Utah university to consider dropping ‘Dixie’ from its name

 After years of resisting calls to change, a university in Utah is considering dropping “Dixie” from its name in another example of the nation’s reexamination of the Confederacy and slavery.

Dixie State University, located about 300 miles (480 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City, has faced scrutiny in the past over its name, but resisted changing. Settlers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many of them from the South, moved to the St. George area in the 1800s.

The university’s decision to revisit the issue comes amid a national outcry against racial injustice and police brutality following the death of George Floyd.

Dixie State, with an enrollment of about 11,000 students, transitioned from a college to a university in 2013 and is the largest university in southern Utah.

University leaders, along with the Utah System of Higher Education, are in the early stages of discussing a potential name change, but the Republican-controlled state Legislature would have the final say. A final decision likely wouldn’t come until legislators meet in January, said system spokesperson Trisha Dugovic.

University spokesperson Jordon Sharp said administrators understand that for some people the term Dixie “stirs negative connotations associated with discrimination and intolerance.” But, he said, Dixie State also respects that the word has a regional meaning that people believe describes the “local heritage and honoring the men and women who settled the beautiful St. George area.”

Dugovic said university officials haven’t discussed a new name, but in the past people have suggested St. George University or the University of St. George.

Story provided by our news partners at ABC 4 New.