Conservative group praises Gov. Cox in ad for ‘dismantling’ DEI

A conservative nonprofit group released a new ad on Friday highlighting Utah Gov. Spencer Cox as one of five Republican governors leading opposition to the influence of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public institutions.

The 30-second online ad , first seen by the Deseret News, points to Utah as an exception to a national trend of DEI frameworks finding their ways into schools, politics and financial institutions. DEI is the project of “coastal liberals,” the ad claims, dividing Americans into categories of race, gender and sexual orientation: “But not in Utah.”

“Gov. Cox rejected DEI, stood up for common sense and protected our institutions from radical liberal ideology,” the ad’s narrator says. “Thank Gov. Cox for rejecting DEI and keeping Utah free.”

The ad says it was paid for by Building America’s Future, an advocacy organization that lobbies against Biden administration policies on energy , immigration and health regulations . The group has ties to to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis , the Republican Governors Association and Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick. The ad will air in Utah, according to the PR firm promoting Building America’s Future.

The other GOP governors represented in a joint and individual ads were DeSantis , Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey , Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott , all of whom signed legislation in the last two years to defund DEI offices at public universities. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center , dozens of state legislatures have recently considered regulating DEI practices on college campuses.

In January, Cox signed into law HB261 , Equal Opportunity Initiatives, which took a unique approach to anti-DEI legislation, hailed by The Atlantic as a “ promising ” compromise on a controversial culture war issue.

“We don’t want anyone to feel marginalized or pushed out. That was not the intention at all of this bill,” Cox said of the bill in July, shortly after it went into effect. “We want to make sure that they’re creating new spaces, healthy spaces, for people that, again, can involve all students and bring people together.”

The law does not defund DEI offices but rather instructs universities to ensure that resources for student success, like mentoring, scholarships and activities, are made available to all “high-risk” individuals based on need instead of other immutable characteristics.

It prohibits outreach programs, hiring practices and trainings that discriminate based on race, religion, sex or sexuality, and reaffirms the importance of institutional neutrality and free speech on campuses. The law does not impact course content, academic research or federal scholarships.

Critics have accused Utah’s new policy of removing resources that previously targeted vulnerable minority students. All six of Utah’s public universities have modified student resource centers in response to the bill, either changing the names of their DEI offices or eliminating them and integrating the staff and services into broader student success centers.

“I suspect that you’ll see as we head into the next months and into the next term, the next session, that you’ll see some changes, that you’ll see that there will be ways to make this better, to make more people feel included,” Cox said at the July press conference. “And that’s the idea. It’s not to exclude, it’s to include.”