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Show WINTER 2013 UHQ pp 4-90_UHQ Stories/pp.4-68 12/5/12 9:38 AM Page 89 STudENT POLITICAL ACTIVISM be taken against] the undercover newspaper.”153 The editors discontinued the paper in May 1969 at the urging of a ranking Church official in favor of working “within the established procedures and organization at the BYU.”154 Other dissenting voices surfaced, but the threat of reprisal succeeded in limiting protest. 155 During the 1968-69 school year, the student club Spectrum, a “forum for open discussion of important matters on a non-partisan and hopefully intelligent level,” sponsored a panel on poverty in America and also gathered eighteen hundred signatures on a petition calling for an all-volunteer military. In October 1970, Spectrum members staged a series of anti-war skits titled “Guerilla Theater.”156 Complaints followed, and the students were denied permission to restage the production.157 Spectrum later held a public discussion on Vietnam, featuring BYU conscientious objectors Terrell E. Hunt and Andrew E. Kimball, grandson of Church Apostle Spencer W. Kimball. “If we loved [each other],” Kimball said, “we wouldn’t butcher each other.”158 “[T]he opposing panelists (and the overwhelming majority of the audience),” Hunt recalled, “took the position that war is justified under a very broad range of circumstances, and has even been characterized as be[ing] ordered by God Himself. That’s pretty stiff competition, but we made our point!”159 The event “turned out to be not nearly so violent [an] attack as we were afraid of,” Wilkinson recorded. “Young Andy Kimball is very sincere in his views but is naive and impractical.” Still, Wilkinson insisted, “I don’t believe any Mormon can be [a pacifist].”160 By 1968, six explicitly partisan political clubs had emerged on campus: 153 Wilkinson, Diary, November 19, 1968. Wilkinson, Memorandum to J. Morris Richards and Lorin F. Wheelwright, May 16, 1969, Wilkinson Papers. See also “Once an Underground Newspaper,” Daily Universe, December 13, 1979. Though not an underground paper per se, the monthly newsletter of BYU’s Young Democrats, especially under the leadership of student activist Omar Kader, published liberal points of view. 155 For the decline in student unrest nationally, see Phillip G. Altbach, “Student Activism in the 1970s and 1980s,” Student Politics: Perspectives for the Eighties, Philip G. Altbach, ed. (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1981), 8-11. 156 Spectrum was founded by students Dante Gumucio, Andrew Kimball Jr., and Larry Vollintine in 1967 as New Politics Club, with BYU Dean Martin B. Hickman as faculty advisor. Initially, administrators asked club members to sign loyalty oaths, but Hickman advised against doing so. Administrators backed down, then asked that the club change its name to avoid confusion with the national left-leaning “National Conference for New Politics.” Spectrum returned to campus in 1968 and during the height of its popularity had some fifty-plus members. See Larry R. Vollintine, “The Founding of Spectrum at BYU, 1967-1969,” attached to Vollintine, E-mail to Bergera, November 17, 2011. “Club Presents Guerilla Theater,” Daily Universe, October 29, 1970. See also Gale Lee Gray, Letter, Daily Universe, October 30, 1970. 157 Performance Standards Committee, Minutes, December 11, 1970, Perry Special Collections. 158 “Spectrum Panel Probes Vietnam,” Daily Universe, February 26, 1971. 159 Hunt, E-mail to Bergera, and attachment. 160 Wilkinson, Diary, February 24, 1971. For Kimball’s anti-war activism, see Wasatch Front, October 1970, 7, 11, Perry Special Collections. Shortly afterwards, and at Wilkinson’s prodding, Kimball’s grandfathers met separately with him “to talk me out of my unorthodox views. ... The conversations were silly, on both our sides,” Kimball recalled. One grandfather “emphasized that long hair conveyed the wrong values. I responded that short hair conveyed to me materialism, complacency, etc., and that in any case Jesus had long hair, which made my grandfather angry, and he forbade me to speak about ‘the savior’ in connection with hippies” (E-mail to Bergera, November 3, 2011). 154 89 |
