SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The St. George City Council has unanimously approved a resolution that supports calling the region “Utah’s Dixie.”
The resolution approved Thursday said the city in southern Utah would support all institutions in the area with “Dixie” in its name, TV station KUTV reported.
However, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill this year that required the university in St. George to reconsider its name.
Nationwide protests against racial injustice created momentum to change the name of the university, which many consider offensive. Dixie is a term commonly used to refer to the Southern states, especially those that formed the Confederacy.
The Dixie State University board of trustees formed a committee in March to review new name options. The committee is scheduled to collect feedback from a public survey before it submits a final name recommendation for the board’s approval.
The new name will then go to the state Board of Higher Education, which will have until Nov. 1 to vote on whether to recommend the name to a legislative committee, KUTV-TV reported.
The resolution approved by St. George on Thursday said that “since 1861 the nickname Dixie has been passed down from generation to generation.”
The resolution said many of the families that settled the St. George area “hailed from the South.”
