An Open Letter to BYU: From the Editor

Dear BYU Administration, 

My name is Thomas Stevenson and my friends know me as Tommy. Consider this a personal letter. I just graduated, and you may think that I am happy to rid myself of my “woke experience.” The reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. 

It is true that I am happy to have graduated from college. I believe that most graduates are elated to do so. However, the experience is bittersweet because of the social connections and religious environment I found at the school. 

This was the majority of my experience. At no point in my schooling did I feel as if I was dissatisfied with my choice to attend BYU. I found my wife, made many friends, and gained valuable life experiences while at the school.

The thing is that is not all that I found. I found, through my own experience and the experiences of the hundreds of students messaging us, that BYU has a growing illness. An illness is not the whole of the body, but something that should be cured. BYU must stand for its mission and we cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater.

BYU is not ill because hard left-wing views are taught in the classroom. I believe they should be taught. However, as I said in my interview with Cwic Media, it is ill with a large minority of students and faculty believing that these views are in line with the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ when in reality they are not.  

This is not to say that far-right and alt-right views (such as antisemitism and racism) are in line with the gospel. However, from what I have found to be the case, those on the far and alt-right are few and far between compared to those on the hard left at BYU. That is the case in most places, despite what many may think. There is a reason companies feel comfortable using Dylan Mulvaney in a marketing campaign, but they would not use Richard Spencer. What the hard left may classify as hateful, (e.g. men cannot become women) most in and outside of the Church classify as reasonable.

That does not give permission for those on the political spectrum from the center-left through the right to become hateful when being reasonable. I believe we all struggle with what actions and words can be considered sinful given the context of the situation that we find ourselves in. That is why the great author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wrote, “The line between good and evil runs not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.”

Only God knows our intentions, heart, and actions fully. The Gospel is not conservative, the Gospel is not liberal, the Gospel is True. Do I happen to believe more conservative principles fall in line with the Gospel? Yes, I do. 

However, I try my very best to be beholden to God, not political ideology. 

That is why our mission is “through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” and not the lens of conservatism. 

A BYU education should also be taught “through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Whether or not that be conservative or liberal, far-right or far-left views, I don’t care. But the common factor needs to be “through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” 

However, I find myself more and more perplexed as to why principles in direct contradiction to the Gospel are replacing it with a new – lowercase g – gospel at BYU. 

Authors, such as Ibram X. Kendi, who have implicitly declared the missionary work of the Church, and any Christian sect for that matter, racist, are put on a pedestal by many at BYU. How to Be an Antiracist was the “book of the semester” at the BYU Kennedy Center in 2021.

In a 2022 August devotional, Elder D. Todd Christofferson said that “we are seeing today in academia and in society a growing practice of perpetual grievance, victimization, and division… It is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, future discrimination for past discrimination. It breeds what has come to be known as the cancel culture.”

This seems to be a near explicit contradiction with Kendi who said in the first chapter of his book that to be antiracist you must believe “[t]he only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination” and “[t]he only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

The Black Menaces group have called this “common sense,” multiple BYU professors –  such as Ryan Gabriel – promote Kendi, and the Ballard Center has called it one of their “favorites” on the topic of race. Yet, when an apostle of the Lord comes to give a devotional at the school, he condemns Kendi’s main argument.

Does it cross your mind then, BYU administration, that maybe, just maybe, the Antiracism Club on campus should either get a name change, or not give homage to a man who is in direct contradiction of Gospel principles? All the while a club like Turning Point USA is denied half a dozen times?

I guess it’s your move, not mine. 

I expounded on an experience that left me awestruck in my interview with Greg Matsen at Cwic Media. I went to my wife’s multicultural education class over a year ago as a result of several students and the professor ganging up on her in an argument that socialism is the best economic system. 

We sent an email in advance asking if I could come to the class and the professor said it was fine. Spouses had apparently come to the class before. In groups of 3 or 4 we held small group discussions.

Mind you, the professor was not in our group. I began speaking about my concerns as the Riddle’s Scale of Homophobia was being used to advocate for “nurturance,” or the highest level of support for those who are LGBT. This level also means you are willing to be an activist for the LGBT cause. I said to my group that I did not believe we should nurture transgender identification in minors specifically. I hold the belief (like the Church does) that it is not good to do so and could harm them.

The professor interrupted me in the middle of the discussion after eavesdropping, said I was spreading misinformation in the class, and then proceeded to kick me out when I said that minor girls were receiving testosterone in the UK (this also happens in the US, but the UK has now officially stopped doing this to minors under 16 for some reason… I couldn’t imagine why). I offered to provide source material with Abigail Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage, to back up my argument. It tells of the harm that gender ideology can play in people’s minds. 

This professor has since retired, and I am privy to multiple complaints that went to the dean about her including giving students zero points for assignments simply because she disagreed with their views. This is in addition to her rate my professor ratings. One says she is “fun in class, but only if you had opinions that she liked. Otherwise, you’re going to get shut down.” Another recounts her making students who disagree with her cry. 

She has taught at BYU for over 20 years. I just have one question to ask of the previous McKay School Dean (who is now the Academic Vice President): Why did she stay so long when you knew this was a problem?

This attitude towards gender identity is a reflection of a “compassion” that knows no bounds. Common representatives of this ideological bent use the second great commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” with all concerns. But as President Oaks in his address, “Two Great Commandments,” said, “our zeal to keep this second commandment must not cause us to forget the first, to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.” There is an order to those two commandments for a reason. 

I have another question. Why did BYU go along with the false narrative of the volleyball story? You knew it was false soon after the national news coverage hit, yet Tom Holmoe still ripped the BYU student fans and then disbanded the section by the court.

You punished students for crimes they didn’t commit based on a faux PR mess and then punished an innocent bystander who you knew was innocent well within hours of the incident. 

Seems like the person who was banned should get more of an apology than “BYU sincerely apologizes to that fan for any hardship the ban has caused.” Season tickets? Or how about a groveling, public apology like you did when the whole media defamed the school? How do you think it is like to be wrongly accused as a normal person and then thrown into a mass media witch hunt while the PR people of BYU stand behind the image of a school brand?

You went along to get along, and then you had to be saved by a couple students. You said in the statement, “We understand that the Duke players’ experience is what matters here.” Does that apply to the students who you implicitly shamed as racist because of one false and hypothetical racist action? Or did you just sense the racist attitudes in the “spirit of the room” like Professor Bates did in a previous Antiracism Club meeting?

Why is it that the BYU Law School is so scared to say that they canceled a pro-life speaker after someone got “offended” by his position on free speech and DEI? Is it really because you are scared of the truth? It sure seems that way. You can’t own up to your mistakes, and I understand, I graduated in PR. However, I’d expect BYU, of any school, to show some dignity and admit when they were wrong. Isn’t that what you expect of your students?

I can see that the lawyers at the BYU Law School are being trained very well to handle all the heated discussions they will have in their careers in court.

I personally call on the Law School to produce the emails that show all correspondence with the Federalist Society with regards to the event, proving that the Deseret News statement saying that the “Federalist Society officer was organizing an event and had invited a speaker without applying for approval under the Speakers and Events Policy” was actually the reason for the cancellation.

“Your truth” doesn’t apply in this reality. There is the Truth and your opinion. 

Dozens of times I have thought, “Can this really be happening at BYU?” 

Yes. It can. And it has. 

This just scrapes the surface of what the problems are. Each story – such as a professor saying you can be “a little bit pregnant” so she doesn’t know the morals of an abortion pill or the Daily Universe publishing resources that include the likes of Flourish Therapy (which advertises writing recommendation letters for medical transition) – is a signal to you, the BYU administration. 

Clean up and cure the illness. If you don’t you will continue to find more BYU students leaving the Church because a professor conflates Critical Theory with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

But what do I know? I’m just a 24-year-old BYU graduate. 

Written by: Thomas Stevenson

Founder and Editor Emeritus at the Cougar Chronicle

The opinions in this article are those of the author.

The Cougar Chronicle is an independent student-run newspaper and is not affiliated with Brigham Young University or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.