“I feel like people are pretty good. I think sometimes you get a lot of judging just because it’s kind of a competition. I’ve just heard a lot of girls say, ‘Oh, her skirt’s way too short’ and stuff. So, clothing-wise people get judged on a lot. We each have our own criteria of what we should be living, so we take our standards and apply them to other people.
Shalene Hardman
Draper
Graduate Student
PD Bio
“I think we all do it to an extent. I’d like to think that people at BYU are a little more Christlike than the average person. So I’d say it’s an issue, but not a huge one. I think generally people at BYU try to respect each other and try to be kind and Christlike, but we’re all human as well so we can judge unimportant things as well.”
Brooke Zollinger
Livermore, Calif.
Junior
International Relations
“I guess I think both. I think definitely it’s a general issue for humanity. I think the unique culture at BYU creates unique criticism. With most people here being LDS, you get some stereotypes of what makes a good LDS person. ... You also get a lot of backwards criticism when people think they are being criticized by others, but really people don’t care what they look like or if they’re the smartest one in class.”
Paul Cannon
Salt Lake City
Senior
Russian
“I think judging is a general human issue. I think it’s magnified a little more at BYU than at other places simply because at BYU we have one group that’s dominant. I think anytime you get one group that’s dominant, those that are not part of that group or feel they don’t belong to that group feel judged, so I think it’s mostly having a bunch of people together who believe in the same basic belief system.”
Logan McDermott
Las Vegas
Senior
Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic