Brigham Young Under Investigation Over Disciplining LGBTQ+ Students
The Salt Lake Tribune.The school, which is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, can punish students for holding hands or kissing someone of the same sex.
They face harsher discipline than straight students, the Associated Press reports.Senior BYU student Everett Patterson said the punishment for same-sex dating can be a warning or even an expulsion.
He told TV station KSTU that he knows someone personally who had to leave BYU.“They had gone in and admitted themself assuming there’d be some kind of discipline but not that they’d be expelled from the university,” Patterson said. “And they were expelled.”“All the reasons that straight students come to this university are the reasons that we come to this university,” he continued. “And the fact that queer students are held to a different standard than straight students.
Because a straight student wouldn’t be expelled for going on a date. Or holding hands. Or kissing.”In 2020, the school removed its ban on what it called “homosexual behavior,” which led to some students coming out as LGBTQ+.
