| Updated: 12:21 p.m. After hearing from dozens of people on both sides of the debate during more than an hour of public comment, a Utah House committee voted 12-2 Wednesday in favor of an effort to change the name of Dixie State University. On one side of the issue are proponents of the name change, who say they’re worried about the impacts on students of the name “Dixie,” which has connections to the Confederacy and the slave-owning American South. In southwest Utah, 19th century pioneers grew cotton, and some of the area’s early settlers were former slave owners.