BYU removed LGBTQ resource pamphlets from welcome bags for new students
Brigham Young University removed pamphlets with off-campus resources for LGBTQ students from welcome bags for incoming freshmen late last month.
Brigham Young University removed pamphlets with off-campus resources for LGBTQ students from welcome bags for incoming freshmen late last month.
Created by RaYnbow Collective — a nonprofit group that founder Maddison Tenney, a BYU student, says focuses on education and allyship for queer students — the pamphlets offered information about weekly and monthly events available to LGBTQ students, as well as lists of organizations in the area that could provide therapy, safe housing, mentorship and more. The RaYnbow Collective is not officially affiliated with the university.
The pamphlets with resource information for LGBTQ students were removed from welcome bags for new students.RaYnbow CollectiveTenney, who is gay, said she wanted to create the pamphlets because she remembers the loneliness she felt as a freshman at the university, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Students at the university, in Provo, Utah, about 45 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, are restricted by university rules from dating or showing signs of affection toward members of the same sex. Violating the rules puts students at risk of being unenrolled.
“I remember sitting in my white dorm room with these cement walls and breaking down,” Tenney said. “I didn’t know anyone who was like me, who wanted to be faithful and embrace the fullness of themselves.”
She recalled seeing a lip balm tube, an item that was in her freshman bag, and thinking she could have used so much more than lip balm to get through that time in her life.
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