Utah college courses will focus on Western civilization and ‘rise of Christianity’ after Gov. Cox signs controversial bill

The introductory classes that all Utah college students must take will get a major rewrite — starting with Utah State University — to focus on Western civilization, “the rise of Christianity” and the American Founding Fathers under a bill Gov. Spencer Cox signed into law.

In a statement Monday, Cox called SB334 — along with a similar bill, HB381, which adds a civics education class in Utah high schools — “two of the most important bills of the 2025 legislative session.”

“Since our founding, our civic responsibilities have been a fundamental part of education,” Cox added, “however in recent decades we have strayed from these basic education requirements.”

Cox’s approval of the measures — two of 75 bills he signed Monday, with just days left to approve or veto bills from the recent legislative session — was largely expected. But it came in the face of growing outcry from college faculty, urging him to veto SB334.

Professors have argued that the sweeping measure disenfranchises them, enforces an out-of-date curriculum that reads more like a political agenda, and was hastily pushed forward without much opportunity for faculty to weigh in.

“This feels like an attack on our expertise and our academic freedom,” wrote USU English professor Shane Graham in a commentary published in The Salt Lake Tribune. Six other faculty members signed onto Graham’s commentary.

More faculty spoke out during a campus forum last week. Sandra Weingart, a librarian at Utah State, said the predominantly Western and European focus of the bill “doesn’t resonate” in today’s global society. Others said the bill requires replacing classes they see as more fundamental, including coursework that teaches students how to write.

The University of Utah’s vice president for government relations also said the state’s flagship school is not on board with SB334. “We have been very clear that this is not a bill that we are supportive of,” Jason Perry said during a U. Academic Senate meeting earlier this month.

Now that Cox has signed SB334, the new law takes effect on May 7.

Subscribe To Top Stories Newsletter

Get the latest news by subscribing to our Top Stories newsletter. Enter your email below to receive more stories like these right to your inbox.

Subscribe

The measure is the brainchild of Sen. John Johnson, R-North Ogden, an emeritus professor at USU.

He held back tears during a Senate floor debate earlier this month, arguing that “we’ve moved away from the academic foundations that made this country great.”

The changes Johnson proposes to the required general education coursework will start with a pilot program at Utah State, through a newly created Center for Civic Education. The overhauled curriculum is expected to be expanded statewide to all public colleges and universities by 2029.

Johnson’s plan includes three classes in the humanities, each for three credit hours, with a focus on the “perennial questions about the human condition, the meaning of life and the nature of social and moral lives.”

SB334 specifies the texts for those classes should draw largely from Western civilization — particularly ancient Israel, Greece and Rome — and books about the rise of Christianity.

The bill lists the authors that should be included: Homer, Plato and Aristotle from ancient Greece, Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, Roman leaders Cicero and Boethius, Rabbi Maimonides, William Shakespeare, English philosopher John Stuart Mill, author Virginia Woolf and Nigerian poet Chinua Achebe.

Woolf is the only woman listed, and Achebe the only Black writer.

One additional class for three credit hours needs to be about American institutions and the founding of the United States. That should include looking at the Magna Carta, the U.S. Constitution and the Federalist Papers, as well as “material from thinkers, such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Adam Smith, John Locke, Montesquieu and Alexis de Tocqueville.”

In all, the bill has specific requirements for 12 hours of general education coursework.

Late in 2023, the Utah Board of Higher Education reduced the amount of hours a school could mandate for those requisite classes, which are meant to give a broad education before study in a specific major. Now, schools cannot require that students take more than 30 credit hours in those classes.

In his statement, Cox said he’s “thrilled” to see USU take the lead on the changes. “This curriculum,” he added, “will be a model for all our public institutions in Utah and nationally.”

Opposition from faculty

Faculty, however, are frustrated, saying the measure means that 40% of the curriculum for general education is now prescribed by the state — a massive restructuring done without consulting them.

Graham, the USU professor who wrote the commentary, said curriculum is supposed to be the domain of the faculty at Utah’s institutions of higher education. The Legislature, he wrote, has been chipping away at that authority, including with a bill last year that gave university presidents more power over programs.

Professors know students better, Graham said — how they learn best and how to engage them. The bill, he wrote, could ultimately push students out of higher education.

“It’s hard to imagine how forcing students to read Boethius, as the bill specifically calls for, will improve USU’s retention statistics or students’ career readiness,” Graham wrote.

USU faculty have launched a campaign, ”Save the Humanities at USU!” They say they’re also worried that SB334, along with recent budget cuts from the Legislature, is part of a national Republican effort to underfund social science faculty and tell them what to teach.

Johnson downplayed the professors’ concerns, saying they still have 18 credit hours in the required courses to work with. He also argued that the authors and texts mentioned in the bill aren’t the only ones that can be taught in those newly required classes.

“I don’t even understand why they feel that way. Maybe they haven’t read these books,” Johnson said during a Senate floor debate.

The Senate passed SB334 by a final vote of 25-4, with Democratic Sens. Nate Blouin and Stephanie Pitcher breaking party lines to join Republicans voting in favor. The House later passed the bill, 68-3, with several Democrats supporting it.

In the House, Rep. Carol Moss, D-Holladay, said she was glad to see Achebe on the list. Moss, a former high school teacher, said she used to have her students read “Things Fall Apart” to talk about the harms of colonialism on African communities.

In the Senate, however, Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, and Sen. Karen Kwan, D-Salt Lake City, both said they didn’t feel the list of authors was diverse enough.

Riebe said she wants the classes to require context on how those documents listed by Johnson “got us here and how those principles provided the next generation with more rights,” instead of “pigeonholing them into an idea that is eons old.”

In the time periods those books cover, Riebe said, “I couldn’t drive a car. I couldn’t have a license. I couldn’t have a credit card. I couldn’t vote. I couldn’t own land as a female.”

Kwan, who teaches at Salt Lake Community College, said she doesn’t believe the direction is necessary and that schools are already doing much of what the bill sets out. And schools need to incorporate the new ideas “of Black scholars and those of other minorities.”

Graham at USU specializes in postcolonial world literatures, particularly from Africa and the Caribbean, and agreed that those voices need to be heard.

General education, he added, is about teaching students how to think and think critically, how to read, how to work with others and how to be empowered citizens.

“General education courses in the humanities are about more than exposing students to ancient European books and ideas,” Graham wrote. “… They’re about exposing students to the bigger, more interconnected world they live in today.”

Setting the ‘standard for educational excellence’

At last week’s campus forum, USU interim President Alan L. Smith said school administrators worked extensively with Johnson to shape the bill and make it less “challenging.”

If they hadn’t intervened, there “wouldn’t have been a lot of autonomy” over general education at all, Smith said, adding, “I view this through a pretty optimistic lens, especially given where all of this stuff started.”

As it stands, Smith said faculty will drive the process to restructure the curriculum and “construct a meaningful gen ed program that we can be proud of.”

Johnson tried to run a similar bill last year, which was killed in committee in the final days of the session.

Johnson said this session that he regretted that first attempt, which was well-meaning but “very prescriptive.” That measure specifically targeted the University of Utah, and would have forced the school to establish an independent School of General Education to instruct all students for their required introductory coursework.

Last year’s bill followed a similar set of topics, but listed even more specifics on how many courses a student should take, what years of history they should cover and included very little from viewpoints outside of Western, largely white European tradition. There were no people of color listed before.

U. President Taylor Randall spoke against that measure during its sole committee hearing. And the Utah System of Higher Education issued a rare rebuke, saying that lawmakers should work directly with university and college presidents to solve concerns.

This year, Johnson said he worked with USU vice provost Harrison Kleiner, who oversees undergraduate education at the Logan school. Kleiner said USU has already been looking into how to reform its general education classes.

Kleiner agreed with Johnson that those classes have lost focus and no longer include the foundations he believes they should. “It’s broken,” Kleiner said. “And it’s not serving our students well.”

Johnson called the current model a “buffet-style approach,” where there are too many disparate options for students who don’t know what they’re supposed to get out of the coursework. The point of his measure, he said, is to “restore coherence, intellectual rigor and depth” to general education.

“The canon is not a relic of the past,” he said. “SB334 is not about nostalgia or returning to a bygone era. It’s about making sure we remain connected to those who came before us.”

The measure allocates $551,100 for the first two years for USU to create the new civic education center. Meanwhile, the school is facing a $12.6 million budget cut from the Legislature to reduce “inefficient” programs that lead to lower-paying jobs.

That cut was driven by criticisms over higher education and spending, a perspective Johnson said “is somewhat earned.”

Johnson said he believes his measure is a “step forward for Utah” and a chance to “set the standard for educational excellence.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect that Sen. Pitcher also voted in favor of the bill.