This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Could the spirit of Ernest L. Wilkinson be lurking in the Brigham Young University building where religion classes and faculty meetings are held?
The Salt Lake Tribune reported last week that secret recording devices had been discovered in the Joseph Smith Building, hidden underneath several classroom stools where they were secured with Velcro.
That story brought back images of the Ghosts of BYU Past when a student spy ring was launched to monitor the lectures of BYU professors and report back to the administration whether those professors were being true to the LDS faith and conservative principles.
An essay by Gary James Bergara in the spring 2011 issue of the Utah Historical Quarterly recalled the saga that occurred in 1966 when then-BYU President Wilkinson became concerned that a "group of liberal teachers had decided to attempt to change the political and social atmosphere so as to bring it more in line with the prevailing political trend toward Socialism …"
Wilkinson, who took a leave of absence from BYU in 1964 to run for the U.S. Senate, believed the seeds of liberalism were planted at the LDS Church-owned school during his absence.
He recruited a group of students to spy on suspected liberal teachers and report back about their lectures.
The scheme was eventually exposed and stopped.
But now, has the hard-liner who ran BYU with an iron hand from 1951 to 1971 and died in 1978 found a way to return?
BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins told Tribune reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack that officials do not know who planted the secret recording devices under the stools at the Joseph Smith Building, "but it was not done by the administration."
At least not the present one.
Trapped in Zion • Another Tribune story by Peggy Fletcher Stack in Thursday's Tribune chronicled the attempts by a group of former BYU students to change the school's policy of expelling Mormon students who lose their faith and have their names taken off church rolls.
Non-Mormon students can attend BYU, but pay a higher tuition than Mormon students. But those students who start out as Mormons and leave the faith cannot stay at the school.
That story brought back memories of a personal friend who gave up a long teaching career to attend law school under a grant program for nontraditional students.
She applied at the University of Utah, but the program required she apply at two schools, so she added BYU.
As luck would have it, she was not accepted to the U. but was accepted at BYU.
In order to attend the church-owned school, she had to obtain a letter from an ecclesiastical leader of whatever religion she belonged that confirmed she was a person of good moral character.
An inactive Mormon, she obtained the letter from a friend who was an LDS bishop.
But the policy changed after her first year of law school. For the second year, she needed a letter not from just any bishop, but the bishop at the LDS ward where she lived. That bishop said he could not in good faith give her a recommendation because she did not attend church.
Having already invested a year at the school and not wanting to waste the time and the money, she was stuck. So for the next two years, she was in her LDS ward pew every Sunday until the day she graduated.