 0.28% of the student body, a figure that declined further the moment the programs and centers were closed.
The conference was eventually rescheduled twice. Each iteration, organizers said, was better than the last, and worse than what was originally planned. HB 261 was modestly amended in March under SB 295, which faculty described as encouraging in a way similar to finding a fire extinguisher on the top floor of the World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11.
Original reporting and FOIA documents from 404 Media. Go subscribe to them, they rock.
