(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) After the death of George Floyd in 2020, Dixie State University caved to the demands of its leftist students and changed its name, logos and branding.
DSU President Richard Williams said that the conversations about change were always present at the university, according to KSL News.
“This is not a new conversation at [DSU]. We used to be the Dixie Rebels so we changed our mascot,” Williams said.
“We used to have the Confederate flag (so) we changed that. You could look back 30, 40, 50 years, and we’ve continued to have different conversations regarding taking some of the symbolism of the Confederate War out of our name.”
In 2020, students started complaining about the word “Dixie,” saying that it is problematic due to its history. They also said that they were constantly asked to explain the word and what kind of school it was during job interviews.
“A young [college graduate] that’s interviewing for a job does not want to have to spend most of their interview explaining the name,” Williams said.
Soon, the university decided to cooperate with Cicero Group to do a study on how the name of the university impacts students and the institution. The study found that the name impacts everyone, including some outfitters that refuse to sell DSU merchandise specifically because of the name.
So, to earn more money and not upset political activists, they made a decision.
“So we made the decision that, yeah, moving forward, we need to have a new name,” Williams said. “We went through the legislative process and the state legislature changed our name.”
On July 1, DSU will become Utah Tech University. To prepare for the transition, DSU released its new UTU logos and branding.
The etymology of the word “Dixie” is commonly attributed to the printing of 10-dollar banknotes in New Orleans prior to the Civil War. The currency used the French word dix, leading to Louisiana being referred to as “Dixie Land.”
However people started to associate the word “Dixie” with the Confederate states that fought against the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War.
“[We are] an open, inclusive, polytechnic university,” Williams said.
