SB 81 Collateral Damage

The Salt Lake Tribune
October 26, 2009 Monday

Legislators who sponsored and supported Senate Bill 81 said it would display the "Unwelcome" sign to undocumented immigrants in Utah and punish them for coming and staying here by denying them state-funded services and privileges.

The law is based on self-righteousness and it fosters intolerance against all minorities, not only those without proper authority to be in Utah.

But the law implemented this year does more than that.

It punishes already cash-strapped Utah colleges and universities and students who are facing unprecedented tuition costs, debt and other expenses.

It may be an unintended consequence of a law meant to make life unpleasant for undocumented residents, but colleges that depend on private donors to pay for many of their buildings, sports programs and scholarships could also be hurt.

That's because the law -- which is also expensive for colleges to enforce --dictates that no undocumented student may receive a private scholarship, regardless of the intent of the donor.

Philanthropists are usually people with a lot of money who don't like strings being attached to the gifts they give to colleges and universities. We don't blame them.

Donors who don't want to require applicants for their scholarships to pass a citizenship-status test are likely to simply withdraw the donations.

Their opinions about illegal immigration and immigrants might clash with the opinion of the Utah Legislature or they might simply want to avoid tainting their donations with politically motivated rules.

The College of Eastern Utah in Price is dealing with the fallout from this portion of the misguided law right now. A $180,000 scholarship endowment -- a hefty 10 percent of the college's total $2 million endowment -- will have to be returned if the donor decides he doesn't like the idea of CEU requiring scholarship applicants to prove their citizenship or legal-immigrant status.

The proponents of SB81 probably didn't intend specifically to whittle donations and endowment funds at Utah's public colleges and universities, but their intention clearly was to impose tighter controls on every state agency that has anything to do with undocumented residents.

It's an elephant gun aimed at gnats. That's especially true of higher education, since there are only 590 undocumented students among Utah's eight colleges and universities -- only 0.4 percent of the student population.

Nevertheless, the majority could become collateral damage in lawmakers' scattershot charge against a small group they view as intolerable. SB81 should be repealed.

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