Memo to: Board of Trustees

Re: Charges of "Racism" and "Bigotry" Against BYU and the LDS Church

Date: November 5, 1969

Events of the past two or three weeks have pointed up dramatically that a number of highly vocal people and groups have dedicated themselves to discrediting Brigham Young University and the LDS Church, by branding us with a "racist and un-Christian" tag. During the week of October 18-24, 1969, alone, this charge of racism appeared on NBC-TV's Huntley-Brinkley Report, on all other major television and radio networks plus thousands of individual television and radio stations, and hundreds of daily newspapers. If this one week's damaging publicity had been paid for at regular commercial rates, it is conservatively estimated that it would have cost between one and two million dollars. The New York Sunday News, October 19, reported that "BYU, Wyoming's WAC foe this afternoon, (Saturday} has been a target of black protest several times in recent years. Negroes protest the racial beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon} which operate the Provo, Utah, University." The Chicago Tribune headlined its Sunday sports section, October 19, "Wyoming Drops 14 Negro Gridders--Defied Ban on Protest Against BYU." The Washington, D. C. Evening Star of October 18th, stated [that a] dispute arose when black athletes went to football coach Lloyd Eaton's office Friday to protest alleged "racial policies" at Brigham Young."

Other recent headlines include, "Mormon Church: Study in the Divine Right of Bigots," "Black Students Accuse BYU of 'Racism'", "BYU Called 'Racist"', "Students Oppose BYU Bigotry."

The forces which would destroy the truthful image of the Church are repeating over and over again, through the mass media, thousands of times daily to millions of people the message that "Mormons are racists and bigots." If they are successful in getting over their point, and they have been highly successful the past few weeks, the resulting consequences will extend far beyond athletics to such vital areas as accreditation at BYU, growth of our Institute Programs on college campuses, the attitude of people generally toward the LDS Missionary system, and the attitude among some of the people within the Church itself.

This is a many sided problem we are facing and comes to us from many directions. Thus, it will b·e appreciated if you will hear this full presentation before you make a judgment. You will recognize that some of the information is highly confidential.

We believe the greatest help we can be to you is to offer suggestions and recommendations in the light of recent developments. This we have done at the end of this report. Our suggestions are intended to bring the issues into focus. You have our complete support in your vital decisions which we know will be reached in harmony with the spirit of our Heavenly Father.

I. THE IMMEDIATE PROBLEM

A. While the Church's image in the eyes of those we want to influence is our primary concern, the immediate problem we face is the attack on the Church through the BYU athletic programs. If our detractors are successful here, they will be encouraged to attack the Church more directly and more forcibly.

In order to assess the current situation fairly and frankly, we submit the following:

1. BYU's official admission policy from the current catalog is as follows:

"Students of any race, creed, color, or national origin are accepted for admission to Brigham Young University provided they maintain ideals and standards in harmony with those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and meet the University's academic requirements. High standards of honor, integrity, and morality; graciousness in personal behavior, application of Christian ideals in everyday living; and abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, and harmful drugs are required of every student."

We make no special concessions to Negro students as far as admissions is concerned. We do make concessions as to admission to Indian students.

(a) In general this admissions policy is accepted even though many suggest we should treat the Negroes the same way we treat the Indians, by giving them special treatment for admission and special courses.

(b) This year we have only three Negro students in our student body.

2. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare after a three-day investigation, last March certified that BYU conforms to the Civil Rights Act, i.e. that we practice no discrimination. They plan to return to BYU each year to review our policies and practices. They were on campus last Thursday for this purpose and will mail us a report of their visit in the near future.

3. President Wilkinson has taken the position in public statements, and to the representatives of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare that we do not discriminate. However, it is getting increasingly difficult to defend our policy in light of our practice. The picture has changed so markedly the past few months that we can no longer get by with what we once did. Robert Barker, our Washington attorney, after research on this subject, has come to the conclusion that we are in violation of the Civil Rights law. If this should be established, the consequences could have far reaching effects into many phases of the Church's operation.

In addition to our generally avoiding any recruitment of Negroes, we do discriminate against the Negro in two particulars in relation to the athletic program.

(a) While we recruit white athletes, both members and non-members of our Church, we do not affirmatively recruit Negro athletes.

(b) We do not offer athletic grants-in-aid to Negro students, as we do the whites. True, if they attend and make the team, we are authorized to then give them a grant-in-aid for the following year, but this is still discriminating for we offer these grants-in-aid to whites before they register. Indeed that is the reason they register. Our policy, incidentally, would be considered highly discriminating by the NCAA, and would cause us to lose their support.

II. THE WYOMING INCIDENT

While we have had many problems relative to the race issue the past several years, the specific incident which has brought BYU and the Church into national attention recently was the football game with Wyoming, Saturday, October 18. Prior to that game 14 Negro members of the Wyoming team showed up in the office of Coach Lloyd Eaton wearing black arm bands in protest against the alleged racist policies of the LDS Church. This was contrary to a rule of Coach Eaton that no athlete could participate in any demonstration. Indeed, in this case, he had ordered them not to wear these arm bands. As a result of the disobedience, Coach Eaton discharged all 14 of his Negro members from the team. He has so far been sustained in this decision by the President, the Board of Trustees and the Governor.

Eaton's rule was not directed against Negro players. A few days previously he had not permitted any of his players, black or white, to participate in the Vietnam Moratorium.

The action of Coach Eaton is being bitterly opposed by the Wyoming University Student Council and by the Faculty Senate. It has been the subject of hundreds of television and radio broadcasts and newspaper articles throughout the country. While some of them support Coach Eaton because of his rule which was known to all his players, there has been practically no support for the Church or BYU. This is the worst publicity campaign against the BYU we have ever experienced, and it is continuing.

III. HISTORY OF DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST US

Here, briefly, is a history of the demonstrations and other actions taken against BYU in our athletic contests and other activities of the university. In all of these, Brigham Young University has been branded with a "racist" tag. The following is a capsule report only. Details are included, as an appendix. All these events were publicized in the local or national press, many of them extensively.

April 13, 1968 -- Negro members of the track team at University of Texas at El Paso refused to compete against BYU.

Spring, 1968 - - BYU accused of being racist at an Education Conference in Denver.

June 13, 1968 -- Herb Alpert, popular performer on the University Concert circuit accused BYU of racial discrimination.

July, 1968 - - Sports Illustrated said " . . . BYU is a Mormon school, and the Book of Mormon specifies an inferior role for the Negro."

July 16, 1968 -- Black leader at San Jose State said "We're going after them {Mormon colleges), and if they don't change their ways, we'll close them up."

November 21, 1968 -- Negro students boycotted a San Jose State College-BYU football game.

February 2, 1969 -- BYU symphonic band refused permission to play at El Cerrito High School because of racial implications.

February 27, 1969 -- Over 100 protesters filed onto the playing floor at a New Mexico-BYU basketball game, asking the crowd to boycott the game.

March 14, 1969 -- California State College at Hayward canceled a baseball game with BYU. Stanford University canceled a tennis match. Stanford also asked us to cancel a basketball game scheduled for December, 1970.

April 19, 1969 -- Negroes boycotted a BYU-Texas El Paso track and field meet.

June 16, 1969 -- BYU was not invited to the prestigious Riverside Baseball Tournament (we have been invited for the past several years) because of "racial unrest."

October 3-4, 1969 -- A Western Collegiate Association resolution condemning BYU as a racist institution was voted down, 4-2.

October 10, 1969 -- BYU Executive Vice President Ben E. Lewis reported that James Fletcher, President of University of Utah, told him that in Fletcher's opinion, BYU is going to have to actively recruit black athletes if they expect to stay in WAC conference--and that if other schools voted to move BYU out of the conference, he would feel impelled to vote with the other schools against BYU.

October 11, 1969 -- Anti-BYU demonstration at Arizona State University-BYU football game. Two hundred demonstrators chanted "BYU racists," "Boycott BYU." Petition by black students asked ASU to dissolve its relationship with BYU.

October 21, 1969 -- Black Student Alliance at Wyoming University, stated that the purpose of the demonstration the previous week was to call attention to practices of the LDS Church which tend to demean a person solely on the basis of skin color. They spoke of "inhuman and racist" policies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

October 21, 1969 -- New Mexico Civil Liberties Union recommended that New Mexico University disassociate itself from a conference which is "harboring racist institutions."

October 22, 1969 -- Western Athletic Conference Commissioner, Wiles Hallock reported to the Associated Press that the situation had reached "crisis proportions." Later he stated that he thought the conference could work out its problems. He also stated "whenever a conference member meets BYU, it is standard procedure to have some kind of demonstration."

October 23, 1969 - - Jack Schroeder, Salt Lake Tribune Executive Sports Editor, suggested in a news column that the southern division schools may secede from the conference and form a new conference by inviting some of the northern schools (but not BYU) to join.

October 23, 1969 -- Paul James, KSL Sportscaster for all of our games, pointed out that in the past most of the protests had been against BYU, but that at Wyoming the protests were aimed specifically at the Church. He predicted that, if we do nothing to take some of the pressure off other schools, we would be out of the "athletic business" within six months.

We contacted members of our BYU National Public Relations Advisory Council across the country. They all stated that the Wyoming-BYU story was reported extensively in their areas, and that the Church was "taking a beating."

Coach Eaton and Athletic Director Jacoby of Wyoming informed Floyd Millet that Wyoming was right behind us.

October 25, 1969 -- The day of the BYU-Texas El Paso football game, UTEP President Smiley stated unofficially that he thought BYU should resign from the conference.

It was reported that about 75 students, most of them white, staged a peaceful demonstration against BYU outside the Sun Bowl where the game was being played.

October 30, 1969 -- A Michigan lawyer, brought to Laramie by the NAACP, has filed a $1.1 million law suit against the University of Wyoming for "damages" suffered by the fourteen black athletes who were dropped from the Wyoming football team.

NOTE: Throughout this campaign against the BYU athletic program, there has been a stepped up attack on other university campuses, by non-black students, (especially student government) and faculty, urging their schools to discontinue all relationships with Brigham Young University--including music, drama, speech, and all other forms of student academic and social activity. Should this become an accomplished fact, BYU would be an isolated island in the University community of the area.

In summary, an intensive and damaging campaign is being waged against the Church and BYU. The initial target was BYU athletics. However, the area of attack has been enlarged to include all phases of operation at BYU, and the doctrines of the LDS Church.

V. THE IMMEDIATE PROBLEM AND ALTERNATIVES

The problem, as we have mentioned, is far greater for the Church then the specific athletic situation in the Western Athletic Conference. Regardless of how this problem is resolved, we can be sure that attacks on the Church relative to "racial policies" will continue, and expand beyond the black community. But since the solution to this larger problem is beyond the authority of those of us at BYU, we will confine our discussion to alternative solutions for the University itself.

A. The first alternative is to resign from the Conference.

B. The second alternative is to pull out of athletics entirely.

As to both of these alternatives, if we acquiesce to pressure and discontinue playing any athletic teams that have black students on them, we can expect the following results:

1. Even if we resign only from the Conference, we run the risk that our entire intercollegiate athletic program would fold because universities would shy away from scheduling games with us because of the adverse publicity which might accrue to them. As Paul James said, he was witnessing an historic football game at Wyoming on October 18th--the only major game in the nation where there were no black athletes on either team.

2. Our athletic leadership training program would be jeopardized. We would be in an impossible position in recruiting and training athletic leaders if those potential leaders have to learn their profession purely by theory and not through the rigors of experience on the playing field.

3. The esprit de corps, throughout the student body, alumni, and even the Church, which intercollegiate athletics engenders, would be demoralized. The total sports program, by tradition, has become a major rall[y]ing force, not only on the university campuses but in educational institutions at all levels. The competitive factor, even with some of its drawbacks, is still a major influence in promoting the principle of free enterprise, of teaching discipline, of providing a wholesome type of environment in the building of sound minds and bodies.

4. Because discontinuing intercollegiate athletics could be interpreted as an admission that there is truth in the racist charges, this could have serious implications to the acceptance of our Institute Program on college campuses throughout the country. Several institute directors have already called asking for a statement which would help them and their students counteract the "racist" charge.

5. If accrediting organizations become convinced racism is practiced at BYU, our national accreditation is in jeopardy. Should this happen it would be far more difficult for our students to be accepted in other schools throughout the country for post-graduate·work. Conversely, many of the best students (and faculty) we would like to have at BYU would not attend a non-accredited school.

6. Perhaps the most serious problem of all is that if we should pursue either of these alternatives, the resulting nationwide negative publicity which would brand us as a racist institution, could do irreparable damage to the Church's missionary effort, and to BYU's national fund raising program. It also could be a major disruptive influence within the Church. Many people in the Church are looking for direction, and are beginning to wonder if there is a truth in the statements they are reading and hearing every day about the racial policies of the Church.

C. Our third alternative is to continue our present policy with respect to Negro athletes.

This may cause dissolution of the conference, and if it does it will be a victory for the blacks who will bring pressures against blacks on all teams throughout the country to refuse to play us. This could also mean, in large part, an end to our athletic program, plus the other negative results of the first two alternatives already noted.

D. Our fourth alternative is that if a Negro student is available who qualifies in all respects, academically, morally, athletically, we are authorized to issue him a grant-in-aid on the same basis as any other student.

We do not believe that this will mean many Negroes, if any, on our teams because:

1. Not many will meet our academic standards. For example, a Mormon Negro boy by the name of Williams went to Wyoming. He knew his grades would not permit him to attend BYU.

2. Not many will meet our social and moral standards.

3. Not many will desire to come to BYU because of lack of social life.

4. Notre Dame University has very few black athletes on its teams. This Church school has top rated teams, and by selecting a very few black athletes it has prevented the charge of "racism," which has been leveled against BYU.

E. Advahtages of this recommendation.

1. We can be honest as to our policy. We would then give black athletes the same privileges as other students, including Hawaiians and Indians (except we would not lower admission requirements for them).

2. It will take from our critics many of the criticisms of us--indeed their major legitimate criticism of BYU. This is, however, the one place we are especially vulnerable.

3. We would stay in the Conference and probably continue playing other teams.

4. We will not have our players demoralized because of agitation.

5. It would remove the complaint for doing away with our accreditation.

F. Apart from what you decide on this issue, we strongly recommend that we be permitted to develop a BYU statement of policy that our administrators, faculty, athletic personnel and press relations staff may use in countering the charges of racism. In all the thousands of stories that have appeared these past few days, almost none have suggested that the LDS Church of BYU have a tenable point of view. Our story is being told--by our detractors, by those who are uninformed, by almost everyone except us.

A comprehensive study in communications has concluded that in social reforms during World War II, those who took the offensive succeeded; while there was not one successful defensive publicity program.

Our positive contribution as a University and as a Church will be given less and less of a hearing if we fail to adequately answer negative charges. Refusal is usually interpreted, fairly or unfairly, as an admission of guilt.

G. Another positive recommendation we make is one that would permit us to be more successful in our athletic program; one that will enlarge our national and international image in athletics as it has lately been enlarged in other areas, and which will, of course, bring added credit and favorable publicity to the Church. That suggestion is that we have positive support from all Church authorities in recruiting the best athletes in our Church. At the present time we sometimes meet with opposition by Stake Presidents and Bishops. To illustrate, we tried several years ago to recruit two outstanding basketball players in Arizona (Dennis Dairman and Art Becker}. One had definitely agreed to ·come, the other practically promised. At the last moment a Bishop persuaded the leader of the two to go to Arizona State, so the other followed. Instead of having them play for us, we had to play against them. We would have had one of the strongest teams in the nation with them.

We also attempted to persuade an outstanding athlete in Oregon (Duane De Freez- -he had been an all-American high school player for two years} to attend, but he was dissuaded by a Stake President. The second quarterback at Oregon State is a Mormon boy. Our coaches tell us that if BYU could get the best athletes in our Church we could successfully play anyone.

When Jack Curtice was at the U of U, he said that if ever the Mormon Church adopted a unified recruiting policy for the BYU, he was leaving because the others wouldn't be able to compete with

that school.

We ask that we be given genuine support and that it be brought to the attention of Stake Presidents and Bishops in a careful manner, as to the importance of having their full support for the overall good of the Church.

We are aware that there are some who think it would be good for our Institute Program to have some of our best athletes represent

local institutions. However, when we had trouble last year with San Jose, the morale of the San Jose Institute was seriously effected [sic]. At Laramie two weeks ago, the Director of our Institute expressed concern as to their progress unless the Negro problem is solved and we do better on the football field. So this recommendation would be of help to our Institutes as well as to BYU.

V. CONCLUSIONS

If we have a Negro or two on our athletic teams, we may have some problems. But that possibility exists now with Negroes who are not athletes. It is minimal at BYU because of the very few we have and we intend to keep it that way with athletes.

Finally, while we might have some problems with a few students, those isolated cases must be balanced against the fact that we could continue with an enlarged athletic program and have greater acceptance as a school and Church throughout the world.

[A twenty-two page appendix entitled "History of Demonstrations Against Us" follows, giving details of thirty-two incidtents to date in 1968 and 1969]