Note: The following letter was emailed to members of the President’s Leadership Council on Friday, Jan. 5.

Dear President’s Leadership Council,

As the University of Utah strives for excellence in education, research, patient care, and service to community, we remain steadfast in our belief and actions that we must have a dedicated team of individuals from every walk of life to help us achieve that goal. As we do so, we affirm our commitment to non-discriminatory hiring practices and the wellbeing of our patients and campus community.

In light of recent statements made by elected leaders and directives from the Utah Board of Higher Education to eliminate diversity questions or statements used in hiring at Utah’s higher education institutions, all hiring units at the university should discontinue the use of any type of diversity statements or similar practices as part of their unit-level applicant or employee hiring processes.

Human Resources teams (https://www.hr.utah.edu/contact/search.php) on main campus and University of Utah Health are available to assist in designing job postings and potential interview questions for positions to accommodate the need to assess an applicant’s knowledge and ability to meet all aspects of a job function.

We recognize the time that you devote to delivering on the promise of higher education, ground-breaking research and world-class health care. We also recognize that our recent and future successes as a leading public research university will come from retaining and recruiting the students, faculty, and staff needed to reach our goal of becoming a top 10 public research university with unsurpassed societal impact.

We are excited about the year ahead and the excellence we will achieve together.

Taylor Randall

President, University of Utah