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Show WINTER 2013 UHQ pp 4-90_UHQ Stories/pp.4-68 12/5/12 9:38 AM Page 70 uTAH HISTORICAL QuARTERLy criticisms that followed, Wilkinson stressed: “Brigham Young University stands squarely... in denouncing communism as a devilish and satanic gospel. I am surprised that anyone thought otherwise.”22 Wilkinson also expanded the criteria used in faculty hiring and promotion to include “commitments to business history and ... the business community,” as well as “affiliations with the conservative elements of economics.”23 He balked at appointing teachers whose political and economic views differed from his own, and sometimes punished faculty whose views did.24 BYU’s undergraduate course in American history was “adjusted” in 1968 to include “treatments of ... the American system of free enterprise” as well as LDS Churchman J. Reuben Clark’s writings on the U.S. Constitution.25 After reviewing a survey of student attitudes two years later, Wilkinson vowed to do even more “to maintain our republic.”26 Campus dance bands were screened for possible communist sympathizers. School administrators contacted local radio stations to complain about musicians such as Joan Baez, “known to be a communist...”27 When Wilkinson learned that the number of BYU students using federal food stamps had more than doubled, he asked “for guidance.” Trustees felt that “additional comments... would draw attention to the program,” but Apostle Benson later publicly condemned the practice.28 Wilkinson’s anti-communism reflected an affinity among many LDS officers, most notably Benson, for right-wing ideologies. At BYU, the response to such a faction was divided. Religion professors Reid E. Bankhead, Glenn L. Pearson, and Hyrum Andrus favored, like Benson, the political/economic teachings of the John Birch Society and had to be cautioned not to “interject their personal opinions and feelings in the classroom.” 29 After meeting Birch Society founder Robert Welch, 22 “Wilkinson Comments Repeated,” Daily Universe, May 21, 1963; “Wilkinson Quotes Church Officials,” Daily Universe, May 17, 1963. 23 Weldon J. Taylor, Memorandum to Robert K. Thomas, December 4, 1968, Perry Special Collections; Wilkinson, Diary, November 29, 1960; Board of Trustees, Executive Committee Minutes, January 28, February 3 and 25, 1965, June 4, 1969; Wilkinson, Diary, February 1-6, 1965. 24 See Board of Trustees, Executive Committee, Minutes, January 28, February 3 and 25, 1965; and Wilkinson, Diary, February 1-6, 1965. The specific case here involved the hiring of LDS church members Bartell C. Jensen and Robert H. Slover. Jensen accepted a position at Utah State University; Slover joined BYU’s political science faculty. Slover, who was also a colonel in the U.S. Army, told LDS officials: “a staff officer’s job is to ... fight for what he thinks is right and as far as the problem is concerned ... [But] when the commander makes a decision whether it’s your decision or somebody else’s decision, then you get behind him and make it work” Slover, Oral History, February 10, 1994, 3, Perry Special Collections. See also, Gary James Bergera, “The Monitoring of BYU Faculty Tithing Payments, 1957-63,” Sunstone, October 2011, 32-43; and Bergera, “The 1966 BYU Student Spy Ring,” Utah Historical Quarterly 79 (Spring 2011): 164-88. Slover taught full time from 1965 to 1978, then an additional eight years part time. 25 Board of Trustees, Executive Committee, Minutes, November 21, 1968. 26 Wilkinson, Memorandum to Weldon J. Taylor, March 27, 1970, Perry Special Collections. 27 Wilkinson, Memorandum to J. Elliott Cameron, September 27, 1966, Perry Special Collections. 28 “Food Stamp Numbers Climb,” Daily Universe, March 25, 1971; Board of Trustees, Minutes, April 7, 1971; “Pres. Benson Warns Against Communism,” Daily Universe, April 13, 1977. 29 College of Religious Instruction Departmental Chairmen’s Meeting, Minutes, April 20, May 6, 1964, Perry Special Collections. 70 |
