Equality remains a hot-button issue in America today. Students are hearing about and navigating the topic of equality now more than ever before. Are they equipped? The public school system is constantly updating its standards with the hope of helping students do just that. This is part 15 in Sutherland’s new series that seeks to examine how Utah education standards prepare students to be active citizens.

The basic aim of the Equality Act would be to add two new categories – sexual orientation and gender identity – to the protections of these earlier laws. Isn’t this already the law, though? The answer is … sort of.

Free discussion is key to a functioning republic. And free discussion is often enabled and disseminated through media, so long as freedom of the press is alive and well.

We believe this is an ideal approach to implementing these important measures as it would do so without unnecessarily dictating specifics to the Board of Higher Education or the state’s institutions of higher education.

Whether protecting deeply held moral beliefs about animal rights, healthcare, abortion or military service, the right to conscientious objection is an important example of how the efforts of people of faith and religious organizations to secure their ability to exercise their beliefs has increased the circumference of freedom for many others – including (perhaps especially) the nonreligious.

Three sets of friends (including Derek Monson, Sutherland vice president of policy) who have different views on politics and policy discussed their unorthodox friendships during a webinar Thursday – challenging the audience to reach out and establish connections and friendships with those who maintain different opinions, while offering suggestions for how to do so and responding to audience questions.

Being truly educated means students understand one of the most powerful forces in the world: religion. This is part 13 in Sutherland’s new series that seeks to examine how Utah education standards prepare students to be active citizens.

The following statement was delivered to all members of the Utah Senate on Monday, Feb. 22, 2021. 2SB 195 was passed unanimously in the Senate after being amended during floor debate on Wednesday, Feb. 24.

Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass represent just two of the countless Black Americans who we can learn from as we tackle today’s urgent political and policy problems.

Like occupational licensing regulations, there are legal rules that create burdens on people of faith and religious groups, even though doing so is not the intent of the provision.