The student government at the University of Utah has come out against the campus’s 110-year-old flight song, “Utah Man,” which contains lyrics that a reasonable person–like a politically-correct student liberal–would find sexist, racist and transphobic.
The Associated Students of the University of Utah passed a resolution on Tuesday that charged the school’s fight song with objectifying women, making non-males feel unsafe and promoting white privilege, according to The College Fix. The song should be changed to spare the feelings of those offended by the song, according to the resolution.
Criticized portions of the song include its title, “Utah Man,” and a line about Utah coeds being “the fairest.” Here is the full song:
VERSE
I am a Utah man, sir, and I live across the green.
Our gang, it is the jolliest that you have ever seen.
Our coeds are the fairest and each one’s a shining star.
Our yell, you hear it ringing through the mountains near and far.CHORUS
Who am I, sir? A Utah man am I A Utah man, sir, and will be till I die; Ki!Yi!
We’re up to snuff; we never bluff,
We’re game for any fuss,
No other gang of college men
dare meet us in the muss.
The song does not represent women, or the ambigendered, according to some.
“It did not represent me when I identified as a woman, and it does not represent me now as a genderqueer individual,” said Allison Boyer, a student representative, in a statement to The Daily Utah Chronicle.
And using the word “fairest” as a compliment is demeaning to dark-skinned minorities, some student representatives concluded.
The song was written in 1904.
The resolution is nonbinding. It’s up to university administrators to change the official fight song.
The vote on the resolution was oddly timed. It came during finals week at the University of Utah, with little public noticed, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.