https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/01/05/byu-blue-why-these-are-dark-days/

This originally came out in Sunday's paper. I subscribe to the online edition, but scouted around and found that the Sunday print edition is also available at the Maverick service station.
I bought a copy and it will be saved for my posterity to show them how evil TSSC really is.

If this link is also behind a paywall, I have typed out the high (low) points of this stunning clamp down of BYU employees.

Yup. Paywall.

I was afraid of that. Ok, here are some of the details

A guy named Clark Gilbert is the education commissioner. In his first year he grouped the faculty into 4 categories:
1-The faithful core-They teach with the spirit and weave in church tenets.
2-The Supportive Center-they support the church but are not as enthusiastic as church leaders think they ought to be.
3-The Secular First-They put "truth from any source" on an equal footing with the latter-day saint gospel.
4-Open Foes-They write an article or take a position contrary to that of the church. These are employees he will try to get rid of.

One professor(who has since left BYU) stated "BYU is not safe for anyone who doesn't fit the orthodox mold. Low morale is pretty universal. The default is not to trust anybody.

In 2022 a new employment contract with a type of "loyalty oath" is required for new as well as current employees to attest their support of the church's stance on marriage, family and gender. It goes beyond the church's own stance and seems to carry an implicit threat: you cannot advance if you don't sign off. It has been called creepy and Orwellian.

A background check is conducted that goes way beyond the usual. The company they use advertises that "its expertise is scraping off the internet every bit of information about a person"

Having a non-member or inactive spouse can disqualify or threaten employment.

thoughts?

Nightingale Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yup. Paywall.


Pro tip. To get around that paywall, figure out how to quickly put your phone on airplane mode. Then find the SL Trib article on your phone. Then click on that article, then immediately put your phone on airplane mode. You will then be able to read the article.

Thank you!

Now I just have to figure out the airplane mode thingy.

Yes, I am not an 8-yr-old!!

thankyou!

Wilkinson did the same thing.

The church had no official stance on caffeinated sodas, BYU did.

The church had no dress code and no formal rules on facial hair, BYU did.

The church had long been moderately tolerant of Democrats and unaffiliated with the extreme right, and Wilkinson did the opposite.

There was a modicum of ideological variety, as one would expect in a universe-ity, and in his anti-hippie zeal Wilkinson shut that down.

The end result? Wilkinson won. Hordes of young people went through BYU, imbibed the standards and values, and went on to impose those on the wards and stakes into which they moved--until it took a virtual prophesy for the church and BYU to loosen up on Coke and Pepsi.

The church has its standards and will not loosen them. But when some wild-eyed bureaucrat tightens them, the hierarchy doesn't protest and the bureaucrat is often rewarded with higher office.

The ratchet only works one way.

Yes. Finally. Great way to explain how our fun wards of the 50's and early sixties became obedience obsessed pits of Mormon rigidity devoid of any real life or humanity or heart.

The ratchet line is too good. And, too true.

Nurse Rached?

This reminds me of 7 years ago when BYU, through their own stupidity, almost lost their ROTC program to UVU. BYU President and staff arrogantly and astonishingly demanded that the USAF Colonel, a non-mormon that led the ROTC program sign the Honor Code and agree not to drink coffee. The Colonel rightly refused. BYU threatened to kick him off campus. The Pentagon stepped in and told BYU to FO. They started drafting plans to remove the ROTC program at BYU and make those cadets travel to UVU for training. BYU President Worthen said "No" and the USAF came to Orem to check the facilities at UVU and prepared to abandon BYU. Someone in the "Church" made a call and Worthen backed down and the Colonel kept drinking his coffee without signing the damn HC. Just the arrogance is amazing. Self important, self serving over authoritative, dicks.

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2017/03/20/with-the-pentagon-on-the-telephone-byu-president-held-his-ground-on-the-honor-code/

stupid ass thing I have ever heard! The Honor Code is so essential that we'll say bye to your ROTC program, and you can go ahead and give it to UVU!

I have never heard of the Honor Code being such that BYU wants it instead of the ROTC. Idiots!

True, But the sheer arrogance of telling a career decorated combat vet and USAF member that he can't drink coffee? That's over the top cluelessness. Plus, he was drinking his coffee in his home, not in a BYU office. My friends in other states, that I sent the article to thought is must've been an article from The Onion. If it wasn't for the overwhelmingly bad publicity, I'm not sure Worthen would've backed down.

Any vet that has been through hell and back and survived, should not be held to the same standard. Having the Honor Code is messed up. I read it once, and I felt the Spirit (tm). Delusional thinking on behalf of Gilbert, about the need, no desire for, a person not to drink coffee, is just a concept that is foreign.

If the person is drinking coffee in their own home, who on earth are they to barge in, and be the self-righteous jerks that Gilbert is. He's a jerk.

Gotta clean up the soda, coffee, and other stuff. Gotta make sure no one has facial hair. Micromanagement at it's worst!

"If it wasn't for the overwhelmingly bad publicity, I'm not sure Worthen would've backed down."

But what if the church is true? What if drinking the devil's brew puts you on the road to Hell? Worthen backing down destroyed another soul that could have been saved by drinking Postum.

This is quite sad for the church, because they are most likely losing good teachers. All because of control. Impulse control is the worst kind, and it is shared by those that want nothing better than to see people groveling to keep their jobs, and everything.

It's quite the pressure magnet when it comes to the honor code. And to hear people having their degrees revoked, because they think differently than the Mormons. You would think that they were the true church of the deviiiiiiil.

I remember that. Good for the USAF Colonel for refusing to bow to pressure.

I kinda wish that he'd have called some of his USAF buddies to strafe Temple Square and then call the COB and "ask" them to handle the situation at BYU.

But the thing I can't get over is that a BYU kiss ass actually thought he could tell the USAF and a decorated combat officer what they can or cannot do. How arrogant (and wrong) can you get?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2025 01:45PM by stillanon.

Note to Brother Gilbert: Despite your best efforts to screen BYU employees, there is always a danger that one of them may have an independent thought. Perhaps it would be better to just have replays of conference talks instead of professors.

Besides getting in trouble for wanting the non-LDS ROTC director to have to sign on to observing the so-called Honor Code, BYU had their law school accreditation nearly withdrawn over their policy of expelling students who resigned their membership in LDS Inc.

I assume the ABA was OK with students being expelled for behavioral violations that would lead to excommunication, even if they resigned to prevent excommunication. However, they objected to expelling law students that resigned as a matter of conscience, but were otherwise eligible to be enrolled at BYU.

The fallout from that was that BYU changed their policy of automatic expulsion if you resign to a policy of interview by the dean of something or other. If you were otherwise in compliance with BYU standards, and resigned as a matter of conscience, you would not be expelled. I have not seen reports of how well that policy works in practice, but it is spelled out in detail in the BYU course catalog. I suspect law school students in particular can get away with resigning.


Ernie Wilkinson's heavy-handedness (students were secretly tape-recording lectures and turning in faculty members, among other things) eventually got dialed way back. I doubt that Gilbert's heavy-handedness is going to go over any better.

I see the church crusade against LGBTQ as a losing battle, much the same as the priesthood ban. I don't know when or why there will be e a final collapse of the LGBTQ policies, but I think it is inevitable. It is just a matter of time.

Good points. But, help me understand how a school, owned by a Church, with a prophet with a direct line to God, and also professes to know the future, can't see some of these PR disasters coming???

Yeah, go figure. So much for inspiration.

I knew Clark well professionally when he was a Harvard Business School professor. This is so out of character form the person I knew back then. The church breaks anyone who stays.