Students and alumni have organized sit-ins outside the Honor Code Office in response to a Church Education System (CES) statement released yesterday.
The sit-ins were organized through Twitter by a user named @jordeeeeeen, who created a signup sheet for individuals to take shifts for sit-ins Monday through Friday from March 5-13. As of noon on March 5, 54 individuals had signed up for various shifts on different days.
The sit-ins are taking place in the hallway where the Honor Code Office is located, on the fourth floor of the WSC.
BYU graduates Jaclyn Foster and Mason Foster are a married bisexual couple participating in the sit-in, who heard about it from @jordeeeeeen’s Twitter post.
“I’ve always been conscious of the fact that I didn’t face the same issues with loneliness and being completely unable to date anyone that a lot of queer students face,” Jaclyn said. “Since we were married the whole time before we came out, that gave us a lot of institutional protection and so I’ve always felt like it was important to use that to speak up for other members of the queer community who just feel a lot more fear.”
Jaclyn said the purpose of the sit-in is to prevent people from forgetting what happened with the Honor Code controversy.
“Students are a form of direct action that increase visibility and spread awareness of issues, so even though this kind of reversal of the policy is coming from higher up in CES (Church Education System), its not coming directly from the Honor Code Office, although they’re tasked with enforcing it,” Jaclyn said. “The Honor Code Office is kind of the visible, symbolic and practical location for this whole policy going down.”
Jaclyn said the protest that happened outside the Wilkinson Student Center yesterday was very visible to all students on campus, but she thinks that location is not sustainable for the point she and others are trying to get across in the long run.
“We just don’t want people to move on and forget about it as the news cycle turns over,” Jaclyn said.
