Utah students aren't joining Israel-Palestine protests. Here's why.

Utah students aren’t joining Israel-Palestine protests. Here’s why.

While campus protests reach a fever pitch nationwide over U.S. policy in the Middle East, most Utah students are going to class as usual.

Why it matters: Utah has the youngest population of any state and the second-highest number of enrolled college students per capita — demographics that normally are ripe for political demonstration.

Yes, but: Quad lawns from Logan to St. George are occupied by springtime fun, and almost all the biggest protests since October have gathered off-campus.

Here are five reasons Utah’s halls of higher learning aren’t part of the fervor.

Commuters and worker bees

Utah students tend to spend less time on campus, which makes organizing more difficult. Multiple reports show Utah students also are far more likely to work during college than students nationally.

• At four-year colleges nationally, about 37% of full-time undergrads live on campus, according to federal data.
• In Utah, that’s closer to 20%, according to data Axios obtained from multiple schools.

Culture of obedience

Utahns are widely seen as non-confrontational, conformist and deferential to authority — qualities unlikely to generate robust activism.

• “A lot of the culture of Utah tends to be pretty docile,” said En Canada, a Palestinian activist who organized protests at Salt Lake City Council meetings and has worked with student organizers.
• “That ‘agreeable’ culture leads to things being more quiet.”

What they’re saying: Utah “tends to view civil disobedience as criminal, whereas a lot of other places view civil disobedience as a part of a functioning democratic society,” Canada told Axios, contrasting Salt Lake with New England, where they grew up.

What’s next: Because the community is so put off by disruption, Canada says they’re considering new advocacy tactics, trading mass demonstrations for a more intimate door-knocking campaign.

School crackdowns

A pro-Palestine movement started to emerge last fall at the U., but school officials revoked sponsorship of the organizing group, MECHA, on the same day its members led a walkout.

• School officials claimed the punishment was for a separate protest at an anti-transgender event. State education officials passed new “free speech” rules for public universities, and police later arrested MECHA members for allegedly disrupting school operations.
• “It’s very hard to organize here, because any sort of thing that might get attention … is crushed very quickly, before people can even notice that it’s happening,” Canada said.
• Princeton Review ranked the U. as the nation’s fourth least politically active university.

Zoom out: BYU has implemented rules to limit campus protests in response to student LGBTQ+ advocacy.

• The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has placed BYU on a “warning” list for free speech restrictions, giving it the second-lowest score of 254 colleges and universities it reviewed.

Religious and ancestral proximity

Of Utah’s 3.3 million people, only about 6,000 are Jewish. Another 9,000 reported Arab ancestry, with fewer than 400 Palestinian descendants, according to census data.

• While most of the campus protests nationally have been pro-Palestine, Utah’s dominant Mormon heritage is traditionally Zionist, and adherents claim a strong kinship with Judaism.
• “I would proudly say that compared to all other campuses in America, we are one of the most Jewish-friendly and welcoming universities,” U. Chabad director Rabbi Moshe Nigri told Jewish News Syndicate in February.

Location

Most of Utah’s largest universities are tucked up against mountains, with limited transit and visibility from the larger community.

• The biggest ongoing college protests nationally are on campuses in denser, urban neighborhoods, making them more prominent gathering places.
• Rather than protest on campus, Utah students frequently join broader public protests at civic buildings and other central locations.

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