Welcome to the Homepage of the BYU Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

The BYU Chapter of the AAUP is similarly dedicated to helping BYU fulfill its promise.

1. Information on hiring, retention and promotion issues at BYU
2. Information on the Firing of Steven Epperson
3. Notes on the BYU Academic Freedom Document of 1992
4. Information on the BYU Visit of the National AAUP Investigative Team
5. Gail Houston; Pertinent Information and Documents Relevant to Houston's Tenure Denial
6. Brian Evenson; Letter of Resignation from BYU
7. Issues Pertinent to the Status of Women at BYU
8. Issues Dealing with the new BYU Ecclesiastical Endorsement Policy
9. Issues of Academic Freedom at BYU

The BYU AAUP believes important problems exist in policies and procedures pertinent to hiring, retention and promotion at BYU. For example, we recently discovered that the University Administration asked that five third-year review candidates in the English Department add to their files all student evaluation summaries, all student comments, all theses worked on, texts of all speeches, panel discussions, etc., made at symposia, conferences, and fora dealing with Mormon issues, and texts of all material published on Mormon issues.

We contend the requirement to add these materials to a candidate's file represents substantial departure from established policy. We are very concerned with these changes, done without faculty involvement, discussion or even announcement.

In response to these policy changes and to other issues pertinent to hiring, retention and promotion, the following correspondence between the BYU AAUP and BYU administration was initiated. We hope by this correspondence to initiate a meaningful discussion of the entire third-year and tenure review process.

Letter to President Merrill Bateman; 27 February 1997

February 27, 1997

Dear President Bateman:

This is our first attempt to communicate with you since our meeting at the end of January at which you emphasized your "open door policy" and expressed your desire to work with us in the future.

It has come to our attention that the University Council on Rank and Status has asked that five third-year review candidates in the English Department add to their files all student evaluation summaries, all student comments, all theses worked on, texts of all speeches, panel discussions, etc., made at symposia, conferences, and forums dealing with Mormon issues, and texts of all material published on Mormon issues.

According to the policies established in the "University Policy on Faculty Rank and Status: Professorial":

7.4 It is the candidate's responsibility to develop a file that is professional and complete as defined in this document. [Emphasis added. There is nothing in the document or in the "Checklist for . . . Documentation" that even suggests anything like what is now being required.]

7.5 Candidates should make available in the departmental office copies of other books, peer-reviewed articles, other publications or other written materials which the faculty member has authored, edited, or otherwise contributed to . . . which are to be considered for evaluation. [Emphasis added. The document and the "Checklist" require "a list of all scholarly work (refereed journal articles and technical publications. . .)," and clearly not copies of remarks made on panels or non-scholarly writing in Mormon-related publications.]

7.6 The faculty member should provide a complete file but use discretion, because the file itself is an indication of a faculty member's professional maturity. The faculty member is particularly encouraged to avoid the inclusion of extraneous or non-substantial evidence, and to keep the file at a minimum size consistent with a complete, relevant presentation. [Emphasis added. The newly required documents fall under "extraneous or non-substantial evidence" and are not relevant.]

7.7 The department chair should request student evaluations of faculty teaching for each course taught. . . . Care should be taken to insure that a representative sample of students is obtained. [The department chair is instructed to read these and summarize them, not to provide all of them to the university.]

The policy clearly does not require "all student evaluation summaries" or "all student comments." There is no requirement that student theses be included in the file. And there is no mention of texts of all speeches and panel discussions made at symposia, conferences, and forums dealing with Mormon issues or texts of all material published on Mormon issues. This is an unannounced, ad hoc requirement that has not been reviewed by the university community as a whole and that goes counter to the spirit and letter of university procedures.

The new policy has several serious drawbacks. It places an unreasonable burden on the candidate to supply large amounts of material. It will come between students and their thesis advisors, inhibiting the very inquiry a thesis is meant to promote. And, as the following historical note suggests, it provides the administration the opportunity to construct oversimplified portraits in place of the more informed and accurate portraits that members of a department construct through summary of their personal experience with the candidate.

Kent Harrison, of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, reports that his father, Bertrand F. Harrison, who taught botany at BYU for 45 years, headed the University Teaching Committee for several years, at President Wilkinson's request. Student evaluations of teaching were instituted about that same time (late 1960's). His father insisted that teaching evaluations be made available only to the faculty member him/herself and to the department chair, who had the best information about a faculty member's individual circumstances.

More distanced readers of a few excerpted student comments, the argument went, will invariably form a false picture of a candidate (note the use that was made of such excerpts from Gail Houston's evaluations).

Because the change is apparently aimed solely at five faculty members in the English Department, we are concerned that the university is not following its own wish to maintain balance and consistency in the rank and tenure process. We are concerned that such expansive and intrusive gathering of information will send the message that the rank and status procedure is not intended to discover the quality and breadth of the candidates' thinking, but rather an effort to control the academic pursuits of faculty and to punish.

Does your administration understand what effect this new request will have on present and potential members of the BYU community?

What will this mean for the supposed "extra academic freedom" we enjoy here to speak and do research on Mormon issues? Will this become the one university in the country where no one will be willing to risk working on Mormon topics? In this climate, what faculty member would ever be willing to speak on any issue that might at some future time be deemed to be controversial by some future authority?

Finally, while we hold strongly to the opinion that it is a change of policy and improper to request these additional materials from the English Department candidates, in the event that such materials were to be supplied, another serious problem arises in requesting that candidates comment on the materials to help put them in context.

Since the University Council has not carefully specified the reasons for this request, the comments from the candidates will be made only on the basis of their speculations about the Council's potential concerns. These comments could miss the mark and actually raise new questions that the Council has not contemplated, thus putting a loyal candidate, who is trying to do the right thing, in the position of inadvertently creating problems for himself or herself. This is unacceptable in any respectable system of policies and rules created for the protection of the faculty as well as the institution. Having said this, we repeat that it is not acceptable for the University Faculty Council on Rank and Status to make any request for documents outside those required by established procedures, and that such a requirement violates the candidates' academic freedom.

We ask you to carefully consider the appropriateness of the request from the Rank and Status committee and direct them in the proper way to proceed.

Sincerely,

Members of the BYU Chapter of the AAUP

Letter to the BYU AAUP from Jim Gordon; 5 March 1997

March 5, 1997

Your letter of February 27 has been referred to me for response.

The practice of review committees to request aditional information when they have questions is well established. Because the English Department and College of Humanities review committees have asked to see any documents that the University Faculty Council will use as it considers the files, the candidates have been requested to include the documents in their files so that they can be reviewed by the committees at all levels.

I disagree that requesting additional information violates the candidates' academic freedom. The Faculty Council is charged with conducting careful reviews, and it is entitled to review the entire body of a candidate's work if it chooses to do so. The rank and status policy does not require the Faculty Council to provide the candidates with a list of concerns. Rather, the Faculty Council will review the files in light of the expectations that are set forth in the rank and status policy and that apply to all faculty.

I hope that the above information is helpful.

Sincerely,

James D. Gordon III

cc Randall Jones, Jay Fox, Thomas Plummer, Douglas Thayer

Letter to President Merrill Bateman; 13 March 1997

13 March 1997

Dear President Bateman:

In response to our letter of February 27 outlining concerns about requirements made of the five English-Department candidates for third-year review, Jim Gordon (5 March) stated that in his opinion the University was legally justified in its actions. He ignored everything we argued about the effects of this new policy on the academic life and morale of the university. In what follows, we will comment on Jim's points and then reiterate what we believe to be compelling reasons for reconsidering a policy that will, in our opinion, not be in the best interest of this university.

Jim wrote that "because the English Department and College of Humanities review committees have asked to see any documents that the University Faculty Council will use as it considers the files, the candidates have been requested to include the documents in their files so that they can be reviewed by the committees at all levels."

When Tom Plummer (chair of the College of Humanities advancement committee) and Doug Thayer (chair of the advancement committee of the English Department) met last year with the administration, they did not ask that candidates be required to include any and all documents relating to Mormonism, all theses directed, all student comments on evaluations. Does Jim's reply mean that the University has always collected all that information and has routinely used it for rank and status decisions, without the knowledge of the candidates or department or college committees?

"The practice of review committees to request additional information when they have questions is well established," Jim wrote. What are the questions here? Does the University council have the same questions for all five of these candidates and do the questions require the same documents? Are these five candidates, and none of the other candidates for advancement across the university, under suspicion?

Jim wrote that "the Faculty Council . . . is entitled to review the entire body of a candidate's work if it chooses to do so." How does the administration define "work"? If the faculty member is a physicist and gives a speech denouncing nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site, would you consider that "work"? If a faculty member in Engineering gave a talk in a sacrament meeting about Jesus and the Pharisees, would you consider that "work"? If a faculty member in Music read a paper at the Sunstone symposium on the science fiction of Orson Scott Card, would you consider that "work"?. There must be distinctions made between the work BYU faculty members do professionally and what they do in their private lives.

For a fuller argument of Jim's point that "the rank and status policy does not require the Faculty Council to provide the candidates with a list of concerns," see Fred Gedicks letter of 8 April 1996 in support of Gail Houston (copy included).

But finally, although these details are interesting and important, our concerns about the effects of this policy on the academic climate at BYU lie at the heart of our protest. We repeat:

The new policy has several serious drawbacks beyond its departure from established procedures:

It places an unreasonable burden on the candidate to supply large amounts of material.

It will come between students and their thesis advisors, inhibiting the very inquiry a thesis is meant to promote.

It provides the administration the opportunity to construct oversimplified sketches in place of the more informed and accurate portraits that members of a department construct through summary of their personal experience with the candidate.

Because the change is apparently aimed solely at five faculty members in the English Department, we are concerned that the university is not following its own wish to maintain balance and consistency in the rank and tenure process.

Such expansive and intrusive gathering of information will send the message that the rank and status procedure is not intended to discover the quality and breadth of the candidates' thinking, but is rather an effort to control the academic pursuits of faculty and to punish.

This action will have an inhibiting effect on research on and discussion of Mormon topics.

We assume that you and the members of your administration are interested in these issues. But your short response providing "information" belies that assumption.

We remain committed to our belief that BYU will be a more vital and productive university if decisions are made in the context of vigorous debate and open processes.

Sincerely,

Members of the BYU Chapter of the AAUP

cc AVP Alan Wilkins, AAVP Jim Gordon

Letter from Jim Gordon to the BYU AAUP; 25 March 1997

March 25, 1997

Dear [Members of the BYU Chapter of the AAUP]:

I am responding to your letter of March 13.

Your letter correctly observes that the department and college committees did not request that the candidates include additional information in their files. However, the University Faculty Council on Rank and Status acted within its jurisdiction when it requested additional information relevant to the candidates' teaching, scholarship, and citizenship. Because the department and college committees asked to see any documents that the Faculty Council will use as it considers the candidates, the candidates were requested to include the documents in their files at the beginning of the process so that the items could be reviewed by the committees at all levels.

You have asked, "Does Jim's reply mean that the University has always collected all that information and has routinely used it for rank and status decisions, without the knowledge of the candidates or department or college committees?" The answer is no. If documents are added to a file, the candidate is given an opportunity to respond.

Incidently, your description of the documents requested by the Faculty Council is incorrect. I assume that you have not seen the Faculty Council's request, but are instead relying to some degree on a generalized description that was circulated in the English Department.

The Faculty Council's request is narrower than that description. I understand that the candidates have been advised of the specific request.

A faculty member's body of work consists of his [sic] teaching, scholarship, and citizenship as described in the rank and status policy. The requested documents relate to activities with students or in public and are relevant to the standards set forth in the rank and status policy.

While I have a close and longstanding friendship with Professor Gedicks, I disagree that the rank and status policy requires the Faculty Council to give candidates a list of concerns. That issue was addressed last year, and it was correctly concluded that the rank and status policy does not require such a list. The standards that apply to a candidate's teaching, scholarship, and citizenship are clearly set forth in the rank and status policy.

I would like to respond briefly to the drawbacks your letter asserts about the Faculty Council's request for additional information:

1. The burden on candidates is not unreasonable in light of the importance of the rank and status process. In most cases it merely requires some additional photocopying.
2. Review committees are entitled to evaluate theses and dissertation. Section 3.5.1. of the rank and status policy provides: "It is incumbent upon the applicant to provide persuasive documentation, such as the following: . . . The products of good teaching and mentoring, such as: . . . honors, masters, or PhD theses supervised . . . ." The theses and dissertations are relevant, and it is incumbent upon the candidates to provide them if requested by a review committee.
3. The recommendations at every level will be more informed, not less, by the additional information.
4. Faculty review committees request additional information when they have questions. The fact that they have questions about some candidates does not mean that they are being inconsistent. Review committees have also requested additional information about candidates in other departments.
5. The request for additional information is intended only to help in evaluating the candidates' teaching, scholarship, and citizenship consistent with the standards set forth in University policy.
6. The assertion that the request will inhibit research on Mormon topics assumes that the Faculty Council has requested, as your letter asserts, "any and all documents relating to Mormonism." That assumption is incorrect.

People will disagree about whether the benefits of the Faculty Council's request exceed the costs. However, that is not the issue. The issue is whether the administration should intervene in a faculty peer-review process and prohibit a faculty review committee from requesting relevant information. It is ironic that the AAUP, which advocates faculty self-governance, is insisting that the administration overrule the request of a faculty committee that is acting within its jurisdiction. It is also ironic that the local AAUP group advocates "vigorous debate and open processes," but wants the administration to deny a request for information that a faculty committee considers relevant in the review process. Vigorous debate and open processes are best served by honoring the Faculty Council's request for additional relevant information.

The practice of review committees to request additional information is well established. The administration has consistently honored requests for additional information by faculty review committees at the department, college, and university levels. To overrule a faculty committee's legitimate request for information would be a departure from established procedures.

Sincerely,

James D. Gordon III

cc Randall L. Jones, C. Jay Fox, Thomas G. Plummer, Douglas H. Thayer

Letter to Jim Gordon; 9 April 1997

James D. Gordon III
Associate Academic Vice President
D-387 ASB

8 April 1997

Dear Jim:

Thank you for your letter of 25 March responding to our letters of 13 March and 27 February.

You correctly point out that in our first letter we requested something that seems to go against AAUP guidelines -- "We ask you to carefully consider the appropriateness of the request from the Rank and Status committee and direct them in the proper way to proceed." We added that sentence to a draft of our letter in a conscious attempt to ease the tension, to allow the administration to step back gracefully from a counterproductive and ill-advised policy. We should not have done so, and we apologize. In the process, however, you have clearly stated the administration's commitment to faculty governance, and that is a positive step.

It seems important, nevertheless, to consider the context in which we asked the administration to request that a committee adhere to university regulations.

There is essentially no faculty governance at BYU. The single elected faculty group, the "Faculty Advisory Council," has only advisory power.

Contrary to AAUP guidelines accepted and practiced by nearly every university in the United States, the University Faculty Council on Rank and Status, arguably the most important committee at this university, is not elected by faculty, but appointed by the administration.

This Council is not chaired by a faculty member, but by an administrator.

The Council on Rank and Status has overturned departmental and college-committee recommendations in every recent controversial case relating to academic freedom.

The letter requesting that the five English Department candidates for third-year review provide additional materials, including presentations made at symposia and fora relating to Mormonism, was written by you, as chair of that Council, and sent under your name.

On the basis of our experience with administrative procedures at least since 1993 (the Konchar-Farr and Knowlton cases) and on the basis of reports from members of the Faculty Council on Rank and Status, it is our perception that the committee did not vote to request that information, but that it was an administrative decision. (Endnote #1)

Third-year and tenure review has become a zero-sum game wherein even productive junior faculty members are in serious jeopardy of losing their jobs. Relations between the administration and faculty have suffered greatly; and the Faculty Council for Rank and Status, as it has gone against departmental and college recommendations on the basis of its interpretations of candidates' "worthiness," bears some of the responsibility for that decline.

A few additional notes:

You argue that we misrepresented the contents of your letter to the five candidates in the English Department. While we did not reproduce the exact wording, we correctly captured its meaning. Would you have preferred that we reproduce the extensive and telling list of suspect publications and symposia and fora you mentioned: Sunstone, Dialogue, B.H. Roberts Society, Mormon Women's Forum, etc.?

You write that "The request for additional information is intended only to help in evaluating the candidates' teaching, scholarship, and citizenship consistent with the standards set forth in University policy"; but in the context the administration has established with intrusive questions to and investigation of prospective faculty members (Endnote #2), and by refusing advancement to faculty members on the basis of arbitrary, unannounced, and unforeseeable standards, the request is bound to be seen as simply as an attempt to find reasons to deny advancement. In a more robust environment, your note that "vigorous debate and open processes are best served by . . . [providing] additional relevant information" would make sense. But in place of vigorous debate and open processes, we are witnessing concerted (and demoralizing) actions by our administrators to determine, unilaterally, which colleagues will join us and who will be required to leave.

While it is true that the rank and status document allows that "honors, masters, or Ph.D. theses supervised" may be (!) included in advancement files as evidence of good teaching (and we concur that theses can in fact reflect a faculty member's skill as a mentor), it seems clear that the current request of these five candidates is not aimed at evaluating teaching, but rather at finding methodological approaches (feminist? postmodern?) opposed by administrators, or statements by the students opposed to someone's definition of Church doctrine -- evidence that can be used to punish the advisor. Again, in an environment committed to academic excellence, our objection would not arise.

In response to our argument about the potential for misrepresentation through the raw data of student comments on evaluations as opposed to summaries provided by departmental committees and chairs, you wrote that "the recommendations at every level will be more informed, not less, by the additional information." Republican Senators recently demanded that they be allowed to see the raw FBI files on a cabinet nominee before approving him. Because those files include every unsubstantiated allegation and rumor and therefore contain false and/or irrelevant information, it was argued that more information was not better information. That is our argument: the best, most complete, most accurate picture of a candidate is found in the departmental summary of a candidate. After all, those with the best information and with the greatest ability to bring context to a candidate's strengths and weaknesses are those colleagues closest to the candidate.

Finally, although we appreciate the time you spend to respond to us, we are concerned that our exchange of letters is not particularly productive. This correspondence has turned out to be a largely private and adversarial process: you defending the administration's actions and we questioning them. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any real give and take. This is a "debate" over issues that have already been decided without consultation or apparent deliberation by the BYU administration, and you are merely providing "information." As we have stated repeatedly, we are concerned that the university community at large is not involved in an ongoing and meaningful discussion of faculty governance and academic freedom at BYU. We continue to be concerned that those affected by policies have little say in establishing and implementing them. These concerns led us to ask the AAUP to send its investigative team to BYU, and we hope that their eventual report will facilitate more faculty involvement in decisions here; but aren't there ways we can work better together as faculty and administration to decide questions crucial to us all?

What would you think, for example, of a public discussion of these issues, moderated by an independent, respected senior faculty member?

Sincerely,

Members of the BYU Chapter of the AAUP

cc President Merrill J. Bateman, AVP Alan Wilkins

Endnote #1: Last Monday (March 31), in the English Department faculty meeting with Alan Wilkins and Merrill Bateman, members of the department raised the question of the fairness of the additional requests of our third-year review candidates. During the discussion, Stephen Tanner, currently a member of the University Council on Rank and Status, explained his perceptions of the request. He said that from the discussion in which this list was generated, he thought the list to be merely advisory and helpful to the English Department Rank and Status Committee. He said that Jim Gordon asked the Council, "What sorts of things should the English Department be looking at so that they examine all the relevant information about their candidates?" Suggestions were made by individual members of the Council, several of whom have only begun their assignment on that body. Stephen said that the material requested should not have been considered as an official request of the Council because the Council did not vote upon and approve the individual items suggested; they didn't feel they needed to because they were only making a recommendation, not issuing a mandate. For Jim Gordon then to interpret that list as a mandate and in his letter to require the candidates to submit the materials seems to us a misuse of his authority and a deception of both the University Council and the English Department. Or, if he did not do this intentionally, it is a very serious mistake that he ought to be willing to admit and rectify. Almost the entire faculty of the English Department was present in this meeting, and we all heard Steve Tanner explain what he thought. President Bateman seemed to agree with Steve Tanner and recognize the error because he instructed Doug Thayer to get back to Jim Gordon about the matter. President Bateman said, "It is likely this will not happen again." (As reported by three professors of English present at the discussion.)

Endnote #2: Reports from interviews with you indicate that you are disqualifying candidates based on their answers to questions that feel like they are coming from the House Committee on Un-Mormon Activities, e.g. What would you tell a student who said she prayed to a Mother in Heaven? What would you do if a General Authority asked you not to publish research you had done? What do you think of academic freedom at BYU?

The following article by Scott Abbott of Brigham Young University will appear in the coming edition of Sunstone.

On Ecclesiastical Endorsement at Brigham Young University

Scott Abbott

Religion is being destroyed by the Inquisition, for to see a man burned because he believes he has acted rightly is painful to people, it exasperates them. — William of Orange

During Gail Houston's August 1996 appeal of Brigham Young University's decision to deny her tenure, despite overwhelmingly positive English Department and College Committee votes, Associate Academic Vice President James Gordon testified that procedurally the University could not be faulted. Houston broke into his technical testimony to remind Gordon and the appeal panel that the hearing was about more than technicalities, that she was a woman with a family, that she was being forced from a position at a University where she had served with dedication, that the decision, in short, was existentially important to her. Gordon's responded to the panel that in her outburst she had exhibited the behavior that had lead to her dismissal: "From the moment she arrived on campus we have been unable to control her."

On October 22, 1996, Steven Epperson, an assistant professor of history at BYU since 1993, was told that his services would no longer be required as of the end of August 1997. This made him an early casualty of the policy announced by BYU President Merrill Bateman on February 8, 1996, according to which the bishop "of each Church member employed at BYU" would be asked to certify annually "whether the person is currently eligible for a [temple] recommend."

The University clearly has the legal right to establish regulations like the one demanding that all faculty must undergo ecclesiastical endorsement; and Epperson's bishop, for reasons I will enumerate later, would not certify him. Similarly, James Gordon may have been right when he asserted the University correctly carried out its own policies in Gail Houston's case (although the American Association of University Professors has argued otherwise, and is currently formally investigating BYU for academic freedom violations). But when Houston appealed for a wiser, more charitable judgment, when she asked that Gordon, for the University, look into her face and discern there more than the features of a feminist who has supposedly "enervated the moral fiber" of the University, she showed us a way out of the sanctimonious edifice we have constructed for ourselves, or have allowed to be constructed.

In this spirit, I would like you to consider the following portrait of Steven Epperson. My rendering will not do him justice; but it is fuller and more honest than the meager sketch passed from his bishop to BYU administrators. I have known Steven and his family for nearly twenty years. We have collaborated together. We are friends.

Steven was born in Salt Lake City in 1954. After high school he enrolled as a student at Brown University. He served a mission in France from 1974 to 1976. A section from his poem "Tangled Woods and Parisian Light" (Sunstone, April 1991) evokes an experience from that time, contrasting the quiet message of two missionaries with a riot taking place nearby:

  . . .

  A boy clung to his father's leg
  Eyes on the street wide and wincing,
  The man cradled his son's head listening
  While the other pair spoke in low voices,
  Searching for words in an alien tongue.

  A dog was strung up on a lamp post,
  A placard hung round its attenuated neck,
  Its hanging tongue the same deep crimson
  As the shrill apocalyptic text
  Which it bore upon its broken chest.

  The two bent nearer the father and the son
  As if to shield them from the proximate menace,
  Continuing the tale of a youth
  And the questions he bore into a tangled wood.

  The seried ranks of acolytes bore the epicenter of the quake away
  Leaving clustered knots of onlookers among the rubble
  To register the aftershocks, the emptied vials of wrath --
  The simplicity of the shouted syllogisms
  The utter directness of the violence
  The thrill of the extraordinary gesture.

  The tale neared its end:

  "The woods shone.
  The boy returned through the fields,
  A live ember of divine words in his hand.
  And thus his story began."

Steven was graduated from Brown in religious studies in 1979. He married Diana Girsdansky, whom he had met in the Providence Ward. After he had earned an M.A. from the University of Chicago Divinity School, Steven moved with Diana and their children to Princeton, New Jersey, where they spent a year before beginning a Ph.D. program in religious studies at Temple University in Philadelphia. I still remember the first priesthood meeting I sat through with the young man whose earnest voice and careful thinking made us all look forward to the year he would spend as a member of the Princeton Ward. At Temple, Steven studied with Paul van Buren, now director of the Center of Ethics and Religious Pluralism at the Shalom Institute in Jerusalem, and worked with Mormon historian Richard Bushman, then at the University of Delaware. For a personal description of Steven's years at Temple, see "House of the Temple, House of the Lord: A View from Philadelphia" (Dialogue, Fall 1987).

After graduation, the Eppersons moved to Salt Lake City, where Steven became history curator at the Museum of Church History and Art. He helped develop the permanent exhibition of Church history now displayed on the museum's main floor and curated various exhibitions on Church history and art, including "The Mountain of the House of the Lord," an exhibit commemorating the centennial of the Salt Lake Temple. In 1993 Steven began teaching as an assistant professor in BYU's history department.

When BYU's new policy required Steven's Bishop, Andrew Clark, to certify his temple worthiness, Clark refused, on the grounds that Steven was not attending Sunday school or priesthood meeting, nor was he currently paying tithing. Some background on both counts will be helpful.

Although he was still paying fast offerings, Steven was in fact paying no tithing at the time. Diana was starting up the Children's Music Conservatory, a public, non-profit, and initially expensive undertaking, and their best estimate was that after the Music Conservatory's summer camp in June it would begin to break even and they would be repaid the money they had paid out.

Hannah, the Epperson's daughter, and Diana were not attending church, the family was going off in different directions, Steven reports, and there was some tension and disagreement. Uncomfortable with that state of affairs, they followed Hannah's advice and sought a Sunday activity they could do together as a family. Eventually they began going to Pioneer Park to join other Salt Lake residents in feeding the homeless. This was a deliberate and thoughtful attempt to keep the family together and focused on Sunday-related issues and services. Between November 1995 and April 1996, Steven raced back from Pioneer Park to attend sacrament meeting in his ward.

On May fifth, several months after Bishop Clark's initial refusal to certify Steven temple worthy and after Steven had been contacted by James Gordon, Steven met with Clark. He offered, despite the family problems it would cause, to attend priesthood and Sunday school in a neighboring ward, and explained he would pay tithing again after the Conservatory's summer camp. On the same day, in an incident that felt, in the context of the attempt to come to terms, like a slap in the face, Clark refused to approve Nick, the Epperson's youngest son, for ordination to the priesthood -- because he would not promise to attend all of his meetings. Nick said he would be with his family half of the month and attend meetings the other half; but this wasn't good enough for Clark.

On May 10, Steven had a follow-up telephone conversation with Clark, who told him that July-September was an insufficient period to judge whether he was a sincere tithe payer, and that no other church meetings would fill the requirement. Steven was a member of the 18th Ward. Period. Clark lectured Steven on principles of "priesthood leadership," explaining that Steven should lead and expect his family to follow as he "laid out the program." (Later in the month, Steven met with Stake President Wood in a desparate attempt to plead Nick's case. Wood listened while Steven explained that it felt to him that Clark was punishing Nick for Steven's choices, but finally said he would have to work out the matter with Clark.)

All Steven could hope for at this point was that the BYU administration would try to understand that his predicament was the result of the inflexibility of his local leaders, and perhaps intervene. On May 17, Steven met with Gordon and told him that Clark had rebuffed his good faith effort to begin paying tithing at the end of June and to attend priesthood and Sunday school in another ward. He asked Gordon to speak with his bishop to try to achieve a compromise. Gordon said he could do nothing.

Finally, in mid-October, Gordon asked Steven if he could speak with his bishop. Steven agreed, asking only that Gordon give him a full report of what Clark said, so that he could verify the information. Gordon agreed. On October 22, Steven was summoned to Gordon's office, to discuss, Steven thought, what the bishop had said. Gordon gave a short report of his conversation with Clark. Steven responded. The letter of dismissal, which Gordon subsequently handed to Steven, was lying on the desk while they spoke. The administration had decided, the letter said, to terminate Steven's contract as of August 1997.

When Gordon later explained, in a Deseret News article about Steven's dismissal (23 January 1997), that the person involved "can give us permission to speak with the bishop, and we will work with people if they are making a good faith effort," it did not match the process Steven had experienced, for Gordon had refused to speak with the bishop to work things out and denied Steven's good faith effort in the face of absolute inflexibility.

I tell this story not to argue that Steven was doing something better than going to church, nor to argue that his stubbornness in the face of what he saw as un-Christian inflexibility was the most politic choice, but rather to point out that routine church activity (as opposed to deeply held values) may be subject to circumstances. What is possible one year becomes more complicated the next; sometimes family dynamics require innovative strategies. A religious community that governs itself according to the spirit of its laws and basic principles, such as the sanctity of marriage, the primacy of the family, self reliance, etc., should be flexible enough to include a variety of non-destructive behaviors. A formalistic, impatient, over-pious community may break its less-orthodox members on the wheel of ephemeral policy. Do thirty years of devotion, tithe paying, a mission, temple marriage, and church work mean nothing in the face of a year of well-meant but slightly altered church activity?

Where does this kind of insistence on the letter of administrative procedure get us? Will more people comply with its demands than before the new policy? And more to the point, will BYU faculty and staff now be more spiritual? Or do others respond to coercion the way I do? My nature is to do well the things I choose and to despise and evade what I am forced to do. Or, if I decide to knuckle under even while disagreeing with the requirement, I experience a diminished sense of dignity. Emphasizing the letter over the spirit shifts a people's sense of morality from heartfelt individual commitment to superficial observance of outward requirements. And the arbitrariness of the policy is staggering; in contrast to Steven's case, one Tooele County bishop has called a ward member who finds church attendance distasteful to serve breakfast to the homeless in Salt Lake City.

Steven Epperson stands for others who are currently under investigation by the BYU administration (on December 13, 1996, Merrill Bateman told BYU Humanities faculty that these number approximately 100) and who, too, may be asked to leave, one by one, in the coming months. By insisting on the letter of its new policy, by weeding out members of the staff and faculty who cannot satisfy individual bishops' personal interpretations of the standard of temple worthiness, no matter how idiosyncratic, what does the University lose?

In Steven, it loses one of the fine apologists for our religion. As an invited speaker at conferences in Jerusalem, Baltimore, the former Soviet Union, and elsewhere, Steven has argued our case eloquently. Thinking people in many parts of the globe hold us in higher esteem as a people because he confesses our creed. Jacob Neusner, distinguished research professor of religious studies at the University of South Florida, begins his review of Steven's book Mormons and Jews: Early Mormon Theologies of Israel (Signature Books, 1992) with the words "Brilliantly conceived and elegantly executed," and then writes of "the doctrines Epperson lays out with the authority of scholarship and the passion of faith. He writes with craft and care; he speaks with humility; in the framework of his subject and his sources, he has given us a small masterpiece" (Sunstone, December 1994, 71-73). And he continues with an anecdote that illustrates the service Epperson has performed for the Church:

A personal word may prove illuminating. The first time I lectured at Brigham Young University, my topic, Pharisaism in the first century, spelled out in four academic lectures, interested only a few. The question periods after each lecture provided an exercise in practical missiology for young Mormons. I was the designated candidate, they, the aggressive proselytizers, and the protracted question periods, for four successive days, concerned only, what does a Jew say to this argument? And how can we devise a compelling answer to that negative response? In the end I wondered why my hosts had gone to so much trouble to bring me to undergo so sustained and demeaning a public roast. I left with the impression that all the Mormons wanted to know about the Jews was why we were not Mormons. When the Mormons sought permission to build their center in Jerusalem, I therefore took note, in the Jerusalem Post, that they have written a long record of persistent missions to Israel, the Jewish people, marked by an utter absence or regard for our religion, the Torah.

But God does not leave us standing still. People change, and God changes us. So I hasten to add that subsequent visits to Provo have proved far more productive. . . . Epperson's definitive work, both the historical and the theological chapters, lays sturdy foundations for the construction of a two-way street, one that both religious communities, each a pilgrim people, stubborn in its faith, eternal in its quest to serve and love God with and through intelligence (which is God's glory), may share as they trek toward that common goal that Israelite prophecy has defined for us all. (73)

Along with Steven's skill as apologist, we lose a talent for thinking creatively about our own beliefs and institutions. Consider, for example, the following depiction of the temple and its possibilities:

The temple is a paradox, an earthly home for a transcendent God. It cannot house his glory, yet he bids his children raise its walls, adorn its chambers, weave its veil. For he chooses just this place and not celestial spheres to disclose and veil his presence among the children of Israel. Signs of fellowship and wisdom, signs of sovereignty and orientation hewn upon the temple's sheer face betoken the knowledge and endowment bestowed within. Mortal hands and eyes are led by ones immortal to frame the fearful symmetry of his form, his house, his kingdom here on earth. We cannot place the crown upon his kingdom -- cannot bind all wounds, sate all hunger, pacify all violence, wipe away all tears. Yet he bids, he demands a realm of equity and justice, now, from our flawed hearts and feeble hands.

The House of the Lord is the matrix for the kingdom of God on earth. The temple transmutes city and wilderness: it pursues neither Eden, nor the heavenly Jerusalem. It sanctions neither a naive return to a romanticized past, nor the negation of the sensuous present, the real, for an abstract future. Rather, by a mysterious alchemy conjured through the conjunction of words from an improbable rite, it would bridge the rift between parents and children, the whole estranged family of Adam and Eve, and it would establish Enoch's city here, in this world, through unnumbered acts of charity and justice. (Dialogue, Fall 1987, p. 140.)

We lose, in addition, a fine critical eye. Steven recently published, for example, at the invitation of the editor of BYU Studies, a review essay of Robert Millett's and Joseph McConkie's Our Destiny: The Call and Election of the House of Israel (SLC: Bookcraft, 1993), a review that will help us, if we listen, move beyond morally ambiguous patterns of accepted thought. Steven points out, for instance, that

. . . . the authors contend that since "literal blood descent" from Abraham delivers "the right to the gospel, the priesthood, and the glories of eternal life," "rights" by blood descent are crucial for the exercise of legitimate authority to establish and maintain the Church. They claim that such authority is rooted securely, since the church's early leaders "were all of one stock," sharing with Joseph Smith a "pure . . . blood strain from Ephraim"; they are "pure-blooded Israelite[s]." This teaching, they assert, is to be taken literally; it is "neither myth nor metaphor." ("Some Problems with Supersessionism in Mormon Thought," BYU Studies V. 34, No. 4, 1994-1995, 132)

He then demonstrates that such assertions of pure blood lines are biological nonsense and points out that when the authors cite William J. Cameron as an authority and a "wise man," they are associating themselves with the thought and person of the editor of Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent, a virulently anti-Semitic weekly, with a man who was subsequently the editor of Destiny, the publication of the anti-Semitic Anglo-Saxon Federation of America. Cameron maintained, Epperson writes, "that Jesus `was not a Jew. And the Jews, as we know them, are not the true sons of Israel. It was the Anglo-Saxons who descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel'" (133). The review ends with a question: "Is it possible that, just when the LDS community is emerging from ethnic, linguistic, and geographical parochialism to become a world-wide religion, that Our Destiny would unwittingly turn us back?" Millett and McConkie had the opportunity to defend themselves, so this was no one-sided polemic. (And in fact, Steven received a letter from Salt Lake lawyer Oscar McConkie threatening legal action for having supposedly called Joseph McConkie racist.) Rather it was the kind of activity you hope university professors will engage in; for in the give and take of discussion ideas are sharpened and deepened and revealed for what they are.

Epperson was hired at BYU, in part, because of the quality of his book Mormons and Jews, which won the Mormon History Association's 1993 Francis Chipman Award for Best First Book and, in an earlier form, the MHA's William Grover and Winifred Foster Reese Best Dissertation Award. In the Fall of 1995, Steven underwent a routine third-year review in which departmental, college, and university committees judged whether he was making the progress in citizenship, teaching, and scholarship required of an assistant professor. During the process, the orthodoxy and quality of Mormons and Jews became the crucial questions in evaluating Steven as a professor, even though the book had been disallowed for consideration as productive scholarship during Steven's three trial years because it had been published prior to his arrival at BYU. Academic Vice President Alan Wilkins, after an hour-long discussion of the book's orthodoxy with Steven, asked "What would you do if the General Authorities asked you to suppress this, not to teach it, to recant? If they declared that this work wasn't doctrinally sound?" Steven replied that "that is their prerogative; they determine what is doctrinal for the Church. That's not what I do. I don't claim or teach this as doctrine. But I have done a professional job of recovering and re-presenting to readers what is in the historical record."

In late September 1996, nearly half a year after the results of other third-year reviews were announced, James Gordon asked Steven if he could send copies of the book to two outside reviewers for evaluation, and Steven agreed. Two weeks later, however, the evaluation was cut short with the letter announcing that Steven's bishop would not judge him temple worthy. Because of the six-month delay, Steven lost crucial time in the search for another academic position.

Steven Epperson's case is serious enough if it stands alone. But there are professors and staff members in every department of the University whose lives are under scrutiny at the moment, whose years of devoted and skillful service are being discounted under the new ecclesiastical endorsement policy. And if, for various reasons -- perhaps feeling themselves victims of unrighteous dominion, out of pride, from sheer obstinacy -- they refuse to comply to whatever their particular bishop requires, however arbitrarily, we lose their services. I am not arguing for leniency for rapists and thieves and plagiarists. BYU has routinely fired staff, faculty, and administrators caught in acts of moral turpitude. No matter what their skills, a morally solvent institution cannot afford to have such people around.

That is not, however, what is at stake here. The question is why the behaviors that we require of all members of our community, the laws by which we judge one another good or bad, must proliferate as they have. Why must we raise peccadillos to mortal sins? We would all agree that an absolute requirement against murder is in all our best interests and that it is appropriate to force one another not to murder. The consequences of a murder so far outweigh any benefits of free agency that we simply outlaw it.

But what about the cases of occasional church attendance or sporadic tithe paying? There are obvious spiritual benefits to paying tithing, to take the latter example; and a Church university all of whose faculty and staff pay tithing may be an especially fine place. The sweetness of that utopia diminishes, however, when compliance is forced. As opposed to a case of murder, the claims of free agency weigh heavy here.

No, one may argue, we are firing people who don't pay tithing or go to church so that we may employ only people who want to do so. And our new interviewing and screening procedures are aimed at ensuring such voluntary compliance; we are justified in our current practice of turning away for positions candidates who have current temple recommends but who, for some reason, have gone without a recommend previously. My answer is that you simply cannot ensure voluntary compliance. You can't even ensure involuntary compliance for that matter, for there are some bishops who refuse to play this spiritually destructive game. But "ensure" and "voluntary" don't belong in the same sentence. Remember the old joke about free agency and how to enforce it? You can kick out some of the students who wear shorts above the knee and thus force most of the others to wear longer shorts. You can fire faculty members who, for whatever reasons, don't go to church enough to satisfy their bishop and thus put the fear of ecclesiastical non-endorsement into their colleagues. But why would you want to do that? Trust, President Hinkley reminded members of the BYU community on 13 October 1992, comes from the top down.

So, to review my argument: 1. If forced compliance to proliferating policies has little spiritual benefit to the individual or to the university; and 2. if the principle of free agency (over which the war in Heaven was fought) is of extreme importance both to individuals and to the university; then 3. in all cases of transgression except those so egregious that we would all see them as unacceptable, the transgressor might receive charitable counsel but ought never to be coerced to be "good" (by expulsion from school, if a student, or by firing from a job, if staff or faculty). "Teach them correct principles, and let them govern themselves," said our founding Prophet. Do we not believe him? And why do we ignore the clear words of Jesus Christ? "Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel" (Matt. 23:24).

Scott Abbott
Sunstone, February 1997

APPENDIX
LETTER FROM STEVEN EPPERSON TO HIS COLLEAGUES

My dear colleagues:

I have been informed by University administrators that my contract will not be renewed after its expiration in August, 1997. The immediate cause cited for that decision is my failure to obtain, over a reasonable period, the letter of ecclesiastical endorsement which we all must now secure annually in order to remain employed at BYU. It is, I believe, an unfortunate decision. But I will not appeal it or seek to have it set aside. Six months of interviews have served only to disclose how differently my bishop and I perceive my stewardship as husband, father, and priesthood holder. Six months of meetings have only disclosed how willing University administrators are to grant local ecclesiastical leaders inordinate power to determine who works and who does not work for this institution. I cannot imagine, as a condition for employment, submitting annually to the intrusive scrutiny of my private family life mandated by this ill-conceived policy.

It is very important to me, no matter what disagreements there may be between us on this policy issue, that all of you understand how appreciative I am of the confidence and fellowship you extended to me three and a half years ago when you voted to welcome me as a member of this department. I have never taken that trust lightly; I treasure it to this day. I hope only that you will not feel that your good will was mis-placed. When I signed my letter of appointment in 1993, I had every expectation that my stay at BYU would be an enduring and productive one. I am sorry and disappointed, keenly disappointed, that my stay here will be so brief.

I sincerely wish all of you the very best of success in your research, teaching, and service here. We have a marvelous body of students-intelligent, well-meaninged, curious and decent-who need excellent teachers/scholars/saints to assist in their pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. May we be equal to them.

The contract I signed in July is good for the academic year 1996-97. I look forward to our continued professional and personal associations through this year and beyond.

Sincerely,

Steven Epperson
Department of History

3. Notes on BYU's 1992 Academic Freedom Statment and Related Policies.

BYU Chapter, AAUP, January 1997.

1. The Statement appeals to the 1940 AAUP Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure, yet seems to ignore the AAUP's 1970 "Interpretive Comments," especially comment 3: "Most church-related institutions no longer need or desire the departure from the principle of academic freedom implied in the 1940 Statement, and we do not now endorse such a departure."
2. BYU's statement is "grounded on a distinction, often blurred but vital and historically based, between individual and institutional academic freedom," and attempts to balance the sometimes conflicting claims of these two freedoms.
3. The Statement grounds individual academic freedom on the LDS scriptural principle of "individual agency" or "moral agency," concluding that "neither testimony, nor righteousness, nor genuine understanding is possible unless it is freely discovered and voluntarily embraced." Elsewhere the Statement reminds us that "There is no such thing as risk-free genuine education, just as according to LDS theology there is no risk-free earthly experience." Individual academic freedom is defined as a faculty member's right "'to teach and research without interference,' to ask hard questions, to subject answers to rigorous examination, and to engage in scholarship and creative work," and includes "the traditional right to publish or present the results of original research in the reputable scholarly literature and professional conferences of one's academic discipline." The Statement declares BYU's aspiration "to be a host for th[e] integrated search for truth by offering a unique enclave of inquiry, where teachers and students may seek learning 'even by study and also by faith.'" Citing prophetic and scriptural texts, the "scope of integration" is given as "in principle, as wide as truth itself," since "the gospel . . . affirms the full range of human modes of knowing." And in "summary" the Statement declares that "BYU students and their parents are entitled to expect an educational experience that reflects this aspiration."
4. Nearly twice as long, the discussion of "institutional academic freedom" includes some fourteen footnotes citing recent analyses of academic freedom in religious institutions, and especially a number of articles on the "death" or "decline" of "religious higher education." The sponsors and writers of the Statement seem more anxious to define and defend "institutional academic freedom" than "individual academic freedom," perhaps because they felt the former was insufficiently understood.
5. The "definition" of this freedom in BYU's case is that "BYU claims the right to maintain [its] identity by the appropriate exercise of its institutional academic freedom," which is "the privilege of universities to pursue their distinctive missions" or to "guarantee institutional autonomy." BYU's "identity" consists in its being "wholly owned by the Church," its mainly LDS faculty and student body, its Honor Code, and the contract stipulation that LDS faculty are "expected . . . to 'live lives of loyalty to the restored gospel.'" The Statement acknowledges that "It is not expected that the faculty will agree on every point of doctrine, much less on the issues in the academic disciplines that divide faculties in any unversity," and cautions that "It is expected . . . that a spirit of Christian charity and common faith in the gospel will unite even those with wide differences and that questions will be raised in ways that seek to strengthen rather than undermine faith."
6. The discussion of "institutional academic freedom" stresses the institution's right to preserve its identity and pursue its mission (without outside interference); yet the main challenge to BYU's institutional academic freedom seems to be its faculty. Thus the Statment argues that "absolute individual [academic] freedom would place the individual faculty member effectively in charge of defining institutional purpose, thereby infringing on prerogatives that traditionally belong to boards, administrations, and faculty councils." But how "would" faculty ever "defin[e] institutional purpose," except as faculty always do, via syllabi, assignments, tests, texts, lectures, discussions, and critiques of students' work? How could faculty be limited in this normal influence on institutional purpose, unless boards and administrators performed faculty duties?
7. Clearly one primary area of concern is "disagreement [on] Church doctrine, on which BYU's Board of Trustees claims the right to convey prophetic counsel." Apparently a faculty member might, by somehow opposing or violating "doctrine," commit an "arrogation of authority" and "defin[e] institutional purpose" in a way contrary to what the Board desires. It appears that institutional purpose includes the inculcation of orthodox belief by preventing faculty from disagreeing with the Board on "doctrine" and by reserving to the Board the prerogative of defining what "doctrine" shall include. It would be helpful for the Statement to indicate more fully and precisely what is considered "Church doctrine." Different aspects of "doctrine" would likely pertain to different disciplines; and faculty may be unaware of which statements or positions that pertain to their fields are considered "Church doctrine."
8. The Statement declares that there cannot be "unlimited institutional academic freedom," yet effectively makes that freedom unlimited in the (undefined) area of "Church doctrine," which includes matters of the deepest personal, communal, and cultural consequence, and in which, if anywhere, individuals should most "freely discover and voluntarily embrace" truth.
9. The Statement's "reasonable limitations," applying "when the behavior or expression seriously and adversely affects the university mission or the Church," reinforce this sense of unlimited institutional freedom. After its first sentence, this section of the Statement applies "limitation" only to individual academic freedom. It gives three "Examples" of "expression with students or in public." First, expression which "contradicts or opposes, rather than analyzes or discusses, fundamental Church doctrine or policy": this notably qualifies "doctrine" with "fundamental," yet without clarifying what that term means; it noticeably avoids the word "criticise" or any phrase like "ask hard questions," and faculty may wonder where the line will be drawn between "analyze" and "contradict." Second, expression which "deliberately attacks or derides the Church or its general leaders": it is not clear whether this makes the words or ideas of general Church leaders immune from critical discussion, even when those words or ideas are not (or seem not to be) about "fundamental . . . doctrine or policy." The third "example," expression that "violates the Honor Code because [it] is dishonest, illegal, unchaste, profane, or unduly disrespectful of others," offers no criteria for determining when expression falls within at least some of these categories. Without more precise guidelines, or much open discussion, faculty may feel themselves vulnerable to the "determination of harm," despite their most scrupulous efforts to avoid it. The institution's freedom to determine harm by such general and undefined categories as the Statement offers, seems unlimited or absolute.
10. The policy declares individual academic freedom to be "presumptive," institutional intervention "exceptional," yet it effectively makes the latter absolute in the clause which reserves "ultimate responsibility to determine harm" to the administration and Board of Trustees, without indicating any criteria for determining harm, or any obligation on the administration or Board to demonstrate that harm has been done. There are no visible safeguards in the policy against a single member of the Board "determining harm" and threatening a faculty member's position.
11. University Policy on Faculty Rank and Status requires University officials to "spell out in detail" the "terms and conditions" of all "offers" of faculty positions and "not to make or imply any oral commitments regarding employment, rank, salary, or work conditions" (2.9). Assuming "work conditions" to include any and all constraints on faculty activity, does not this policy oblige the University to spell out rather fully, in advance and in writing, those areas or kinds of research, creative work, and teaching which it does regard as "adverse" to the interests of the church and the university?
12. The policy and procedures for handling complaints against faculty which are sent to General Authorities are internally incoherent and serve to perpetuate the very practices which they ostensibly discourage. That is, if this sort of "offense" is to be dealt with at the lowest possible level, it does not make sense to involve all the intervening levels, from General Authority to Commissioner to President to Dean to Chair, by sending the complaints down through those channels. With anonymous letters (which history shows to be often vicious), the policy guarantees that the whole weight of the Church and university hierarchy will be brought to bear on the target of the attack, while preserving the anonymity of the accuser.

B[ruce]. W. Jorgensen
3183 JKHB
English Department
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602-6280
Telephone: (801) 378-3205

January 29, 1997

Report On The BYU Campus Visit By The National AAUP Investigative Committee

Long-time AAUP members and officers, Linda Pratt, Chair of the English Department at the University of Nebraska and Bill Heywood, Emeritus Professor of History at Cornell College met with more than 120 people while on campus.

The investigative committee heard from a wide range of BYU staff including administrators President Merrill Bateman, Alan Wilkins, Jim Gordon, and John Tanner; Professor Gail Houston; the authors of BYU's Statement on Academic Freedom; the present and past chairs of the Faculty Women's Association; approximately thirty-five faculty members and students who responded to the invitation for public discussion; Professor Houston's appeal panel; the 1995-1996 University Faculty Council on Rank and Status; administrators from the College of Humanities; and panels organized by the BYU AAUP Chapter working with the BYU administration dealing with Women and Academic Freedom, Hiring, Retention, Advancement, and Censorship.

The BYU AAUP chapter attempted to ensure that the national committee heard from all sides of the academic freedom issue at BYU. We scheduled every faculty and staff person and student who voiced interest by Wednesday afternoon for discussion with the committee. Beyond that, several late-comers were able to speak as well.

Representatives of our chapter also invited the BYU administration to provide us with a list of persons they wanted to talk with the committee. To the best of our knowledge, the investigative committee heard from every person on the administration's list. The meetings were professional and cordial as the committee gathered pertinent information.

Many who testified felt they were doing so at some risk to themselves, but felt it was important they be heard. A wide variety of opinion was expressed, and many individual stories were told. If any members of the BYU community have continuing interest in the process, they are invited to submit written comments to the AAUP investigative committee.

We have been asked repeatedly about what happens next. The national committee, which listened to involved parties and collected written documents, will now prepare a report on academic freedom at BYU. This report will be submitted to BYU officials for comment.

If the report suggests problems with academic freedom issues at BYU, we envision several possible outcomes. For example, the BYU administration and faculty could further refine the academic freedom document; instigate a program to clarify and make adjustments to the grievance process; further refine policies and procedures; etc.

In the event serious problems with academic freedom are found and our administration is unable to work out such problems with the AAUP, the possibility exists of a formal censure. We sincerely hope that this does not happen, for it would put us in the company of such academically peripheral institutions as Southwestern Adventist College (Texas), Southern Nazarene University (Oklahoma), Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (North Carolina), University of Bridgeport, Stevens Institute of Technology (New Jersey), and Garland County Community College (Arkansas).

Good institutions are censured by the AAUP from time to time for single incidents (USC and NYU are currently on the list). Historically such universities work quickly and intensely to have the censure lifted, for the academic reputation and prestige of a college or university is at stake.

BYU is a fine university that over the years has developed a reputation for academic excellence in the context of religious faith. Members of our local AAUP chapter have been proud to make contributions to that reputation. We believe that our actions at this time continue to serve students and faculty at BYU, as well as the Church at large. Our opposition to current academic freedom policies, in short, is a loyal opposition. We will be a better university if we operate within a context of respect for and trust of multiple points of view.

Our BYU chapter has no disagreement with the proposition that a religious university should have the opportunity to suggest certain limitations to academic freedom. Our belief, however, is that such limitations must be narrow, well defined and clearly communicated. Furthermore, the limitations must be understood from the outset of employment. We do not feel these conditions have been met recently at BYU.

Finally, our local chapter wants to thank the BYU administration and individual professors and students who made the recent visit of the national AAUP investigative committee successful.

Contact persons (Members of the Board of Directors of the BYU Chapter of the AAUP):

Scott Abbott; 378-3207
Bill Evenson; 378-6078
Susan Howe 378-2363
Duane Jeffery 378-2155
Sam Rushforth; 378-2438
Brandie Siegfried 378- 8106

The BYU Chapter of the AAUP and the National AAUP is seeking more information concerning Gail Turley Houston's Tenure Denial at Brigham Young University. The following documents are pertinent to this investigation. [Gail näyttää nykyään olevan New Mexicon yliopiston palveluksessa. suom.huom. 2000-11]

A Letter from the National AAUP to Gail Houston, August 15, 1996 Discussing Houston's Firing

August 15, 1996

Professor Gail Turley Houston
105l Fir Avenue
Provo, Utah 84604

Dear Professor Houston:

We have examined the abundant written material that you and our AAUP chapter have shared with us regarding the decision not to grant you continuing faculty status at Brigham Young University. Our paramount interest in this kind of situation, as I am sure you know, relates to academic freedom, both the impact on your own academic freedom and the climate for academic freedom at the institution on whose faculty you have served. Our reading has left us with a very deep sense of concern, much of it already enunciated in the communications that the AAUP chapter submitted to President Bateman on June 27. Noting that a hearing on your appeal against the decision of the President and the Provost is still to occur but is scheduled for the immediate future, we think it appropriate to await the result of that hearing before, assuming the decision stands, conveying our concern directly to the chief administrative officers and inviting their response. Meanwhile, I want to provide you and our chapter officers with a preliminary assessment of the very troublesome issues of academic freedom that your case poses to us. I shall refer, not in any order of relative importance, to four such issues.

First, the available evidence strongly suggests that the university administration, while allowing the offering of courses dealing with feminism and postmodernism, and while engaging faculty members such as yourself who specialize in these areas, determined tnat your services should be terminated not because of any significant deficiency in your widely praised academic performance but because some few found your handling of the subject matter offensive to the teachings or traditions of the university's sponsoring church regarding the role of women in society.

Second, following positive recommendations based on your academic record on your candidacy for continuing status from your department and your college committees and administrators, the University Faculty Council on Rank and Status evidently rejected your candidacy on grounds of "citizenship," focusing on questions about your religious beliefs and orthodoxy that most would see as private and personal and simply not the business of persons charged with evaluating academic performance. This seems to us an especially troublesome concern for academic freedom in the case of someone, like yourself, who has reportedly been judged temple worthy and otherwlse in good standing by your responsible ecclesiastical superiors in your church.

Third, with respect to the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic freedom and Tenure and its premise that there can be limitations on academic freedom and tenure because of the institution's religious aims provided that the limits are set forth in writing, the authors of that document--university professors and university presidents--emphasized at the outset that any stated limitations must be narrowly crafted and precise. The limitations discussed in the Brigham Young University statement on academic freedom strike us as very far from precise, and we do not see them as notifying you adequately of parameters on your academic freedom in the areas or incidents in which shortcomings by you were subsequently alleged.

Fourth, there seem, after all, to have been a total of three incidents during your years on the faculty in which you said or did something publicly that later was cited as ground for concern about your "citizenship" in assessing your fitness for continuance on the faculty: what you wrote for Student Review. your Sunstone presentation, and the "White Roses" event (all of these dating back three or more years). Whether or not you may have crossed the line regarding the Bngham Young University expectations of adherence to academic freedom limitations in any of these incidents, if there was a transgression it seems to us to have been exceedingly slight. The finding of the University Faculty Council on Rank and Status, apparently endorsed by the administration, that these activities by you "not only have . . . failed to strengthen the moral vigor of the university, they have enervated its very fiber" tells us that the university administration's willingness and ability to stand up for academic freedom is weak indeed.

Please continue to keep us informed.

Sincerely,

Jordan E. Kurland
JEK:em

cc: Professor Scott Abbott, President
AAUP Chapter

A Letter from the BYU AAUP to Merrill Bateman, September 24, 1996, Outlining our Concerns about the Houston Case and Seeking an Investigation from the National AAUP

24 September 1996

Dr. Merrill J. Bateman
President, Brigham Young University
D-346 ASB
Provo, Utah 84602-1346

Dear President Bateman:

The BYU Chapter of the American Association of University Professors is concerned with the recent firing of Professor GailTurley Houston. We had hoped the decision would be reversed either by the appeal panel or by you. Apparently members of the panel were sympathetic to many of the arguments made in Prof. Houston's behalf, but the University advocate asked the panel to rule only on whether proper procedures had been followed. Our Chapter is convinced that procedures were indeed violated (as pointed out in previous correspondence) but that is not the main purpose of this letter.

Our main concern here is with the arguments made about violations of Prof. Houston's academic freedom--large issues that include misrepresentations and misunderstandings of feminist and postmodern theory. We are discouraged with the atmosphere for faculty and staff at BYU, particularly for women. Likewise, we take issue with growing restrictions on scholarship and teaching at BYU.

After a review of many of the relevant documents, a representative of our national organization offered the following preliminary evaluation of the situation:

August 15, 1996

Dear Professor Houston:

We have examined the abundant written material that you and our AAUP chapter have shared with us regarding the decision not to grant you continuing faculty status at Brigham Young University. . . . I want to provide you and our chapter officers with a preliminary assessment of the very troublesome issues of academic freedom that your cases poses to us. I shall refer, not in any order of relative importance, to four such issues.

First, the available evidence strongly suggests that the university administration, while allowing the offering of courses dealing with feminism and postmodernism, and while engaging faculty members such as yourself who specialize in these areas, determined that your services should be terminated not because of any significant deficiency in your widely praised academic performance but because some few found your handling of the subject matter offensive to the teachings or traditions of the university's sponsoring church regarding the role of women in society.

Second, following positive recommendations based on your academic record on your candidacy for continuing status from your department and your college committees and administrators, the University Faculty council on Rank and Status evidently rejected your candidacy on grounds of "citizenship," focusing on questions about your religious beliefs and orthodoxy that most would see as private and personal and simply not the business of persons charged with evaluating academic performance. This seems to us an especially troublesome concern for academic freedom in the case of someone, like yourself, who has reportedly been judged "temple worthy" and otherwise in good standing by your responsible ecclesiastical superiors in your church.

Third, with respect to the 1940 'Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure' and its premise that there can be limitations on academic freedom and tenure because of the institution's religious aims provided that the limits are set forth in writing, the authors of that document -- university professors and university presidents -- emphasized at the outset that any stated limitations must be narrowly crafted and precise. The limitations discussed in the BYU statement on academic freedom strike us as very far from precise, and we do not see them as notifying you adequately of parameters on your academic freedom in the areas or incidents in which shortcomings by you were subsequently alleged.

Fourth, there seem, after all, to have been a total of three incidents during your years on the faculty in which you said or did something publicly that later was cited as ground for concern about your "citizenship" in assessing your fitness for continuance on the faculty: what you wrote for Student Review, your Sunstone presentation, and the "White Roses" event (all of these dating back three or more years). Whether or not you may have crossed the line regarding the BYU expectations of adherence to academic freedom limitations in any of the mentioned incidents, if there was a transgression it seems to us to have been exceedingly slight. The finding of the University Faculty Council on Rank and Status, apparently endorsed by the administration, that these activities by you 'not only have . . .failed to strengthen the moral vigor of the university, they have enervated its very fiber' tells us that the university administration's willingness and ability to stand up for academic freedom is weak indeed. . . .

Sincerely,

Jordan E. Kurland
Associate General Secretary of the AAUP

As pointed out in the University Self Study and in the accreditation report of the Commission on Colleges of the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges, there are serious problems here with faculty and staff morale. A series of apparently harsh and unfair decisions on tenure and promotion, including most recently Prof. Houston's case, has affected that morale substantially. Further, our reputation as an academic institution has begun to fall as we take actions clearly in conflict with accepted and proven academic practice. As a result, departments are finding it ever more difficult to hire new faculty, early retirements are increasing, and tenured and untenured faculty are taking jobs elsewhere. We must take action to reverse that trend.

In this spirit, we have decided to ask the National AAUP to more thoroughly review Professor Houston's firing. We believe it is in the best interest of the university to obtain the opinion of an impartial external organization whose main purpose is to further academic freedom at colleges and universities across the country. We have no punitive goal in mind. But we are committed as a group and as individuals to the long-term health and flourishing of BYU. Many of us have been here for our entire careers and want nothing more than to see BYU reach its full potential as a university with deep religious commitments. This is possible only if we foster a rigorous ethical and academic standard in fact and not only in theory. So, we will continue to work for the advancement of our institution.

Sincerely,

Members of the BYU Chapter of the AAUP

cc Jordan E. Kurland, AAUP

A Letter from the National AAUP to Merrill Bateman, October 1, 1996 outlining Concerns Relating to Houston's Firing and Asking for Information from BYU

October 1, 1996

Dr. Merrill J. Bateman
President
Brigham Young University
D-346 ASB
P.O. Box 21346
Provo, Utah 84602-1346

Dear President Bateman:

Dr. Gail Turley Houston, who has served as Assistant Professor of English at Brigham Young University, has sought the advice and assistance of the American Association of University Professors as a result of the letter of June