BYU students asks school to chop beard ban

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_Sammy Jankins
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BYU students asks school to chop beard ban

Post by _Sammy Jankins »

BYU students asks school to chop beard ban

About 50 Brigham Young University students on bikes, unicycles and roller blades circled a campus statue of the clean-shaven Mormon leader for whom their school is named Friday evening.

"Bike for beards!" they chanted, some wearing cardboard versions fastened with elastic, others sporting real tufts. The group of mostly men unraveled a petition asking the school to rethink its no-fuzz policy.
_DarkHelmet
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Re: BYU students asks school to chop beard ban

Post by _DarkHelmet »

Kicking against the pricks will not be tolerated. I suspect the pricks will be sending letters to these students soon.
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_Tator
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Re: BYU students asks school to chop beard ban

Post by _Tator »

DarkHelmet wrote:Kicking against the pricks will not be tolerated. I suspect the pricks will be sending letters to these students soon.


Tator's funny bone meets DarkHelmet. :lol:
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_Sammy Jankins
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Re: BYU students asks school to chop beard ban

Post by _Sammy Jankins »

DarkHelmet wrote:Kicking against the pricks will not be tolerated. I suspect the pricks will be sending letters to these students soon.


Darkhelmet I don't know if you're the first one to turn the "kicking against the pricks" scripture like that but I had a good laugh.

I think the demonstration was quite reasonable, but it has more potential to backfire as someone pointed out on Reddit using an example at BYU-Idaho.

Here's the story. This was posted to a closed Facebook group a few months ago:

22 June 22, 2014

A little while ago, I referenced an experience I had (indirectly) with Elder Bednar, then President of BYU-Idaho. I feel like tonight is actually kind of a poignant time to share it.

As the head op-ed writer at the student newspaper during my junior year at BYU-Idaho, it was my job to report and offer my opinion about the goings on around school. Many times, that had to do directly with the administration and its dealings with the students.

I believe it was the late fall of 2003 when the school announced that it would be extending curfew by one hour. Imagine the excitemen!


At that point, curfew was at midnight (If I recall correctly) on the weekends and 10 p.m. on weekdays. There was also a "guys out/girls out" curfew -- and hour before regular curfew every day, where the opposite sex had to be out of apartments. So guys out/girls out was at 11 p.m. on weekends and 9 p.m. on weekdays.


Administration announced the new curfew, and it became a big controversy. Why? Because they had indeed pushed curfew on the weekends to 1 a.m. But they kept guys out/girls out at 11 p.m., resulting in a reduction in curfew in many ways, since there aren't a lot of wholesome places to go in Rexburg, Idaho between the hours of 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. The hour gap was always intended to give students time to get back to their places safely. Now they were being given 2 whole hours to kill.


Students were pretty upset. They felt like they had been misled, as the PR arm of the school had been intentionally leaking for months the fact that curfew was being extended.

I wrote a somewhat scathing column about it. In the column, I accused the PR department of "pulling the wool over" the eyes of the students and calling on the administration to either explain to the students why it was done, or to change the rule. Letters to the editor poured in. Students were not happy.


The administration (again, headed by then-President Bednar) wouldn't budge. They stood firm on the new rule.


A few weeks later, I was called in to meet with the Dean of Student Life, Jim Gee (who is now on his second stint as a Mission President). We had a very long talk about my column. He told me that many members of the administration, including President Bednar, were not happy with not just that column, but others I had written. He told me that the administration considered me to be "inflammatory."


Then he told me something very interesting. He told me that the discrepancy in the new curfew rule was actually the result of a misprint in the brochure and press release announcing the new change. Guys out/girls out was supposed to be pushed forward an hour along with regular curfew, but there was a mistake in the printed materials that were released as part of the announcement. They didn't have a chance to correct it before my column came out in the paper.


What a blunder! I thought the next thing out of President Gee's mouth was going to be that they were going to put out a new brochure, press release and apologize for the mistake.

Instead, he told me that President Bednar had decided to KEEP the misprinted rule in place. And why was he doing this? Because he refused to be made to look like he was changing his mind because of students who were "demonstrating."


The infamous "typo" curfew rule stayed in place until after President Bednar left to become a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. President Clark changed it about a year after I graduated from school.


I tell this story tonight because, to me personally, it demonstrates how the leaders of our church operate, and I find it incredibly frustrating. Even in the face of doing the right thing for the right reason, there is stubbornness only for the sake of saving face and not being made to look weak.


So if the current BYU administration is anything like Bednar it is all futile. I know many will say that if you don't like it, you can leave. But in reality it's normal to attend a university or have a job where you overall prefer it, but would like to see a few changes. At my place of employment they've actually changed a couple policies because they were unpopular. And they don't just tell us we can quit everytime we have a quibble over a minor policy.
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Re: BYU students asks school to chop beard ban

Post by _Tator »

I am not sure if this whole thread isn't a bald faced lie.


I know, shame on me, 10,000 comedians are out work and I'm trying to funny.
a.k.a. Pokatator joined Oct 26, 2006 and permanently banned from MAD Nov 6, 2006
"Stop being such a damned coward and use your real name to own your position."
"That's what he gets for posting in his own name."
2 different threads same day 2 hours apart Yohoo Bat 12/1/2015
_Polygamy-Porter
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Re: BYU students asks school to chop beard ban

Post by _Polygamy-Porter »

Tator wrote:I am not sure if this whole thread isn't a bald faced lie.


I know, shame on me, 10,000 comedians are out work and I'm trying to funny.

I ROFD. Rolled on floor dying. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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