I am a senior at Brigham Young University and have attended the school for my entire collegiate career. I have always been disturbed by a few items of school policy, and the issue of housing is once again at the forefront.
I personally cannot avoid how incompatible with the doctrine of free agency are the various compulsions BYU imposes on students and the surrounding community.The issue of housing is only symbolic, but it remains salient. It is my opinion that the institutionalization and enforcement of morality, as in the case of BYU's off-campus housing policy, is a perversion of the doctrine upon which that morality is founded.
BYU's rules regarding off-campus housing, along with the business practices those rules subsequently force Provo business people to employ, are in obvious violation of the federal Fair Housing Act, which prohibits "any preference, limitation or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin, or intention to make any such preference, limitation or discrimination."
The housing environment in Provo is undeniably characterized by preferences, limitations and discriminations due directly and indirectly to BYU policy.
I am aware of a 1978 agreement between BYU and the Justice Department that exempts BYU from adherence to that law. I went to the BYU off-campus housing office with the intent of obtaining a copy of that agreement, but that office could not provide me with the document. I believe that any such exemption from discrimination-prohibiting law is of dubious propriety.
The BYU community is not the only party involved in this matter. Possessing tremendous influence over the Provo community, BYU effectively governs Provo housing with its policy.
As a result, Provo landlords are compelled to discriminate, and hence violate federal law, in order to protect their considerable business with students.
The privacy of all residents of approved housing is compromised. The student body of BYU has grown to such great numbers that housing comparable and equivalent to approved housing is virtually not available to nonstudents.
Essentially, the real issue is segregation of students and nonstudents in housing; that segregation is illegal under federal law.
BYU claims that the policy is protected under religious freedom, but I do not understand what religious tenet requires gender separation or the other mandates of BYU off-campus housing policy in off-campus, private housing. In truth, the only right BYU has in this issue is a negotiated one; that does not make it propitious or appropriate.
Ignorance alone supports the idea that superficial segregation in off-campus housing prevents moral transgression.
The only valid and effectual prevention of transgression is the moral conviction of the individual. Any external duress undermines the doctrinal basis for and value of individual morality.
All BYU students are required to sign the honor code and are familiar with the behavior to which they are expected to conform. The honor of the students is subtly denied, however, as BYU goes to great lengths to require and insure students' conformity to the honor code.
The intentions of BYU's rules are no doubt of the purest, but the leverage used to enforce the rules is reminiscent of the very system most rejected by the church.
Shawn G. Hansen
Provo