The Daily Universe celebrates 50 years
This story originally appeared in the Daily Universe on Oct. 5, 1970
By Dale Van Atta
“The fact-finding committee could find nothing to indicate that Brigham Young University is a racist institution or that there many be any more or less racism present than at any other school.”
This statement was taken from a report which will be presented to the university of Arizona this week on “BYU, Blacks, and the Western Athletic Conference.”
Feeling that “rhetoric had escalated too far while reasonable approaches to the problem were decreasing,” the Associated Students of UA sent a six member fact-finding team to the BYU campus.
The purpose of the team was to evaluate the relationship between BYU and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as it related to the Western Athletic Conference.
The team visited with university officials and with hundreds of students during a free forum last Friday and at subsequent private sessions.
While the committee found that BYU was not racist, they did conclude that it is an “isolated institution whose members do not relate to or understand black people.”
They found an “awkwardly expressed desire” on the part of many students to relate to the four black members of the [team]. The report states that BYU has been at fault by not educating students to the “culture and attributes of American blacks, not as a separate entity but as an integral part of our society.”
The team observed that is seemed to be beyond any student or Church member to change a doctrine which states that blacks of African lineage may not hold the priesthood until it is revealed to the prophet of the LDS Church.
They believe that something should be done about the isolation of BYU, saying, “Part of the educational offerings of any university … is exposure and interaction with the largest minority in the United States–the black people.”
Suggested methods of eliminating this isolation include “a more aggressive program to bring in more black athletes and scholars,” observing that there is a “particularly defeatist attitude toward black recruitment” and that there are but two blacks in the BYU athletic program and approximately 15 in the 25,000 member student body.
Copyright Brigham Young University 22 Nov 2005
