Brigham Young University’s attempt to stay true to itself strangely elicits outrage from the journalists, academics, and activists who created our age of identity.
Jeffrey Holland, who spoke of attending Brigham Young University during the 1950s and leading it during the 1980s, told the school’s faculty and administrators three years ago: “If anyone in this audience has been coming to this campus longer than that, please come forward and give this talk. Otherwise, sit still and be patient.”
Dubbed the “musket fire” speech, Holland’s remarks seem in retrospect more like a time bomb. The words “musket fire” entered his talk by way of quotation marks. Dallin H. Oaks, a fellow member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, had used the words in 2017 to refer to BYU defending the traditional family. Holland cited them approvingly in his 2021 speech. Now, a few years after that, Holland’s speech draws the interest of NBC News, which calls his words “controversial,” as it now becomes required reading at BYU.
“Sensible,” “wise,” and a few other adjectives more readily come to mind than “controversial.”
Holland argued that BYU’s ability to stand apart from rather than hide among other universities marked its greatness. He noted that even if staying true to its principles means losing affiliations and certifications, then the institution must still remain faithful to mission.
A student using commencement ceremonies to speak on his sexual interests, and a letter from a parent detailing a friend “credit[ing]” BYU with “radicalizing” her politics and liberating her from her faith, partly catalyzed Holland’s address.
“If a student commandeers a graduation podium intended to represent everyone getting diplomas in order to announce his personal sexual orientation, what might another speaker feel free to announce the next year until eventually anything goes?” he asked. “What might commencement come to mean — or not mean — if we push individual license over institutional dignity for very long? Do we simply end up with more divisiveness in our culture than we already have? And we already have too much everywhere.”
Tithes from the faithful subsidize the school to such a degree that annual tuition at the Provo campus runs $6,500 for members of the Church of the Latter-day Saints and the total expense associated with a four-year BYU education amounts to about a third of what a degree from similar private institutions costs. Given the church’s generous subsidies, and the very name Brigham Young University and not Barney Frank University, the uproar over the desire that the institution reflect the church’s values seems rich.
A campus group called RaYnbow Collective rejects Holland’s message.
“The use of this speech, which was originally intended for staff and faculty, has significant implications for queer students, suggesting they do not belong and fostering an unsafe environment,” the group reacted on social media. “By insinuating that queer students lie outside the boundaries of the university’s mission and vision, the speech perpetuates harm and undermines efforts to foster a sense of belonging.”
The reaction strikes as a parsing at best and a mischaracterization at worst of Holland’s message. Presumably, some Mormon students lie outside of the boundary of the RaYnbow Collective’s mission and vision. Is it not the nature of groups that individuals join and avoid based upon the mission and vision embraced by the groups rather than what the joiners demand? Or, alternatively, should RaYnbow change as the group demands BYU to do? Presumably, students wishing BYU to resemble the University of California, Santa Cruz, or Swarthmore College could choose to attend such institutions. Choice, not imposed conformity, seems the more prudential solution.
Holland told school employees three years ago that “we have to be careful that love and empathy do not get interpreted as condoning and advocacy or that orthodoxy and loyalty to principle not be interpreted as unkindness or disloyalty to people. As near as I can tell, Christ never once withheld his love from anyone, but he also never once said to anyone, ‘Because I love you, you are exempt from keeping my commandments.’”
A BYU social work class may describe the course’s desired outcome as to “advance human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice” without causing a stir. Three courses may list required readings from Karl Marx without journalists declaring it “controversial.” But Brigham Young University’s inclusion in the curriculum of a seven-minute read of a speech delivered by the school’s former president strikes academics, activists, and journalists as a step too far.
BYU tolerates much. Can BYU’s critics tolerate Mormonism?
