The Signpost: The Investigative Issue

AUBREE ECKHARDT | The Signpost

2 | MyWeberMedia.com| April 23, 2021

By TYLER HASLAM Reporter

Educating during the pandemic has been difficult, to say the least.

From district leaders to teachers to the students themselves, it has not been easy to obtain or deliver an ideal education as COVID-19 surged. Everyone involved with the education process has been faced with difficult decisions that have often resulted in no-win scenarios.

Despite the universal struggles of the pandemic, it’s possible teachers have been the group that has been hit the hardest, given they are the ones being most affected by the decisions of other parties.

“No group of people, other than maybe medical providers, have had to pivot and adjust and change their lives and their professional lives, the way that teachers have,” Davis School District Assistant Superintendent Logan Toone said.

It’s been just over a year since Davis County’s teachers were forced into a completely remote classroom format over the final term of the public school year. This change would be the first of many transitions and adjustments that teachers would be forced to make.

Teaching was already a demanding profession before the pandemic. According to research conducted by Gallup, 46% of teachers experience high stress each day.

In addition to public and personal health concerns that the pandemic brought, teachers were forced to reform and, in some instances, create new curriculum to adapt to changes in the classroom.

Alex Jeppson, a history and English teacher at Viewmont High School, said the pandemic adjustments only amplified the stresses of proper teaching.

“Before the pandemic, you had a lot of teachers retiring early, not going into the profession out of college or leaving the profession after five years or so,” Jeppson said. “As this pandemic has gone along, it’s been rough for me and for my colleagues.”

One of Jeppson’s colleagues is Kay Merrell, who also teaches English at Viewmont High. Unlike Jeppson, who has no underlying health concerns, Merrell is a Type 1 diabetic, and this puts her at a much higher risk if she were to contract the virus.

Merrell said that having diabetes has always made her an uneasy person due to constantly having to monitor her blood sugar levels, but the pandemic has made that consistent concern harder to cope with.

“I have never been so mentally unhealthy,” Merrell said. “In February, I felt like I had taught a whole school year already. It’s been hard, I haven’t been sleeping well, so it’s definitely taken its toll.”

The additional stress of the pandemic has become so overwhelming, many teachers have decided that they’re best suited in a different career, at least for the time being.

Mary Jane Trowbridge, a math teacher at Viewmont High School, contemplated quitting for weeks before she submitted her letter of resignation to her administration just over a month into the school year.

After teaching the final term of the 2019-20 school year completely remotely, Trowbridge and many of Davis School District’s teachers received the impression from district leadership that they should prepare for a return to a full in-person schedule once the 2020-21 school year started.

But just a few weeks before the school year started, with case numbers rising in Davis County, the school district announced a switch to the hybrid schedule model that saw half of the student population alternate in-person attendance every other day.

Despite the majority of support from teachers and parents, the notice of the switch to new school procedures shortly before the school year began forced teachers to scramble on their own time to put together a teaching plan that would allow the hybrid schedule to be successful for educating the students.

Teachers said this lack of time to prepare was far from ideal.

“It was very similar to when we found out we were going remote,” Trowbridge said. “We were scrambling then to figure out how to become remote teachers, and we found ourselves scrambling in the same way to figure out how to become hybrid teachers.”

After about a month of teaching on the hybrid schedule, discouragement began to set in for Trowbridge because she felt she wasn’t doing an effective job educating her students.

“I always was really confident as a teacher,” Trowbridge said. “I could walk into a classroom and feel like I knew what I was doing. But that

first term of the school year, I was like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ and I felt like a failure.”

The struggle to teach within the hybrid schedule made Trowbridge feel as if she was working two teaching jobs, which ultimately forced her to resign from teaching. Trowbridge did say that if she had been given more heads up from the district and time to prepare to teach in the hybrid style, she could’ve done a more adequate job.

“The one month that I was teaching was probably the hardest, worst month of my entire life,” Trowbridge said, who now has a new job that utilizes her math skills, while also doing some tutoring on the side. Trowbridge said she may consider a return to teaching once the pandemic is over.

Most teachers learned to make do with the hybrid plan because they felt it ensured their personal health and the health of their students, especially those in schools who may be higher-risk individuals.

Jeppson said that the hybrid plan “presented some challenges, but they were challenges I think lots of parents, students and teachers were willing to embrace because they prioritized safety while allowing for in-person learning to some extent.”

But just a few weeks into the school year, the Davis School District Board of Education voted to pivot away from the hybrid plan at the end of the term. This came as a shock to teachers like Jeppson and Merrell, who were unaware that a change was even being considered.

“Just as we were kind of getting our feet beneath us and learning how to do well, the district, without really any forewarning and really in a kind of secretive way, made the decision to pivot away from the hybrid plan,” Jeppson said.

Jeppson continued to say that many felt the rug was pulled out from under them because the change was made so quickly.

John Robison, the president of the board of education, said the plan was to pivot away from the hybrid model as soon as the district felt like it had a grasp on the county’s COVID-19 numbers and trends.

“The plan that was submitted and approved by the Board to the State Office of Education was we’re going to start hybrid, and then when we feel like we have a good handle on the case count and what the numbers show us, then we can go full time — either four days or

five days — and if it gets much worse, we can always go remote,” Robison said.

The district relayed to the school board that they felt it was safe enough for secondary schools to hold in person classes four days a week at the beginning of November. Toone said that this decision was made with the best interests of the students in mind.

“We were going to make the decision that will benefit the students, based on all the legitimate information that we had. We were always going to benefit students as much as we could,” Toone said.

Some teachers believe that the decision was made because of pressure from parents who were vocally opposed to the hybrid plan.

“A lot of people are concerned about schools being shut down because of too many cases,” parent Brandi McFarland said during the school board meeting in which the board voted to pivot away from the hybrid model. “I’m understanding of that concern, but we cannot keep hindering all of our students and all of our schools because of the possibility that a school here or there, or a sports team here or there, might have possibly come in contact with somebody who has COVID.” While some expressed their opposition to the hybrid plan at public meetings in a civilized way, some were less civilized in the way they voiced their disapproval to the board.

“I did receive several threats,” Robison said.

“The majority of the threats were that I’d never be voted for again, but I did receive several messages that said they’d be happy if I died or if I was dead. Unfortunately, there were some pretty caustic emails, though not many.”

Robison was adamant that these threats did not sway the board’s decision to go with the four-day schedule.

“I can see exactly why they would say that,” Robison said of the upset teachers who thought the board was just catering to the belligerent crowd. “We had a very, very vocal group of parents that were very unreasonable, loud and obnoxious. They got press coverage, so that’s what I assume that the teachers are referring to.”

Teachers like Jeppson and Merrell wish the teachers’ voices had been included in the decision to pivot away from hybrid. Toone and Robison said the decision wasn’t necessarily about any one particular group’s opinion but based on the district’s gathered information

on the development of the pandemic within Davis County.

“The district administration was working four days a week with the governor, with the county health department, with the State Health Department and with the state Office of Education,” Robison said. “They had all of the information, they knew what was going on at the governmental level, at the state health level, at the county health level.”

Robison, who was a teacher for 40 years, added that he can empathize with the teachers who felt frustrated because they weren’t more involved in the decision, but he stressed that teachers didn’t have the resources and corresponding information that the district had. District administration believed that the facts they had said that schools could safely be opened four days a week with certain precautions.

“I have sympathy for the people that are like, ‘You should have asked us,’” Toone said. “I question whether people are inclined to have doubts about the process or whether they’re just frustrated with the decision that was made.”

Jeppson and Merrell, along with others, decided to have their voice heard by going to a protest in front of the district’s headquarters.

While the protest didn’t result in a change from the district, both Merrell and Jeppson said they just wanted their voices to be heard in some way.

Ultimately, it wasn’t the decision that gave the teachers the most frustration, but the fact they felt that there was little transparency and communication coming from the district to its staff. Jeppson said many times he and his fellow teachers often felt out they were on the outside when decisions were being made.

“I think they could have dealt with it a lot better if they had been more transparent with things like when decisions were going to be made and how they were being made,” Jeppson said of the district’s communication to the teachers.

Both Jeppson and Merrell said that being left out the loop only compounded the mental and emotional stress that teachers have been experiencing.

District leaders recognized that they could’ve been better at communicating and being transparent with the teachers. But ultimately felt that they made the best decisions that they could have throughout the pandemic when it came to the school’s schedule.

“We did not communicate enough,” one of the district’s directors of secondary education, Dan Linford, said. “But we also can’t run a district by survey, and, in a way, we don’t run anything by survey.”

Linford also stressed that the district will always need input from its teachers going forward and hopes teachers don’t feel discouraged to share their input. Toone felt the same way as Linford.

“In retrospect, we need to communicate better up front, and then we need to still do the

right thing, which we feel like we’ve done throughout the year,” Toone said. “But as the leaders we have to have the courage to be able to look the people that disagree with us in the eye and say, I hear and understand your concerns, but this is the direction we need to go right now.”

With most of the school year complete under the four-day-a-week model, the district has recorded 5,767 positive cases among over 75,000 students and staff, according to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard. Two elementary schools and 21 secondary schools have had to go into what the district calls a “soft closure,” which means that the school goes remote for two weeks to essentially reset its positive cases back to normal.

Toone says that the district considers the way it has navigated this school year a success.

“We’ve got just over 70,000 kids in our schools right now, they’re safe, they’re healthy and they’re learning. So in my mind, that’s a win,” Toone said.

For teachers like Merrell, who have underlying health concerns, they feel more relieved than victorious. Merrell says she attributes getting through the year healthy to her hypervigilance throughout the year.

“I feel like I dodged a lot of bullets, but I think a lot of that has to do with how careful I’ve been,” Merrell said. “The teachers at our school that have gotten COVID are the ones that don’t wear their masks correctly, for the most part. So I think being careful, being ridiculously careful, has had some benefits.”

Today, virtually every teacher has been vaccinated and there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel for Davis County’s educators. But while she feels a lot of hope, Merrell says that she and her fellow teachers are aware that the battle isn’t completely over yet.

Teachers and district leaders alike recognize that the pandemic seemed to put everyone in lose-lose situations. Both sides admitted that the pandemic is ultimately to blame for the tough situations and decisions that all educators have faced.

“You know, I do have a lot more hope than I had at the beginning of the year,” Merrell said.

“But I still have some questions about the variants and how those are going to play out, so I’m not quite ready to let my guard down.”

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MyWeberMedia.com| April 23, 2021 | 3

BLYTHE EVANS | The Signpost

4 | MyWeberMedia.com| April 23, 2021

FINDING HELP AT WSU WHEN YOU NEED IT MOST

By JENNIFER GREENLEE Editor-in-Chief

In early March, the United Nations Women National Committee United Kingdom released a study with a startling statistic about sexual harassment: 97% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 have faced some variation of sexual harassment or sexual assault.

While the data was collected in the United Kingdom, the number is indicative of women’s experiences worldwide. The fear of walking alone at night, the fear of a blind date and the fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time are typical emotions among women, especially those 18 to 24.

Weber State University’s student population is 57% female, and the average age of undergraduate students is 24, putting the average female student right in the middle of the 97% statistic.

While the hope is that no one would ever have to cope with these experiences, unfortunately, it is far too common, especially on college campuses around the nation.

Each year, crime statistics for certain criminal actions are compiled in the Annual Security/Fire Report and Safety Plan, which is then published online. The publishing of the crime statistics come from the Clery Act, which defines specific crimes to be reported in a more transparent way, including rape, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking. These crime statistics are listed for the past three years in each annual report.

The 2019-20 report was published in late 2020 and included statistics for 2017-2019.

Across all campuses, there were nine, 10 and seven rapes in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. There were two reported cases of fondling in 2019 and no reports in 2017 or 2018. There were two cases of domestic violence in 2017 and in 2018 and seven reported cases in 2019. There were four cases of dating violence in 2017 and again in 2018, but there were no reported cases in 2019.

There were 13 cases of stalking in 2017, four in 2018 and 14 in 2019.

While the victims of thsese crimes make up a fraction of the student population in numbers, these types of crimes go historically underreported and are intensely personal and painful for the survivors.

For members of WSU, there are resources for those who are victims of any of these crimes or who experience sexual harassment on campus.

One of the largest resources on campus is the Safe@Weber advocate, Jessica Pleyel.

Though the Safe@Weber program is located in the Women’s Center, Pleyel stressed that all students, staff, faculty and even guests of campus, regardless of gender, are welcome at any time.

Victims can schedule a time to come in for appointments, or there are crisis appointments if there is an immediate need for an individual to see an advocate. Anyone can call the Women’s Center or email safeatweber@weber.edu at any time to schedule an appointment.

Once a survivor enters the office, all the choices are in their hands.

“I always try to start out by giving the survivor as many options as possible. It even comes down to, ‘Would you like a glass of water? Do you want some bubbly water? Do you want some hot chocolate? Tea?’ Because when someone is sexually assaulted or in a violent situation or in a harassment situation, they didn’t get any choice in that,” Pleyel said.

During the initial appointment, Pleyel informs them of her confidentiality level.

Unlike many other campus staff, Pleyel is not required to report sexual misconduct to the university. She is, however, required to report statistics to campus police as well if something were to threaten campus security.

The statistic report does not include names, phone numbers or any information that would reveal an individual’s identity without their consent.

“It’s how can I help. It’s honoring their story and giving them a safe space to process what happened,” Pleyel said. “I am not a counsel-

or, so if that is a resource they are needing, I will always refer them to the counseling center. I want to make sure their story is heard.”

Then, Pleyel turns to the next steps. While there is no obligation to report to the university or to the police, the victim still has the option to do so. That may be filing a police report, contacting the AA/EO, safety planning, protective orders or even working with the university to have the classes withdrawn after the deadline or poor grades turned to withdrawals if the incidents made it impossible to succeed during that term.

“I’m not an investigator. I get to be completely, 100% on the side of the survivor. I get to be that person who is that safe person along the whole way who is constantly on their side and constantly with them,” Pleyel said.

A second reporting resource on campus is the Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Office. The AA/EO works with students, faculty or staff members who have experienced any type of harassment, discrimination, assault or other behaviors that are prohibited under law, like Title IX, or by the WSU Policies and Procedures Manual, specifically those listed in section 3-32, including sexual assault, sexual harassment and discrimination. The AA/EO may get involved at several different points depending on the circumstances of a report.

Professors, staff members or administrators of any type are mandatory reporters, which requires them to inform their supervisor or, if they are the supervisor, to inform the AA/EO. If a student were to inform them of one of these incidents, the reporter would be obligated to report the statement. Third parties can also report misconduct, concerning behaviors or sexual assault to the office and make a report. This is in contrast to Pleyel’s role, which does not require a report to be filed with the university, though she can assist filing a report if the survivor does so.

In the cases where victims have not been the ones to report the incident, the AA/EO reaches out by email first before following

up with a phone call. The email will detail resources and the next steps for victims, which will vary depending on the severity of the incident. If the individual has not already reached out to Safe@Weber, then they will also be referred there.

If the individual were the one to report the incident directly to the AA/EO or after the office made contact, they would meet with the AA/EO to determine the next course of action for the complainant. This may be protective orders, no-contact directives, academic accommodations or even housing and living accommodations or arrangements. Some of the measures may be interim as the AA/EO statutes stipulate that both the complainant and the respondent have a fair due process.

Once the individual has officially reported the incident, they are able to choose if they would like to move forward with a formal or informal complaint, though informal complaints are not always available depending on the complaint.

An informal complaint is agreed upon by both parties. This will usually look like a sit-down between both parties to facilitate a conversation and potentially resolve the conflict. Informal complaints may be for something like harassment if it isn’t threatening the individual.

A formal complaint requires an unbiased investigation by the AA/EO to make a determination if there is evidence of the complaint happening or happening how it was reported. The evidence can include other individuals who have been told about the incident to see if stories match or security footage to confirm someone was on campus at the time of the incident.

A report is completed about the investigation, and both sides are given a chance to review the report before it is sent on to the Director of Student Conduct Cecilia Dockery in the Dean of Students office.

A Title IX complaint adds an additional step of a hearing. Title IX outlines very specific crimes and behaviors including sexual harassment, sexual violence, rape, dating

MyWeberMedia.com| April 23, 2021 | 5

Sexual Misconduct Reports 2017-19

violence and stalking.

After the report is made, the report goes to a hearing, which for more severe infraction of Title IX would be heard in front of the Student Code Committee. Both the complainant and respondent can be cross-examined by an adviser, which is not necessarily a lawyer, but it can be. An adviser does not have to advise either side, but they are responsible for asking the questions in the hearing. If a student does not have an adviser, someone can be appointed for them.

The decision from the hearing board is made based off of if there is more evidence than not that the harassment, stalking, assault or other Title IX infraction took place.

“We’re not the decision makers there; we’re just reporting the findings,” Laura Thompson, director of the AA/EO, said.

After either the formal report or Title IX hearing, sanctions, if found to be appropriate, are then given to the respondent by the Dean of Students office.

Depending on the degree of the violation, this could

range from a permanent no-contact order to a trespass from campus.

The campus police department works side-by-side with these departments. While reporting a sexual assault, stalking or sexual harassment to the university does not require a police report, it is always an option for victims to file a police report independently or to file it with the assistance of the Safe@Weber advocate.

Once WSUPD has a police report, the officers will investigate and determine if criminal charges should be filed.

Evidence used or given to the police, like a potential rape kit, can also be used during a university hearing.

“Underreporting is a national problem, and it might be a problem on this campus. We hope we can create a safe environment to permit students, faculty or staff to feel safe coming forward,” Thompson said.

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By PAIGE MCKINNON Photographer

A possible link between expensive pet food and a potentially fatal heart condition, dilated cardiomyopathy, in dogs has left some owners grieving and others angry due to the misleading information from pet food brands.

DCM is a heart disease that decreases the ability of the heart to pump blood through the vascular system.

DCM can be caused by a few different factors, but the main two are nutritional and genetic. If the cause was nutritional, then the DCM in the canine would be from their diet. If it was proven to be genetic, that would mean a dog’s bloodline has had a history of DCM, according to the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine.

Jennifer Gentile was shocked when her relatively young and healthy 4 1/2-year-old German Shepherd, George, suddenly became ill.

On average, German shepherds live between nine to 13 years and are not genetically predisposed to DCM. George was diagnosed with nutritional DCM in May of 2020. George ate Acana dog food his whole life; this grain-free dog food caused George’s heart failure, according to his veterinarian, Dr. Martin Maketansky.

“He passed away at home,” Gentile said.

“He just stopped breathing.”

The breeds that are genetically predisposed to DCM include the Doberman pinscher, Great Dane, boxer and cocker spaniel, according to Medline Plus.

According to the FDA, dogs which are not genetically predisposed are having the highest reports of DCM. This means the nutritional side of DCM is causing more issues than even the genetic predisposition to it.

There are many symptoms that come with DCM; however, these symptoms usually do not show up until it is too late to save the dog’s life.

For George, it was a cough that made Gentile worry that there was something wrong.

The possible symptoms of DCM include lethargy, weakness, weight loss, fainting,

coughing, increased respiratory rate and abdominal distraction, according to an article by the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.

Juliana Demarici lost her 4 ½-year-old mixed breed, Bob, to a fatal arrhythmia associated with suspected nutritional DCM on May 22, 2019, just a week after the dog had been diagnosed.

Bob did not have any genetic predisposition for DCM. While at the cardiologist’s office for a follow-up, Bob passed away.

“He took a step and collapsed. They tried to do CPR, but they just couldn’t bring him back,” Demarici said. “We were in complete shock of what happened. Here was a seemingly very healthy dog running around literally the night before, and then he had progressed so quickly that within one week, he was dead.”

Bob was eating grain-free food just as George was. The brand Bob was eating is called Taste of the Wild, one of the brands named most frequently in DCM cases reported to the FDA. Demarici took Bob to a cardiologist at a satellite office of University of California Davis in San Diego for an echocardiogram, an image of the heart’s movement. After waiting three hours, the cardiologist asked Demarici what she had been feeding him.

Dr. Joao Orvalho, a veterinarian at UC Medical Center, explained that he suspected Bob was on a grain-free diet. Orvalho told Demarici that cardiologists had been seeing an uptick in vet visits for dogs who were being fed grain-free diets. Orvalho also said that most of the dogs they had seen were diagnosed with DCM during their vet visit, yet most of them were not genetically predisposed to DCM. The FDA is investigating the link with DCM in dogs eating certain pet foods, many labeled as “grain-free,” which contain a high proportion of peas, lentils, other legume seeds (pulses) and/or potatoes in various forms (whole, flour, protein, etc.) as main ingredients, according to the FDA. Diane Denman’s golden retriever, Odin,

was diagnosed with nutritional-mediated DCM in September 2017.

“I would lay awake, night after night, just to listen to him breathe and to make sure he was still alive,” Denman said.

Odin was 2 1/2 years old at the time of his diagnosis. Denman heard about DCM through her dog breeder and felt she needed to get Odin tested for DCM. “I waited two agonizing, tearful weeks for those test results to come back,” Denman said.

When she finally got the call saying Odin had moderate to severe DCM, her next step was to take him back to the veterinarian for an echocardiogram.

Odin was diagnosed by the collaboration of Steve Safris and Caryn Paulin at Westfield Veterinary Hospital. The veterinarians stated that there were no signs of genetic DCM and that it was nutritional.

Denman reached out to all of Odin’s litter mates and asked if any of them had DCM. She knew there was a possibility it could be genetic. Hearing that none of the other dogs had DCM confirmed to her that Odin’s DCM was nutritional.

Odin ended up being one of the lucky ones. He was able to survive nutritional DCM. However, his road to full recovery has been long and is not over yet.

He currently resides in Iowa with Denman and her partner, Cathy Graham.

At the time of Odin’s diagnosis, he was eating Fromm’s grain-free pork and peas recipe.

The main ingredients in this food are pork, peas, pork broth and sweet potatoes.

Odin’s long recovery consisted of no exercise, because it would be too straining on his heart, as well as 10 different medications and changing his food from Fromm to something that was not listed as having a potential link to DCM. Denman and Graham chose to change his food to Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach Salmon and Rice Formula. The main ingredients in this food are salmon, barley, rice and oatmeal.

After a year and a half of monitoring Odin and regular veterinary visits, he is now considered recovered but still receiving treatment.

The only medication Odin is taking now is taurine supplements.

Denman said Odin now has energy again, where he did not before, and he is his old self again. The only thing that was not fully reversed was his weakened heart wall, which may never fully go back to normal.

Denman reported Odin’s medical records to the FDA, and they listed him in their public records. She also reached out to the dog food company Fromm, but they were unresponsive. They said they would call her back but never did. She sent Odin’s story to them in every way she could think of — text, email and postal mail — but did not hear anything in return. She also put Odin’s story on Fromm’s Facebook page, but it was deleted by the company shortly after she had posted it.

Denman reaches out to as many people as possible to spread the word about DCM and tell Odin’s story.

“If he had gone into the vet two weeks later, he would have died,” Denman said.

Denman is currently on an international board for DCM, trying to prevent as many deaths as possible.

Between Jan. 1, 2014, and July 31, 2020, the FDA received more than 1,100 case reports of diagnosed DCM in dogs. Within these cases, some involved more than one animal from the same household and more than 280 of those dogs were reported to have died.

Not all dogs who had DCM were reported to the FDA, making the real number unknown.

On Dec. 28, around 2:30 a.m., Moti, a 6-year-old black Labrador retriever, passed away in his sleep.

“We heard him take his last breath, and by the time we got to him he was already gone.

There was nothing we could do to bring him back,” Jasneet Singh said.

Moti was diagnosed with severe DCM last year. His heart was three times bigger than what is considered a normal heart size. He had fluid in his lungs and was already in con-

on multiple medications that added up to 30 pills a day.

Moti started acting more like himself after being on the medication and switching his food. During the last two weeks of his life, he was doing great. He was coughing less and had a lot more energy than he did before. But that did not stop his death.

The FDA has not initiated any recalls for these food brands, according to a question and answer section on DCM which appears

Moti, a 6-year-old black Labrador retriever who died of DCM from being fed Nutrient Ocean Fish formula.

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on the FDA’s website. Officials stated that most of the food brands have been changing their formulas, which is why the FDA chose to not yet recall any.

One of the pet food brands has spoken out about the potential link between food and DCM. Fromm released their response on July 1, 2019, stating they acknowledge Fromm is listed as a brand that is potentially causing DCM in dogs. However, Fromm said it is complex and because of this it is hard to pinpoint

George, a 4 1/2-year-old German shepherd who lost his life to DCM from being fed Acana grain-free dog food.

JUMP

PAIGE MCKINNON

Moti passed away a couple of months after his DCM diagnosis, at 6 years and 7 months old. An average lifespan of a Labrador retriever is 10 to 12 years old.

Singh said Moti was eating grain-free Nutrient Ocean Fish formula, a Canadian dog food brand, when he was diagnosed.

“This food should not have even been put on the shelf,” Singh said.

When Moti was diagnosed, Singh did everything in her power to reverse it. Moti was

Jasneet Singh

gestive heart failure, according to Dr. Christopher Whipp at Alta Vista Animal Hospital in Ontario, Canada.

Moti started showing symptoms in September. He was coughing, and he fainted. After seeing two veterinarians with no answers, Moti’s condition worsened. Moti started fainting more regularly, and he also started seizing.

During one of Moti’s seizures, Singh’s sister had to hold his head away from the wall so he would not injure himself, according to Singh.

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TONYA ELIASON

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Jackson, a 5-year-old golden retriever who has survived his diagnosis of asymptomatic DCM.

the exact thing that is causing DCM. Fromm stated that they have changed their formula by supplementing taurine in the diets that were potentially causing DCM. The potential issue with adding taurine to this food is that not all cases of DCM are related to low taurine levels, according to a study done by University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. The key associations with both taurine deficient and non-taurine deficient forms of DCM was that many dogs were being fed some variety of boutique, exotic ingredient or grain-free diets, according to an article by UC Davis.

The FDA has chosen to keep all the information they have on their website, such as food brands that have had the most common potential link, rather than doing recalls at this time.

Jackson, a golden retriever, was diagnosed in August 2019 with occult DCM mild, occult meaning no symptoms. He was 3 years old at the time of his diagnosis and 4 years old when he was considered fully recovered.

Jackson, now 5 years old, and his owner, Tonya Eliason, live in North Bend, Washington.

Jackson is an active dog. He runs champion agility courses, swims nonstop, plays frisbee all the time and hikes everyday, Eliason said, and he was still doing all of this when he was diagnosed.

Eliason said she chose to get Jackson an echocardiogram when she saw the FDA reports that came out about DCM. Jackson did not have any symptoms, but he was eating a grain-free diet.

“We were horrified when we saw that the food we were feeding, Orijen, was on the list of suspect diets,” Eliason said.

Eliason looked further into Jackson’s diagnosis by going through five generations of health records to see if anyone in his bloodline had DCM in the past. Each dog in his bloodline had an echocardiogram and the results showed that no other member of Jackson’s bloodline has had DCM. This confirmed that Jackson’s DCM was diet-related.

After being diagnosed by board-certified

cardiologist, Dr. Jerry A. Woodfield, Eliason contacted board-certified veterinary nutritionist Dr. Lisa Freeman to discuss Jackson’s diet.

Jackson was being fed Orijen when his DCM formed. Orijen is a grain-free food that is listed as one of the foods having the potential link to DCM, according to the FDA. Orijen Original Grain-Free dog food includes peas and lentils, ingredients the FDA has linked to nutritional DCM. “We thought we were feeding the best ... I fell for all the hype,” Eliason says. “I was horrified to learn that there is no requirement to create dog food. Anyone can do it with zero animal nutrition knowledge. I think that is wrong, and I hope that it changes.”

For example, Dog Food Advisor is a clickbait site run by a retired human dentist with no actual expertise in dog food.

“It is scary seeing the people who write articles on dog food, because most of the time they are not qualified to give this advice,” Eliason said.

Freeman informed Eliason of certain foods

that she recommended Jackson eat. Eliason followed this recommendation and chose to feed Jackson Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Skin and Stomach Salmon and Rice Formula.

Jackson was not prescribed any heart medication because he had no symptoms. The only change Eliason and the veterinarians made was changing Jackson’s food.

After a year and four months, Jackson’s echocardiogram showed his heart had fully reversed and was normal. Due to the reversal of his heart by a diet change alone, the cause of Jackson’s DCM was nutritional.

Eliason wants others to avoid the mistake she made and encourages others to talk to professionals before deciding on dog food.

The FDA is still working on getting a better understanding of nutritional DCM and “welcomes additional contributions from other scientists.”

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JULIANA DEMARICI

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Odin pictured next to a friend. Odin’s early diagnosis of DCM saved his life.

AUBREE ECKHARDT | The Signpost

DIANE DENMAN

Bob, a 4 1/2 year-old mixed breed who lost his life to DCM from being fed Taste of the Wild grain-free dog food.

SARAH EARNSHAW| The Signpost

10 | MyWeberMedia.com| April 23, 2021

Farmington Canyon trees show all of their colors in a fall sunset. The canyon is a popular spot to visit for locals who want to enjoy the beauty of the mountains.

By SARAH EARNSHAW Videography Editor

Abandoned mines are being closed across all of Utah, despite the pushback from local communities.

Utah is notorious for its outdoor entertainment, especially with the large mountain ranges surrounding the state. Most of the entertainment found on the mountains is usually the beauties of nature, but some of it comes from the rich history of the ancestors that founded the area.

The history of mines in Utah dates as far back as the Gold Rush in the 1800s. In the 1880s, silver and copper were discovered on

Antelope Island in Layton, Utah.

Though miners were interested in finding minerals in the mountains, they didn’t have much luck in Davis and Weber County. Most mines along those mountains and in the canyons have since been abandoned.

As of 2018, there had only be 11 deaths and over 40 injuries from abandoned mines since 1982. Despite these numbers, many of the mines in Utah are still popular places to hike.

Officials from Utah’s Division of Oil, Gas and Mining Division (UDOGM) said most of these concerns are because of hidden mine shafts people can fall into, unknown chemicals in mines and loose rocks that could cause a mine to collapse.

Patsy’s Mine was a beloved hike for Farmington residents before it was closed on Nov. 10, 2020. Residents loved visiting the mine because they were able to put a name to it, and they knew the history of the man that dug it.

“I love the history of Patsy,” Farmington City Manager Shane Pace said. “What he was doing up there was prominent.”

Patsy Morely made the mining claim in 1904, along with other claims across Davis County, and there are no records of accidents related to the mine throughout the years.

Morely originally made the claim for this mine, and other mines, on Nov. 26, 1904, with the city of Farmington after emigrating from

Ireland.

Morely claimed some of the mines with Farmington City and called them Locky Boy Mine and Groof Mine, but it is unknown if either of those are the now-commonly known Patsy’s Mine.

Randy Elliott, the Davis County Commissioner, said Morely had other mines across Davis County, including on Antelope Island.

However, Elliott said Patsy’s Mine in Farmington is more prominent and well known.

“It seems that Patsy was mining for gold, silver, copper, lead and other valuable minerals,” Jeff Johnson said. Johnson is the owner of TheTrekPlanner.com and spent months researching the history of Morely.

SARAH EARNSHAW| The Signpost

JEFF TUGAN

MyWeberMedia.com| April 23, 2021 | 11

Lindsey Boyd, a former Farmington citizen, reads about the historical town hall. Many of the buildings in the town are on the registry, but Patsy’s Mine did not qualify.

Supplies to seal Patsy’s Mine sit just inside the opening in November 2020.

The mine was sealed within a week of the appearance of the supplies.

Davis County residents were upset about the closure because it was a place that had been visited for years.

“They did not take into account the citizens and the people who actually go up there,” Farmington Trails Committee member Annie MacDonald said. “I don’t feel like anybody really got hurt.”

The 1.8-mile hike is just under 1,000 feet in elevation with rocks making it difficult for those not looking for it to locate the mine.

After surviving last year’s earthquake and the mine having no visible holes in the 200foot horizontal walk inside, visitors did not feel that it presented any dangers.

Officials from UDOGM and the Forest Service felt differently. They felt that though the mine may not have had a history of injury or death, it could easily develop issues that could

cause fatalities.

The federal agencies weren’t willing to allow the mine to stay open, at least while it was located on Forest Service land.

“They’re very different from caves because they’re created in a short period of time, and they’re not stable,” UDOGM’s environmental scientist Jan Morse said. “You cannot predict what will be happening with erosion and things becoming more unstable over time.”

After discovering the plan to close it, Farmington residents reached out to UDOGM and Forest Service officials to keep it open. The residents felt that the mine had enough history and significance to Farmington that it was worth it to keep it open.

“It’s a really cool story,” MacDonald said.

“There’s a lot of rich history with the mining on these mountains here in Farmington and

in Davis County.”

Though the mining claims were made in 1904, there are stories from 1902 that write about Morely and his mine.

Morely dug for 20 years before retiring and moving to Salt Lake City. It is unknown the exact reason he abandoned the mine, but it is speculated that he did so because he didn’t find what he was looking for.

“There’s really not a lot of minerals in our mountains,” Johnson said. He said Morely probably found a few minerals, “but nothing worthwhile and nothing that would pay back all the money and effort he put in.”

Most of the mines in Weber and Davis County don’t hold as much history as Patsy’s mine, which is one of the reasons the residents of Farmington were frustrated with the closure.

“It’s one of the mines that got me really interested in mining history,” Johnson said.

There are documents for the other people in the area who made mining claims, but because of how documentation was done during the time, it is difficult to locate them specifically.

Johnson said the history of Morely and his mine was one of the biggest reasons as to why the mine was so popular.

Elliott fought to keep the mine open because he felt that it wasn’t a place easily accessed by those who wanted to cause trouble.

“It never really was a party mine,” Elliott said. “This isn’t the place that people go to smoke their weed.”

The mine was closed because of a federal law passed in 1977 called The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, also known as SMACRA, which prohibits coal mining on National Park land.

As part of the act, there is government fund-

ing given to UDOGM to close any abandoned mine across the country, even if they aren’t coal mines.

Morse said the funding to close abandoned mines comes from the taxes required for mining companies.

Bekee Hotze, the Forest Service’s Salt Lake district ranger, said SMACRA was enacted “to make sure that people didn’t just walk away from these open mine shafts.”

Morse is the project lead for the Willard Peak Project, a project to close all of the mines in Davis and Weber County, and said the mines aren’t just closed because of injuries that have happened in the past. She said these mines are being closed because of how likely it is for an injury or fatality in the future.

Morse said the biggest reason for the potential of injury is because mines have hidden shafts, even in horizontal openings like Patsy’s.

“It’s always an unknown with abandoned mines,” Morse said.

She said the federal agency considers horizontal mines just as dangerous as vertical mines because of hidden shafts someone could fall through.

Since abandoned mines are not checked daily, they could easily develop hazards. Active mines are required to have the safety of the mine checked daily, since weak points could appear due to eroding and other forces of nature.

Morse said that in a mine like Patsy’s, dynamite was used to dig into the mountain. Because of this, there are loose rocks throughout the walls and the roof. The rocks freeze and unfreeze every winter, which could loosen them more and cause them to fall.

“You cannot predict what will be happening with erosion,” Morse said. “Things become

Farmington City Historical Museum

Jeff Johnson | TrekTracker

12 | MyWeberMedia.com| April 23, 2021

An article posted two days after the article about Morley’s cabin burning down. Morley called the reporter a “sensation monger” for calling him a hermit.

A photo of miner Patsy Morely, who is known for creating Patsy’s Mine. He made the mining claim in 1904.

more unstable over time.”

Another hazard is that people could get lost in abandoned mines, or there could be a collapse of rocks that would trap someone within a mine.

The insurance policy to keep a mine open is usually high because of the large amount of incidents that happen inside. Since Patsy’s Mine is located on Forest Service land, the agency did not see value in paying for it to stay open.

“It goes back to that issue of liability for the landowner,” Morse said. She said the Forest Service “has been sued and they have lost, and they’ve had to pay millions of dollars.”

The process to close the mine began in

2010, when Jan Morse and her colleagues at UDOGM conducted an inventory of all the of mines in Weber and Davis County.

UDOGM is the division in charge of closing all of the abandoned mines in Utah. The agency starts the process by getting a list of mines and reaching out to the owner of the land to see if they can close them.

Most of the mines in the Willard Peak Project are located on Forest Service property, which is why the Forest Service was involved.

If the mines had been located on privately-owned property, UDOGM officials would have contacted the owners of the land.

UDOGM officials reached out to the Forest Service in 2016, requesting to close the mines

on the land. Forest Service officials agreed because the agency did not want to be held liable for the injuries that could happen in the mine.

In 2018, Morse said they did cultural surveys, bat surveys and other environmental surveys. This was done because of a federal law called the National Environmental Policy Act, also known as NEPA. When a federal agency wants to take action, like UDOGM’s desire to close the mines in the area, they have to perform these surveys to make sure the area is eligible for the action that the agency would like to do.

“We will do a detailed inventory of a project area once we’ve selected it,” Morse said. She said they map the locations of the mines, take measurements, decide the best closure process and conduct a cultural survey.

As part of NEPA, Morse and her colleagues

looked into all historic and archeological resources and had them evaluated by an archaeologist because of the National Historic Preservation Act. This is where it would have been decided if Patsy’s Mine would fit the eligibility for the National Historic Registry.

“If we determine things are eligible for the national register, we can create a design that preserves the elements of the site that make it eligible for the register,” Morse said.

This act requires that the action they desire to take does not have any negative impacts to the environment or people.

Hotze, the Forest Service ranger over the Salt Lake District, said they started the NEPA process in 2018. She said part of that process includes “public comments, or public outreach, to make sure that we are letting people know what’s going to happen on their public lands.”

DAVE EARNSHAW

JEFF TUGAN

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The inside of Patsy’s Mine looking out at the sun before Nov. 2020. The inside of the mine was dark enough that a light was needed to make it to the end of the tunnel, but the sun usually lit the way when making it back to the entrance.

UDOGM officials sent out press releases and reached out to Davis County officials to let them know of the plan to close the mines in the area.

Hotze said Elliott reached out to her in December 2019 about the closure of the mine.

She said Elliott “expressed his concerns over this mine being closed because it’s a popular family destination.”

Between December 2019 and August 2020, UDOGM, the Forest Service, Davis County and Farmington City members met multiple times to come up with a solution that would end in the mine staying open.

“We did have a lot of community involvement,” MacDonald said.

On the Farmington Trails Facebook page, community members posted links to reach out to Davis County, UDOGM and the Forest Service about keeping it open.

Willard Peak Project Document/ AECOM

The view down the valley at the top of the Flag Rock trail. The elevation is 1,363 feet.

“I don’t think it did anything or prevented anything, and I don’t know that there’s anything we could have done, really,” MacDonald said.

Because of the community’s desire to keep the mine open, UDOGM officials had to postpone the closure until all options had been The Willard Peak Project is a plan to close 60 mines along the Wasatch Front considered.

“We went into that whole process,” Morse in Davis and Weber counties. said. “That actually added quite a bit of time to have had to take out an insurance policy that “We’re just not a large enough city to afford our project timeline.”

In these meetings, the city and government would cover the risk of injury and the city something like that,” Pace said.

After finding out that it wasn’t possible for officials discussed different options that could would have had to agree to have someone go up on a weekly basis to inspect the mine for the city to get an insurance policy, Pace tried be done to keep the mine open. to see if the mine could be put on the National “At one point, we were trying to talk about possible hazards.

“The insurance policy was extremely expen- Historic Registry. whether or not we can transfer the land to the sive,” Pace said.

“They came right back with the answer,” Pace county or the city,” Hotze said.

Though they never received a written quote, said. He said UDOGM had already checked to In order for Hotze and her colleagues to agree to transfer the land ownership over to Pace said the verbal quote for the insurance see if it would qualify, and it didn’t.

Because of NEPA, Morse had an archeolothe city or Davis County, Farmington would policy was over $50,000 annually.

AECOM Willard Peak Inventory Project

SARAH EARNSHAW| The Signpost

14 | MyWeberMedia.com| April 23, 2021

A concerned Farmington City citizen posts to a Facebook page called Farmington Trails about the closure of Patsy’s Mine. Citizens tried to reach out to city and federal officials to prevent it from being closed.

The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining began documenting the mines in Davis County in 2018. This paper documents how Patsy’s Mine goes into the mountain.

logist come out to see if Patsy’s Mine qualified for the registry.

There are four requirements for a location to be placed on the registry.

Officials from AECOM, the company UDOGM and Forest Service officials partnered with to close the mine, wrote in a document given to UDOGM and the Forest Service that the mine didn’t fit any of the requirements.

The first requirement states that a location must be associated with an event that contributed significantly to history. The AECOM document said, “despite retaining several of the aspects of historic integrity (location, design, setting, materials and workmanship), this site is recommended not eligible to the NRHP because the site has no associated structural remains or associated artifacts and the only features are the opening and the dump.”

The second requirement states that Patsy’s Mine needed to be associated with a person that was important to the history of the area.

Though Patsy Morely was considered a local

legend by some, the AECOM document said the mine didn’t have any features that were a reminder of Morely.

The third requirement states that the mine needed to resemble the era that it came from.

The AECOM document said “the site has no built features nor is it a uniquely excavated mine.” This means that it didn’t fit the third requirement for the registry.

The last requirement says that the way the mine was built needed to provide important historical information.

“This site has no further information potential past this recording, rendering it not eligible,” the AECOM document said. Because the documentation and pictures of the mine recorded everything the mine could possibly offer, this meant the mine didn’t need to be preserved.

An important thing to note is that even if Patsy’s mine had qualified for the registry, this would not have prevented the closure. It only would’ve required extensive documentation

before the closure.

Morse said the officials who work to put things on the national registry “recognize that protecting human safety is more important than protecting history.”

Realizing that the closure may be inevitable, Pace said he was hoping that, by putting the mine on the registry, it would allow for signage so that people visiting the mine could still appreciate the history.

Pace and MacDonald said the city didn’t push much harder than these two options because they didn’t want the rest of the trail to be torn down.

Hikers usually stopped at Patsy’s Mine while on their way to Flag Rock, a trail that was created after Farmington City was established in 1892.

Throughout the years, hikers hung various items on top of the trail until 1997 when former Farmington City resident Randy West placed a flag on the top of a plastic pole in honor of a friend who had died.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, West realized that the hike to the flag was the same elevation as the twin towers before they fell. Standing at 1,363 feet in elevation, a larger flag was fastened to a flagpole from an old Farmington elementary school in 2002.

In 2016, officials from the Forest Service threatened to take the flag down because they do not allow monuments on their land, but because of pushback from the community through local news channels, they did not take it down.

MacDonald and Pace were worried that if the city pushed too hard to keep the mine open, the agency would shut the trail down entirely.

“It’s really just a balance that we have with the Forest Service,” MacDonald said.

Pace said the last thing he wanted to do was to draw attention to the unauthorized flag because of the popularity of the hike.

Since the hike is on Forest Service land, MacDonald said people need to be careful and not ruin it.

“The Forest Service could come in at any point and shut us down,” MacDonald said.

The trail is not kept up by the Forest Service but by the Farmington Trails Committee, even though the trail is located on Forest Service land.

Elliott said the flag wasn’t going anywhere because of the pushback in 2016, and there was no reason for the city to back off when it came to keeping the mine open.

“There was so much public pushback that they said they’re not going to mess with it,” Elliott said.

Elliott said the issue with Flag Rock went all the way to the Washington, D.C., and it ended in them allowing the flag to stay up.

Despite Elliott’s lack of concern in pushing to keep the mine open causing the flag to be taken down, Pace said the city didn’t push much harder because of that concern.

The city wasn’t able to come up with any other solutions that would leave the mine open, but they worked with UDOGM and the Forest Service officials to see if the closure would still allow the integrity of the mine to be visible.

Morse and her associates ended up deciding to close it a couple of feet into the mine.

This allowed the opening of the mine to stay intact.

In July 2020, Morse decided to push back the closure of Patsy’s Mine to the second phase of the project, allowing the closure to be postponed until the spring of 2021. She said she did this to allow the city more time to find solutions.

AECOM Willard Peak Project Document

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A historical sign in front of Farmington’s town hall. The building was placed on the National Register to preserve its history.

By August, UDOGM and the Forest Service agents heard the city wasn’t going to be able to get the insurance policy, and they decided to move the closure of the mine to November 2020.

In October, Morse was able to secure the funding through UDOGM to close the mine, and Patsy’s Mine was sealed on November 4, 2020 along with eight other mines in the area.

The cost to close the nine mines totaled $39,254. Patsy’s Mine cost $9,725.

These nine mines were the first of over 50 planned closures in Weber and Davis County.

“What we did in November was phase one,” Morse said.

Though UDOGM and the Forest Service officials felt that they provided sufficient warning and ample time before the closure to the city, Pace disagrees.

He said if they had had time for public campaigns, they may have been able to keep the mine open.

Pace said he received an email saying that the mine was going to be closed in 2021, and then in November, after receiving a vague email about certain mine closures, they suddenly began the closure.

Elliott said he felt there was no way to convince UDOGM and the Forest Service to keep it open. Elliott, Pace and MacDonald felt that UDOGM and the Forest Service officials weren’t very open to the idea of keeping it open.

“They all bring up the liability claims,” Elliott said. “I’m sorry, if you go on national forest property, there’s always liabilities.”

MacDonald said the closure was not necessarily because of the danger behind Patsy’s Mine but because they had the funding.

Morse said they had the funding to close the mine, and it was closed because of the possible danger that came from keeping it open.

Since the closure, visitors have tried to break through the cemented walls.

“People have already chipped away at it,” MacDonald said. She said the wall looks terrible because of it, and even though people disagreed with the closure, they should still respect it and not vandalize the mine.

“I know that this was a hard one for the public. I understand there’s been some vandalism,” Hotze said. “I just encourage people that if they have any questions about it, reach out, ask questions, find out why.”

Hotze said she doesn’t want anyone going back into the mine and getting injured.

“Just enjoy these places,” Johnson said.

“Don’t do anything crazy, but just enjoy them while they’re still open.”

DAVE EARNSHAW

Patsy’s mine is a horizontal mine that has been visited by Farmington community members for decades. It was closed because of the possibility for injury despite there being any record of accidents.

Dave Earnshaw stands at the summit of Flag Rock, a hike that is 1,363 feet in elevation, which is the same height as the Twin Towers before they fell during the 9/11 terrorist attack. The pole with a larger flag was placed a year later in 2002.

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By RAYMOND LUCAS Reporter

In this country, each state has a reputation that may or may not be fair, but Utah is viewed as a seat of racism, and it’s up to the Beehive state to change that.

On Feb. 5, Emily Anderson of the Standard-Examiner reported that the Maria Montessori Academy in North Ogden would allow parents to opt their students out of Black History Month-based curriculum.

The news of this story quickly spread throughout the country as the common tone found on Twitter was disgust and frustration.

It was also upsetting to local leaders. Betty Sawyer, head of the NAACP’s Ogden branch, reached out to the charter school hours before they changed gears and took away the option to opt-out.

In a statement released later that night, Sawyer said, “While this decision was recently reversed, we find its very consideration troubling.”

The decision came after organizations, corporations and people all over vowed to do better after the murder of George Floyd and the rallies that followed. Now, another organization was a source of pain and another way that would’ve allowed parents to shield their children from the history of the United States

and its transgressions.

Before COVID-19, during a stroll inside the Shepherd Union Building at Weber State University, there would be a vibrant group of students. A majority of those students had complexions that vary through shades of brown and eyes that notice the constant stares from peers that don’t look like them.

According to records from the Office of Institutional Research, as of fall 2020, only 1.3% of students at WSU were Black. For comparison, 74.4% were white, 11% Hispanic and 1.7% Asian.

Carter Smith, a former resident assistant at Stewart Wasatch Hall, originally from Georgia, said he often advises Black students like himself to not stick around Utah longer than they have to.

“I had many great experiences there, but as someone who’s worked as a server at Buffalo Wild Wings, I picked up that a lot of people out there just aren’t used to us, which could be dangerous if there’s some conflict,” Smith said. “There’s always lots of stares … that isn’t always a bad thing, but for me, it’s a quick way to make me uncomfortable. I lived in Ogden and was ready to leave, and that’s saying something, because Ogden isn’t nearly as bad as other places like Provo.”

Provo is home to Brigham Young University.

According to collegefactual.com, a source that

compiles data and gives their best estimate of the demographics at universities, BYU is made up of only 0.5% of Black students, with 81.4% of students being white.

Of the four better-known schools in the state (WSU, BYU, Utah State University and the University of Utah), BYU has the lowest tally of Black students, according to collegefactual.com. USU is listed at 0.9%, while the U of U lists with 1.4%.

This means that, of the more prominent schools in the state, the site lists WSU as a school with one of the highest populations of Black students. But having a a higher population of diverse students does not make it an inclusive environment.

Perhaps people would argue it’s not inclusive because of the tweets that were sent out by former professor Scott Senjo in which he implied that he’d bring harm to those who were protesting against police brutality. These tweets resulted in Senjo resigning, rescinding his resignation and resigning again.

A student could point out the time when material promoting white supremacy was found throughout the Ogden campus on March 30-31, 2019, and it took until April 10, 2019, for WSU President Brad Mortensen to release a statement about the issue. From that point on, minimal updates came out about it.

However, there is sometimes growth where

there once was fault.

During an online town hall meeting, Black students at WSU were given a platform to criticize the university over racism. Issues were cited by Terri Hughes, Shawnica Sanders and Nailah Mansa about a lack of progression, the dangers of Senjo’s potential teachings and how having conversations is no longer enough.

Mortensen was also a speaker at the online meeting, and in a story reported by the Standard-Examiner said, “I feel like I understand, but I haven’t taken that step to be helping as proactively as I should have … I’ve had a bit of realization where my own actions haven’t met up with my understanding.”

Seven days before the online meeting and six days after the story about Senjo’s tweets broke, the university once again found itself dealing with controversy; this time sparked by a student athlete.

ABC4 News broke a story that had begun to catch fire through the WSU community. A Wildcat soccer player had recorded a video of himself using racial slurs and sent it to a nonWSU student. The incident happened back in the summer of 2020, but after the Black Lives Matter protests started to gain momentum throughout the country, the victim felt it was no longer acceptable to condone racism.

In the video, the former Wildcat is respond-

ing to the victim’s decision to go home rather than help with door-to-door sales by saying, “Hopefully you’re in the cotton fields where you belong, you worthless n*****.”

In an interview with ABC4, the victim claimed that his initial complaints to WSU were met with a deterring response.

“They told me that since I am not affiliated with Weber State University, or currently attend as a student, that they would not be able to look into my complaint,” he said.

This led the news outlet to follow up with the university about the claims.

They were told by the school that “Weber State responded immediately. This is an ongoing matter that is currently under review.”

WSU is working on becoming a more inclusive environment, but like the rest of the state of Utah, there is still work to be done until that journey is complete.

Kayla Watkins, a Black student who spent this past basketball season nursing an injury, has elected to transfer to a different university and is excited to finally be out of Utah.

“When I officially entered the transfer portal and drove home, I couldn’t have been happier,” Watkins said. “Being back home has felt like someone has come and lifted a weight off my shoulders. Utah was a shock that I never got used to. Honestly, the drive home might have been one of the best road trips of my life.”

What has held Utah back for decades is a barrier of racial unfamiliarity, and that can be hard to topple. If Utahns ever want the reputation of their state to change, then they must begin to climb over the barrier and reach the other side to understand the outside perspective and have the opportunity to bring gradual change.

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A “Black Lives Matter” sign is held up proudly in protest against the recent cases of police brutality.

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