Students protest BYU beard ban

PROVO, Utah – A group of Brigham Young University students is protesting the Mormon church-owned school’s ban on something its namesake once sported: a beard.

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 “But the rule on beards I find particularly outdated.”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.

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.

The BYU Honor Code, created in the 1940s, states that “men are expected to be clean-shaven” and beards are not acceptable. But students can be exempted from the prohibition if they have a medical condition such as scarring.