This Divided Campus

When there's nothing else to blog about, BYU always comes through. The latest: a student showed a film for a class project without administration permission! The film: This Divided State. You'd think that documentaries would be broadly acceptable at BYU under some sort of education exception ... but no. The story reports, "As for the film, profanity in some scenes made it inappropriate for BYU unless it was edited." It doesn't sound like there are any disciplinary consequences in the works for this episode — it wasn't like they showed a documentary in a religion class, which would probably qualify as blasphemy. It's the fact that "administrators wouldn't allow an unedited version to air on campus" that is the puzzle to me. It was a documentary. About politics. At some point this sort of thinking must start to (already has?) compromise the ability of faculty members to offer a standard university education.

Comments

[john f.]

I like BYU.

[sarah]

BYU makes me laugh. Like their little thing about facial hair - talk about picking random battles! As a BYU grad, I've got to say it was a good education mixed with a lot of good laughs at how seriously everyone took the whole holier-than-thou thing.

[ed]

I often defend BYU, but I find this kind of thing pretty hard to defend. I understand why we don't like profanity, but saying we can't wattch a documentary that simply depicts relationships between our fellow human beings in our neighborhood because we're just too horrified by the profanity, seems pretty silly. Talk about straining at a gnat.

[R.W. Rasband]

"This Divided State" hold up a mirror to the narrowness of Utah valley conformism. This reflection, more than the profanity, is probably what they found offensive.

[Loyd]

The same week, another documentary, Beijing Bicycle, was authorized to play on campus. It has more profanity than This Divided State, as well as nudity and violence.

[Dave]

I haven't seen either film, Loyd, but if that's the case, it suggests that the "administrators" are actually screening for political views and values, rather than (or in addition to) profanity or violence or sex. And I can imagine what kind of political views and values a Utah Valley resident serving as an "administrator" thinks are inappropriate for BYU students. I put administrators in quotes because for all I know it's student volunteers who do the screening.

[Bookslinger]

Oooh. I just had an epiphany after reading this post, the linked story at newsnet.byu.edu, and the comments. BYU administration treats undergrads more as children than adults. This goes a long way towards explaining the "double bind" conditions at the MTC that I questioned on a recent T&S thread. Since the MTC is staffed and led by BYU folks, I now see the tie-in.

Thanks Dave, Sarah and Ed!

[Nate T.]

After spending 4+ years at the University of Washington for my grad studies (I got my undergrad degree at BYU), BYUs foibles and exentricities seem . . . small, Mickey Mouse, in comparison.

Yeh this should not have happened and Moore should have gotten his chance to speak unmostled, but when you see stuff happening like this on a fairly regular basis on another campus, somtimes in more serious situations, I can just shrug my shoulders. I am just grateful this does not happen more often or in bigger wasy at BYU.