A timeline of BYU’s police force — from its 1952 start to modern controversy

Brigham Young University was one of the last major higher education institutions in the state to create its own police force.

That department has now existed for 73 years at the private Provo school owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In a new research paper published in The Yale Law Journal, recent Yale Law School graduate Grace Watkins explores the history of the campus police force and the scrutiny it’s faced largely since its inception.

That included targeted enforcement against gay students, major court cases that drew media attention and unconventional policing methods, including using undercover students. Here’s a timeline looking at that past up through 2020.

• 1952: BYU launched its campus police department. Prior, it had handful of part-time night watchmen and custodians who doubled as security officers. Its first chief was Leonard Christensen, a former captain at the Los Angeles Police Department.

• 1950s-1960s: Then-BYU President Ernest Wilkinson said he was worried “the counterculture might infiltrate their campus.” His direction to BYU police was to be “unusually diligent” on stopping drug use. That became the department’s focus for about its first decade.

• 1968: BYU police led what was then the largest-ever narcotics raid by number of arrests (nine) in Provo’s history. Officers spent weeks watching an off-campus house where they suspected students used drugs; they planted an undercover student there, too. An attorney later accused BYU police of using “gestapo tactics.”

• 1971: Campus police came under fire for using both undercover students and university resources after a sting at a Provo cafe. There, a recent BYU graduate was assigned to accompany an officer in buying drugs from two men, whom they arrested. A BYU chemistry professor then tested the contents of the drugs and concluded it was “probably methamphetamine.” One of the men, Thomas Madsen, sued, arguing that the charges were based on shoddy police work and a unofficial lab test. The Utah Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 1972.

• 1960s-1970s: The university’s police force shifted its focus to stopping “same-sex intimacy.” Officers were told to enforce the school’s strict Honor Code — which banned gay students from campus — at a time when “gay purges” at campuses across the country were largely winding down. In 1965, BYU President Wilkinson said in a speech to the student body that any gay students should “leave the university immediately.”

One 1967 report said 72 students were investigated for “same-sex intimacy” that year. Security officers often patrolled campus areas they assumed gay students may be, one student said, including drama and ballet classes. BYU police were also accused of keeping records on students they suspected were gay.

• 1973: Then-university President Dallin H. Oaks lifted BYU’s outright ban on gay students attending. But gay students continued to be prohibited from having same-sex partnerships or expressing any kind of “same-sex behavior.”

And Oaks continued to tell campus police to be “especially watchful for that kind of crime.” BYU’s officers began to expand where they typically enforced — stretching far beyond campus. Undercover students were assigned to patrol off-campus men’s bathrooms, for instance, looking for gay students, according to news reports.

• 1974: Robert Kelshaw was appointed police chief. Under his direction, BYU officers were known to drive to Salt Lake City to check cars parked outside of gay bars for BYU parking permits. Kelshaw also told The Salt Lake Tribune at the time that “electronic recording devices have been planted on students in order to gather information on roommates and acquaintances.”

• 1977: In a letter, Kelshaw asked the U.S. attorney for Utah if passing along law enforcement records to the dean of students for university disciplinary action violated the Federal Privacy Act. There was no recorded response.

• 1978: A student using the alias John Friday — who was working undercover for BYU police — placed his first ads in The Open Door, a community newsletter for the LGBTQ community in Utah. Friday had claimed in the posting that he felt it was “not fair” that gay students at BYU were forced to hide their identities or face expulsion. He said he was interested in starting “an underground” group and encouraged other gay students and nearby residents to reach out to him.

It was a trap, though, to find gay Utahns that the university’s officers could target.

• 1979: Friday placed more ads. This time, a man named David Chipman responded. Chipman, who was not a BYU student, said he was questioning his own sexuality and wanted to support Friday. The two men agreed to drive to a nature preserve outside Provo together. BYU police tailed Friday’s car, and Friday alleged that Chipman touched his groin without consent. He signaled for officers to respond while wearing a wire.

Chipman later testified that he touched Friday’s upper thigh; he was arrested and charged with felony forcible sexual abuse. His court case — the first to challenge BYU police during the “gay purges” — opened the door to exposing the department’s wide-reaching “moral policing” efforts. Chipman argued he had been entrapped. He was initially found guilty of a lesser charge of misdemeanor attempted forcible sexual abuse.

• 1980: Chipman appealed, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah took his case to the Utah Supreme Court. His attorneys argued that BYU police had lacked jurisdiction to pursue Chipman. The court, though, ruled in favor of the university because a state police officer was also involved. Chipman was convicted, required to pay a $450 fine and placed on probation for one year.

Months after his arrest, the state passed a controversial law that gave BYU police statewide jurisdiction and direct clearance to enforce both criminal law and university policies.

• 1980s: Despite saying they would stop employing students as undercover officers, records indicate BYU police continued the practice for roughly another decade.

• 1988: BYU police officers arrested a group of kids in downtown Provo for allegedly drinking underage. One of the boys filed a lawsuit the next year, again questioning the department’s jurisdiction; he had been off-campus and wasn’t a university student. But the court sided with the university based on the 1979 law change that widened officers’ reach.

• 2000: Kelshaw left BYU’s police department as the then-longest serving chief in the state.

• 2016: The Tribune uncovered information-sharing between BYU police and the school’s Honor Code Office. In several sexual assault cases, The Tribune found, alleged victims who came forward to university or Provo police were later disciplined for Honor Code violations.

• 2017: The Tribune was awarded the Pulitzer prize for local reporting for its campus sexual assault coverage, which stemmed from its BYU reporting.

• 2019: The state Legislature voted to make BYU’s police department subject to the state’s open records law after The Tribune launched a legal battle for records documenting police correspondence with Honor Code officials.

A separate state attempt in 2019 to decertify BYU police was later dismissed. The school’s police department told the state it would not share information with administrators moving forward, and BYU pledged not to punish students who reported sexual violence.

• 2020: BYU updated its Honor Code to remove language banning same-sex relationships, but the school and LDS Church said those rules still applied. Students led major protests.

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