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By Kent Larsen
Utah Med School Says BYU Grads Sexist
PROVO, UTAH -- Complaints of harassment and sexist attitudes among BYU
graduates attending the University of Utah's Medical School have led BYU to
take steps to change the attitudes and worry that the medical school will
accept fewer BYU graduates as a result. The complaints came to BYU's
attention when the medical school's associate dean, Victoria Judd,
complained to BYU officials about the attitudes. This led to an internal
memo from BYU's Dean of Biology and Agriculture, Kent Crookston, sent to the
college's staff and a letter of apology from 24 BYU professors.
According to an article in today's Salt Lake Tribune, Judd met with some BYU
officials in an impromptu meeting in early January and expressed her
concerns over the attitudes, which she said seemed to mostly originate with
former BYU students. That meeting led Dean Crookston to send an email
message on January 13th to all college personnel describing the meeting. In
the message, which Crookston released to the Tribune on Monday, he said,
former BYU students had "flagrantly belittled female students, challenging
their fit in a professional program that rightfully belongs to men,
asserting that women ought to get on with the business of raising children."
As a result, BYU professor William Bradshaw and a group of 24 other faculty
members wrote a letter of apology to Judd, promising to "eliminate these
unfortunate attitudes." "Thank you for making us aware of this problem, and
accept our apologies for the limited vision of those persons in your program
who make wrongful judgments about medical training for women."
In addition to BYU's promise, the University of Utah Medical School has also
taken steps to combat the attitudes, according to the Tribune article. Both
first- and second-year medical students were asked to attend a talk on
diversity last September.
Source:
BYU Grads Accused of Sexist Views
Salt Lake Tribune 28Feb01 P4
By Kirsten Stewart: Salt Lake Tribune
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