Trib Article: BYU faculty members urged to align their teaching, research better with LDS tenets

[Calm]

A discussion on Clark Gilbert’s comments as presented by the Trib:

https://bycommonconsent.com/2025/01/07/clark-gilbert-byu-and-developing-disciples-of-jesus-christ/
 

Quote

 

Now, a lot of these categories are frankly incoherent.[fn3] But worse than that, it fails to understand what students need to live faithful lives.

See, the vast majority of BYU graduates (and, for that matter, members of the church who didn’t go to or graduate from BYU) are going to face issues where they disagree with the church. That may be on fundamental policies, including pre-1904 marriage, pre-1978 racial issues, or current policies on the LGBTQ community. It may be on scriptural interpretation, or women and the priesthood. It may be on cultural issues, like clothing choices.

We all have disagreements with the church. (Yes, even you, random commenter who’s going to drop in below.) We have to! The church (at least, if we read it broadly to include our local communities) doesn’t even always agree with itself!

So what do we do in the face of that kind of disagreement? Well, if we’re told that orthodoxy reigns, and that we have to choose between our values (including, critically, the values that have been inculcated in us at church) and what we perceive as the church’s preferences, we’re not going to necessarily choose the church.

Heck, if I believed (as Joseph Fielding Smith taught, and as recent BYU hire Ross Barronalso apparently, in the year of our Lord 2025, believes) that the gospel was incompatible with evolution, and that I had to choose one or the other, well, the evidence for evolution is pretty indisputable.

But you know what? I don’t have to choose between them! I can remain a faithful and committed member of the church even where I don’t agree with everything the church teaches.

And how do I know that? While not exclusively, it is, in no small part, thanks to professors I had at BYU. Smart, committed women and men who understood the disconnect, who didn’t agree with the church’s position in every situation, but who were also faithful believers and practitioners of Mormonism. The modeled for me, and for many of my classmates,[fn4] how to live lives committed to Jesus, how to live faithful in the church, even where the church doesn’t live up to my, or its, ideals.

That, I believe, is the critical harm that Gilbert’s philosophy toward BYU education is doing to BYU students. It is denying the validity of the strait and narrow road that many of them need to stay active, participating members of the church. It imposes, instead, a superficial definition of faithfulness, one that undercuts BYU’s mission to develop disciples of Jesus Christ. 

 

I tend to agree with them.

 

Edited January 7, 2025 by Calm

[Chum]

7 minutes ago, Calm said:

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

The exposé comes one week after the church-owned Deseret News published a story claiming that faith-based schools provide "more intellectual freedom than anywhere else."

I suspect faith based schools provide more freedom for less liberal and especially for faith based professors (who likely cannot speak of their faith easily when teaching at secular universities) than do many secular universities, but the reverse may be true as well…more secular universities may be a better fit, feel more freedom than a religious university for more secular professors.

One could try teaching LDS tenants at a US Evangelical college and see how that goes.

[Calm]

From the Trib article:

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/01/05/byu-blue-why-these-are-dark-days/

Quote

 

Then, in 2022, came a new employment contract, a sort of “loyalty oath,” in which faculty members (incoming and current) were expected to attest to their support of the church’s position on marriage, family and gender. To many, like Bergman, who felt pressured to agree, it went beyond the church’s own stance and seemed to carry an implicit threat: You can’t advance if you don’t sign off.

 

Quote

To many of them, the environment represents a throwback to the era of Ernest Wilkinson, BYU president from 1951 to 1970, who worked with conservative apostles and future church Presidents Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee to remold church education.

“They targeted instructors they believed unorthodox, tightened the curriculum, and transformed the processes of hiring to favor teachers who shared their own ideas about orthodoxy,” Latter-day Saint historian Matthew Bowman writes in his latest book, “Joseph Fielding Smith: A Mormon Theologian.”

A pre-meme quip from the time mocked Wilkinson’s approach with the jab: “Free agency — and how to enforce it.”

Today, the threat of retribution apparently is so real that after dozens of interviews with present and former BYU faculty and administrators across many disciplines, not one current professor (including those with tenure, known as “continuing status”) would go on the record for this story.

 

[Calm]

The so called loyalty oath (this is part of the ecclesiastical endorsement list).

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/ecclesiastical-leader-questions-new-ces-hires

Quote

• Does this member have a testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of its doctrine, including its teachings on marriage, family, and gender?
• Does this member support current Church policies and practices and sustain the leaders of the Church?
• Has this member demonstrated an exemplary and extended pattern (at least one year) of avoiding pornography?
  • (For staff and administrative candidates, the standard is at least 90 days.)
• Please share any concerns you may have about recommending this member.
• This member will be an influence on youth and young adults, and your additional comments are needed for this endorsement. Please describe this member with regard to each of the following: temple worthiness, church attendance, support of Church leadership and doctrine, family relationships, testimony, and other areas of strength.

Added:  Got to say I find it a little odd to call it a loyalty oath when it’s someone besides the person getting hired filling out and supplying the info.

I do get the uncomfortableness of having someone else pass on personal information about your relationship with the Church given that you might end up with a bishop who misunderstands and unintentionally misrepresents you or even possibly intentionally overstates any issue because he assumes you are going to be a problem even if you are not currently one.

I would like to know the appeal process, etc.  

I don’t trust the Trib to be fully accurate in their analysis, but Gilbert and others could have made statements to clarify and haven’t so far, so at this point I don’t have enough info to see if I feel they are going too far or not.  As I said before, I don’t have a problem with letting go of professors antagonistic to the Church.  I also highly doubt there will be conflict between the science department and the administration.  

Edited January 8, 2025 by Calm

[ttribe]

2 hours ago, JAHS said:

The intrigue: The exposé comes one week after the church-owned Deseret News published a story claiming that faith-based schools provide "more intellectual freedom than anywhere else."

My reaction - "The thought makes reason stare."

[Calm]

 

Also this from the Trib article…

Quote

During the summer, though, one of his junior colleagues asked Ge****s to return as a part-time adjunct to team-teach a seminar on natural law and natural rights. Ge****s agreed and thought all it would entail would be a call to his bishop for “clearance.”

To his dismay, Ge****s discovered he was required to open an account with a “background investigating firm,” which advertised its expertise as “scraping” off the internet every bit of information about a person.

He asked a senior administrator about it and was told the company was checking only for criminal convictions in the past seven years and whether he had earned the degrees he claimed. The official denied any knowledge of what the Ecclesiastical Clearance Office might be looking for, Ge****s said, and closed by saying, more or less, “that if I didn’t like the process, I shouldn’t apply.”

Without specific details, Ge****s assumed the firm would prepare an in-depth report on him and his life’s work. “There is actually no disclosure of what the ECO is interested in,” he said, “so I can’t say, for sure, what it’s looking for.”

The legal expert began to wonder if there were items on his curriculum vitae that “could be seen as liabilities, my work with the ACLU and Obergefell [the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage],” he said. “I have gay relatives so we have hung a pride flag.”

These were aspects of his career that he is proud of, Ge****s said. “It just irritated me that the process was making me worry about them.” It also bothered him that “strangers were going to look at a report and make a decision about my spirituality without having met me.”

The process is “creepy and Orwellian,” Ge****s said. “They are operating on standards of spirituality that are not disclosed.”

Ge****s believed he would have been cleared but didn’t want to be part of the process so he called his colleague to say he would pass on teaching that summer.

“It betrays a deep lack of trust in the faculty who are already there, in people who apply,” he said, “and in bishops and [regional] stake presidents.”

Given the obscurities in people’s backgrounds that have set off scandals, it doesn’t surprise me that a university might require a background digital check of new hires as well as for any recent criminal record.  It would be nice to get more details on what the background check.  Added:  Just because the company is known for finding someone’s digital footprints doesn’t mean it’s the only thing they do nor that it is included in every service (I am wondering if “scraping off” means locating or removing in this context).

Edited January 8, 2025 by Calm

[sunstoned]

I have taught at three different universities, all of which conduct background checks for criminal history and financial background checks, depending on the position being applied for. I was informed that I could request access to the background check information, but I never did so, so I am unaware of the details of those checks.

Edited January 8, 2025 by sunstoned

[Calm]

17 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

I have taught at three different universities, all of which conduct background checks for criminal history and financial background checks, depending on the position being applied for. I was informed that I could request access to the background check information, but I never did so, so I am unaware of the details of those checks.

I would have asked.  Would be curious of what they could have found.  I have never even gotten a parking ticket, so on that end I would expect zero….but what if there was some glitch out there that connected me to someone else?

Am a bit surprised about the financial background checks.  Though I suppose it’s smart to see if a professor had some expensive properties suddenly gifted to them.  Is that why such checks are made?  Concerns with being tempted to help someone get nice grades a little too easily?

I don’t understand this comment in the article.

Quote

He asked a senior administrator about it and was told the company was checking only for criminal convictions in the past seven years and whether he had earned the degrees he claimed. The official denied any knowledge of what the Ecclesiastical Clearance Office might be looking for

The administrator told him what they were looking for, didn’t they, with the background check?  Criminal convictions and confirmation of his academic claims….which is reasonable.  It doesn’t sound like knowledge was denied.  A conversation I would love to see in writing, lol.

Edited January 8, 2025 by Calm

[sunstoned]

I think the financial checks are for positions that require money handling.  My wife went through this type of check for her current position. It was explained to her that they were checking for key sanctions like being fired for cause for fraud or embezzlement, which might not have resulted in criminal change.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, sunstoned said:

I think the financial checks are for positions that require money handling.  My wife went through this type of check for her current position. It was explained to her that they were checking for key sanctions like being fired for cause for fraud or embezzlement, which might not have resulted in criminal change.

That makes much more sense. 

[Okrahomer]

15 hours ago, sunstoned said:

I think the financial checks are for positions that require money handling.  My wife went through this type of check for her current position. It was explained to her that they were checking for key sanctions like being fired for cause for fraud or embezzlement, which might not have resulted in criminal change.

I work for a huge Dutch multinational corporation (30,000+ employees).  I have no involvement with finances at all, but I still had to go through a detailed financial background check, along with the criminal and employment checks as well.  It may be a “newer” thing, but previous companies didn’t come close to doing this kind of deep pre-employment vetting.

[Rain]

8 minutes ago, Okrahomer said:

I work for a huge Dutch multinational corporation (30,000+ employees).  I have no involvement with finances at all, but I still had to go through a detailed financial background check, along with the criminal and employment checks as well.  It may be a “newer” thing, but previous companies didn’t come close to doing this kind of deep pre-employment vetting.

Makes me wonder if you work for the company my husband used to work for. He started working there 11 years ago and I can't remember if he needed a background check or not, but I know some of his coworkers needed some kind of clearance. He left about 5 years ago so I don't know if that expanded or not.

[Okrahomer]

22 minutes ago, Rain said:

Makes me wonder if you work for the company my husband used to work for. He started working there 11 years ago and I can't remember if he needed a background check or not, but I know some of his coworkers needed some kind of clearance. He left about 5 years ago so I don't know if that expanded or not.

If it involved food products, there is a good possibility that we worked for the same company.  🤓

[Rain]

17 minutes ago, Okrahomer said:

If it involved food products, there is a good possibility that we worked for the same company.  🤓

Nope. Apparently there are at least 2 multinational Dutch companies with 30,000+ employees. 🙂

[ZealouslyStriving]

On 1/7/2025 at 1:54 PM, Calm said:

A discussion on Clark Gilbert’s comments as presented by the Trib:

https://bycommonconsent.com/2025/01/07/clark-gilbert-byu-and-developing-disciples-of-jesus-christ/
 

I tend to agree with them.

 

Disagreements over evolution is a far different animal than disagreements over issues over sexual mortality.

[Calm]

53 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Disagreements over evolution is a far different animal than disagreements over issues over sexual mortality.

And yet there are members who label those teaching evolution as apostates and BYU as an apostate organization for allowing it and our prophets erring by allowing such.

I assume no one that high up in administration sees things that way these days, but it’s not like there has never been conflict on campus between evolutionists/old earthers and anti-evolutionists/young earthers (overlapping often, but not identical categories).

Edited January 9, 2025 by Calm

[Kenngo1969]

On 1/7/2025 at 2:55 PM, Chum said:

One could try teaching LDS tenants at a US Evangelical college and see how that goes.

Yes.  Also, one could attempt teaching Latter-day Saint tenets at a US Evangelical college, and see how well that goes.   

What?    Oh.  Sorry.   

  I had to do it.   

Sorry for the interruption.  Carry on!