Affinity celebrations absent at Utah universities, another consequence of HB261

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Utah universities have largely ended affinity celebrations this graduation cycle due to HB261, which ended university diversity initiatives.
Weber State, USU and the U. last year held celebrations for Latino, LGBTQ and other students, before HB261 took effect.
Student clubs at WSU and Utah Valley University, not subject to HB261, organized "lavender" ceremonies for graduating LGBTQ students.

OGDEN — In years past, Utah State University, Weber State University and the University of Utah have helped organize and host mini graduation celebrations focused on certain subsets of their respective communities — Latino, LGBTQ and other students, for instance.

Affinity celebrations, as they're known, are meant by proponents as complementary to main commencement exercises, a means of marking graduation and the particular challenges members of certain subgroups may have overcome en route to a diploma. They've been a staple at many universities across the country and still are.

With the elimination of diversity initiatives at Utah's public universities mandated by HB261 last year, however, the 2025 graduation season marks the first in the state without such activities. Graduation activities are starting, with Southern Utah University in Cedar City to hold its commencement exercises on Thursday and others across Utah set for the coming days.

"Weber State isn't hosting any affinity celebrations. With HB261, we can't engage in prohibited discriminatory practices, which includes promoting differential treatment of individuals based on a personal identity characteristic," said Bryan Magaña, spokesman for the Ogden-based university.

Amanda DeRito, spokeswoman for Logan-based USU, offered a similarly straightforward explanation, saying the university understands HB261 restrictions apply to affinity group graduation celebrations. "In compliance with this law, USU will not be hosting any affinity group celebrations as part of our 2025 commencement activities," she said.

Tassels handed out at Lavender Graduation to graduating LGBTQ students at Weber State University in Ogden on April 19, 2023. Utah's public universities are now largely prohibited from hosting such activities, known as affinity celebrations. (Photo: Benjamin Zack, Weber State University)

Last year, with HB261's effective date of July 1 coming after the 2024 graduation season, Weber State helped organize an array of affinity celebrations for Pacific Islander, Asian, Latino, Black and Native American communities, as it had in prior years. Both the U. in Salt Lake City and Weber State held "lavender" graduation ceremonies for the LGBTQ community, and USU held an event for graduating Latino students.

This year, at least a pair of lavender graduation ceremonies survived, one held last week at Weber State and another set for Saturday at Utah Valley University in Orem. But student clubs, which aren't beholden to HB261 guidelines, were the moving forces behind the events.

"Clubs that aren't considered an administrative unit of the university have leeway in hosting affinity celebrations, and we've seen students taking up the mantle for their traditions since HB261," Magaña said.

Simone Goodheart, president of Spectrum, an LGBTQ student group at UVU, said the lack of university support this year has resulted in "unique challenges" in organizing Lavender Graduation. But it's been worth it.

The main commencement ceremony "is great, don't get me wrong," Goodheart said. The Lavender Graduation, though, serves a different purpose — recognizing the distinct obstacles students in the LGBTQ community may have faced in getting a degree.

LGBTQ students in the Utah Valley "go through a lot of adversity just to be here," Goodheart said, referring to backlash they sometimes can face from family in coming out. "Our goal is to celebrate the achievement of going through all that adversity and on graduating."

A graduating Weber State University student at the Latinx Graduation Ceremony at the Ogden campus on April 22, 2023. Utah's public universities are now largely prohibited from hosting such activities. (Photo: Banjamin Zack, Weber State University)

While public universities in Utah may now be largely prohibited from holding small graduation celebrations based on things like race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, they aren't completely a thing of the past.

The University of Utah's Center for Community and Cultural Engagement hosted a ceremony, Celebrating U Completely Graduation, on Wednesday. While official university descriptions of the event are vague, a Center for Community and Cultural Engagement promotional video of the event depicts a mix of students representing an array of races and ethnicities. The center took over from other cultural organizations at the U. after HB261's passage to comply with the law.

U. spokeswoman Rebecca Walsh also noted separate graduation celebrations for students in fraternities and sororities and high-achieving students named to the Beehive Honor Society.

UVU is helping host separate celebrations for first-generation graduating students and Native American graduating students, according to university spokesman Scott Trotter. HB261 doesn't impact programming geared to Native American students as much of it is funded with federal money.

With the demise of affinity celebrations, Magaña noted efforts to prod participation in Weber State's main graduation events. "As we've been doing for several years, we're encouraging more graduates to attend our universitywide commencement," he said.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.