The statue of its founder on the university’s campus depicts a clean-shaven Brigham Young and that aligns with the BYU Honor Code that states that “men are expected to be clean-shaven.”
About 50 students, some donning paper beards, biked, skateboarded or rollerbladed their way from the Provo City Library to campus during the “Bike for Beards” protest on Friday night.
“I love BYU. I love being a student here,” protest organizer Shane Pittson said. “But the rule on beards I find particularly outdated.”
The 23-year-old international studies major and other students have launched a petition drive to get the school to lift the ban.
University spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said students agree to its grooming standards before their first day of class and the beard ban was set in place by students.
“It’s nothing against beards. It’s just how we choose to represent ourselves at the university,” she told The Salt Lake Tribune.
Brigham Young and many other early leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew beards as they aged. A statue of Young in downtown Salt Lake City depicts him with a beard, but another at BYU shows him clean-shaven.
