Tribune editorial: Anti-LDS bigotry at BYU football games demands a firm response from Big 12, university leaders

“Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.” — George F. Will

As Brigham Young University’s football team gets better — and this year it is very good indeed — its rivals get nastier.

Several times this season, as BYU visits and, usually, demolishes big-time football teams across the country, a vulgar chant has risen from the home team’s student section.

A little crudeness is part of the game, especially among immature and sometimes inebriated student fans. But the “F--- the Mormons” refrain is not intercollegiate rivalry. It is religious bigotry, and it has no place anywhere, especially on the property of our institutions of higher learning.

(Similar bigoted chants have been aimed at teams from the University of Utah, even though it is not an institution of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Which shows how much these thugs know.)

Imagine what the reaction would be if a similarly obscene anti-Catholic chant was directed at Notre Dame’s football team. Or a racist recitation aimed at Grambling’s squad.

The whole mood of American life is increasingly boorish and bigoted, from the top down. What once might have been shrugged off as asinine behavior is all too likely to be a precursor to actual violence.

The leaders of the schools where some fans have been so unwelcoming have been properly appalled and apologetic. But there need to be consequences.

The NCAA and the Big 12 conference have rules that are meant to reign in such nasty behavior in the stands. Racist expressions, or just thrown bottles and snowballs, can cost the home team an immediate 15-yard penalty and the school significant fines.

Those are good ideas, but they punish the players, who aren’t the guilty parties. They may not reach the bigoted bleacher bums who may not really even care that much about the outcome of the game and certainly won’t notice a fine paid by the athletic department.

Bigotry is wrong because it punishes whole populations for sins — real or, more often, imagined — of a few wrongdoers. Punishment needs to be targeted as specifically as possible to guilty parties.

Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark and individual university leaders must draft and enforce rules of behavior at their events, identifying and ejecting those who incite and perpetuate bigoted chants or demonstrations. Maybe from the game. Maybe from the whole season. Maybe from the school altogether. Permanently.

Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.