PROVO — Brigham Young University is clamping down on earrings.
Starting this spring, the dress code at BYU will ban more than one earring per ear per student.
And that's if you're female.
If you're a male college student living in Utah County and insist on wearing earrings to English 101, well, BYU is not the place for you. Men cannot wear earrings at the LDS Church-owned school.
The option is to enroll at Utah Valley State College, a public school that doesn't care if students have either nose or nipple rings, as long as tuition is paid and course work is completed.
"This is a one-word change to the dress and grooming standards," said Carri P. Jenkins, BYU's spokeswoman. So what does the policy say?
According to BYU's Web site, "excessive ear piercing (more than one per ear) and all other body piercing are not acceptable."
Jenkins said BYU's Honor Code office started thinking about altering the policy of allowing women to wear two earrings in each ear after recent talks by LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, who also is chairman of BYU's trustee board.
President Hinckley told young adult members on Sunday to eschew tattoos and body piercing beyond one set of earrings for women.
President Hinckley made similar comments at the church's semiannual general conference in October.
"The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve have declared that we discourage tattoos and also the piercing of the body for other than medical purposes," he said. "We do not, however, take any position on the minimal piercing of the ears by women for one pair of earrings — one pair."
Jenkins said BYU fashion police will not start hunting down coeds who sport multiple earrings. It is not likely a student would be suspended for refusing to take out a pair of diamond studs, she said.
"It is something that if a student had an issue with we'd urge them to come in and talk to a counselor" in the Honor Code office, she said.
Jenkins also said the ban on multiple earrings is in effect even when students are not on campus.
The altered policy doesn't affect Dawn Marie Peters a bit. The BYU student from Pennsylvania doesn't have pierced ears.
"It's not a problem for me," Peters said. "I'm surprised they didn't take action faster than they did."
Evelyn Mosley, a student from Tucson, Ariz., sports just one earring in each ear and doesn't question the new rule.
"It is a little thing he asked, and it isn't hard to do," she said. "If the prophet asks you to do something and I can do it 100 percent then I'm happy."
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