By Sunny Layne
In light of the behavior many fans exhibited Saturday night against former BYU-turned-Oklahoma State basketball player Daniel Bobik, many BYU students and professors are wondering how students at BYU got so petty and intolerant.
In regard to the endless taunting Bobik received from the mouths of BYU fans, including “traitor” and “this is what happens when you leave the church,” BYU political science assistant professor Matthew Holland expressed his disappointment.
“What do we imagine Daniel”s current coach, teammates and university community thought of us as we welcomed back one of our own with such pettiness and incivility?” Holland wrote in a letter to the editor. “If this is the kind of community to which Daniel is a ”traitor,” let us all be traitors.”
In another letter to the editor, associate professor of Special Collections at Oklahoma State University Dr. Jennifer Paustenbaugh suggested one reason for BYU students” intolerance is a complacent attitude developed from living in a culture where so many share the same beliefs.
“Because of Bobik”s athletic talent and his good character, people all over Oklahoma and around the Big 12 Athletic Conference are hearing about the church in the most positive way,” she wrote. “Unlike the comfort of being a member of the church in Utah, he is under constant scrutiny here in Oklahoma.”
BYU associate professor in counseling and psychology Rachel Crook Lyon said there is a psychological phenomenon known as “groupthink,” which may explain many of the social mores and opinions BYU students have developed.
Lyon said an example of groupthink would be a situation where two roommates in an apartment are engaged, and then within a few months, the whole apartment becomes engaged.
“In situations like these, people make decisions using other people as the yardstick,” she said. “They don”t necessarily weigh all the options.”
In a culture where dating and marriage are on many students” goal lists, single BYU junior Scott Paxman said he has felt the sting of local popular opinions.
“I had a roommate four months off his mission who always referred to me as, ”Scott, the 25-year-old,”” he said. “He was fully into that BYU attitude.”
Paxman said because so many things are “cut and dry” at BYU, most people have begun to think the same way.
“I know if I was back in Oregon as a single 25-year-old, it wouldn”t be as big a deal,” he said.
Lyon said the reason human beings sometimes hold onto rigid social rules is because they provide a solid social framework in which to fit-in.
“[Social mores] make people feel comfortable,” she said. “If you know what the rules are, it helps people feel they can be comfortable and okay.”
Uncomfortable clashes of opinion can occur when people visit a tight-knit culture, as seen with former White House correspondent Helen Thomas” BYU Forum speech in September.
Her lecture was peppered with boos and students getting up and leaving in protest to her admitted “liberal” views.
“I was embarrassed at students” behavior,” Lyon said. “There is no real way to disagree respectfully in a large forum, but it is possible to write a letter to the editor after, among other things.”
Associate Director of Multicultural Student Services Jim Slaughter said some multicultural students he has worked with have suffered from other BYU students” narrow-mindedness.
He said some students think BYU is the greatest and do not want to leave, and some have said, “”I can”t wait to get out,”” he said.
But rather than overt shows of intolerance, Slaughter said the most common thing multicultural students encounter is ignorance.
Marriage, Family and Human Development major and multicultural student Jennifer Guirola said BYU is a friendly place, but considering the student body is full of return missionaries who have served all over the world, she is surprised at how many students seem clueless about cultural differences.
“You”d expect more from a school like this,” she said. “You hear a lot of stereotypes. A lot of people here have grown up sheltered in a bubble, without much difference in race or ethnicities around. Lots of people assume I”m Mexican just because I look Latin.”
We may live in a bubble, as Guirola suggested, but Daniel Bobik”s wife, Natalie, told The Daily Universe BYU students” examples extend much farther than our immediate surroundings, and that no matter our personal opinions, we need to recognize we are always representing our church.
“I have no hard feelings,” she said. “But I want BYU [students] to know that they are examples for good or bad and that what they do and say matters.”
