By JONATHAN BAGLEY
Excuse us AAUP. Pardon us if we do not conform.
Forgive us if we do not conform to the chaos universities nation-wide encourage.
In 1993 UCLA caved to a hunger strike by students and built a certain ethnic group their own student center (this after tuition quadrupled in California from 1990-92). Freshman at Harvard are invited to say they are homosexual, wether they are or not, during orientation.
Of course, if that is what BYU students wanted they could have attended either of those schools, but the students at BYU want to be schooled according to BYU standards. They are happy that way.
In reaction to the American Assocociation of University Professors’ release of information detrimental to BYU, KBYU news interviewed BYU students to obtain their responses. The students discounted the report. The students agreed they came to BYU knowing what the status quo is. Some students resented the AAUP’s findings, feeling it was a personal attack on the environment BYU offers–an environment students want preserved.
Gail Houston was the cause of the investigation leading to the AAUP report. Houston claims she wasn’t warned she was endangering her employment with her teachings. A reporter for the Daily Universe said everyone she interviewed concerning the Houston firing said BYU administration warned her and warned her and warned her.
Anyway, she was fired. The AAUP, who is comparable to the ACLU for university professors, didn’t like it. Of course they didn’t like it. It is their job to defend paid academians. It would be as suprising for the AAUP to not to release what they did, as it would have been for the ACLU to not create an uproar over the end of affirmative action at Berkeley.
BYU students and faculty recognize that. One of the students KBYU News interviewed said in his opinion the report will not influence his image of BYU or incoming freshman.
And the quote that summarizes the AAUP’s influence on BYU academics. Wilkins told the Daily Universe, “(The AAUP) is not an accrediting body, and we are not obligated to follow its policies. The only action the AAUP can take is to censure us in its publication … (and) the AAUP has censured numerous religious institutions.”
Wilkins comments reduce the AAUP to what it is–another duplicitous political group with their own agenda. It would add more to their credibility if they took an interest in professors’ rights to teach according BYU standards. Rights the AAUP and Gail Houston attempt to jeapordize.
Students come to BYU to be educated in a certain environment. That environement revolves around Gospel-centered academic subjects. Attempts to teach beliefs contrary to that attack the purpose of BYU and nullify its effectiveness in producing individuals that can contribute to society.
People who are not comfortable with that, the Honor Code, Gospel-centered instruction can go to secular universities. Tuition is more, but it’s a small price to pay for your freedom.
