BYU-I President Works to Expel Professors Like Cleon Skousen?

The Mormon Chronicle has been contacted by sources close to former BYU-I President Kim Clark administration.

The interest in the information stems from Clark’s recent talk regarding some changes to the Church Education System.

Creationists and constitutionalists are afraid to say anything.  One source said, “One of Kim Clark’s VPs declared, ‘We want no Cleon Skousens on this campus!’ ‘We’ was in reference to then President Kim Clark and his administration. For fear of retribution, the circumstances and professors involved must remain anonymous.” It is an atmosphere of fear among more traditional professors.

(update: Another witness can be found here

https://prophetorprofessor.wordpress.com/2016/07/15/evolving-faith-my-experiences-with-kim-b-clark/

Also, TJ Thompson posted on the Mormon Chronicle Facebook page the following,

“I was a political science major at BYU-Idaho from 2008-2009 and 2011-2013. My entire time at BYU-I was during the Clark administration, and I have experiences in political science and economics courses that testify to what has been shared here.

One political science professor, who has since retired for health reasons, openly criticized Bruce R. McConkie for his first edition of “Mormon Doctrine.” She also kept a blog that promoted same-sex marriage and feminism. She longed for a day when gays would be married in the temple and was sympathetic to the Ordain Women movement.

Another political science professor gave students extra credit for participating in the Envision Madison project, an Agenda 21 project fiercely opposed by Rexburg locals. Most of the participants in central planning were transient students earning extra credit. This same professor also ran the political science internship program and encouraged students to take internships with the Clinton Foundation and the United Nations. Of course, the department had formed no relationships with conservative or libertarian-leaning organizations, so the university was not merely being politically balanced. They were promoting progressivism through their internship program. To make matters worse, internship “expeditions” (trips that students took to visit these places and get interviews for internships) were subsidized by the university, meaning that tithe payers subsidized trips to the Clinton Foundation, United Nations, etc., for the purpose of subjecting impressionable LDS youth to the philosophies of these organizations.

Another political science professor banned me from my senior capstone class for contradicting his liberal views on the unofficial class discussion page on Facebook. It was a page created by a fellow student to help facilitate discussion of course material. As we were studying various documents from the era of the Founding Fathers, we discussed the Constitution and the principles outlined therein. Many students and indeed even my professor took a progressive interpretation, so I challenged them with various quotes from Ezra Taft Benson. I was thereafter banned from class until I met with the college dean, who said that the professor had no authority to ban me from class for a difference of opinion. Shortly thereafter, however, the same professor was promoted to associate dean, revealing that the university was not at all dismayed that one of their own had used his power as professor to intimidate and punish a student with constitutionalist leanings.

In other political science courses, we were taught that supernational organizations like the EU were beneficial, that social democracy had its benefits, etc. These were all philosophies that previous Church authorities had publicly and repeatedly rejected.

I also took an intermediate macroeconomics course, in which the study of Keynesianism was never balanced by so much as a passing reference to the existence of the Austrian school. My professor was a former employee of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Salt Lake City Branch. What should have disqualified him from teaching economics at a Church university was probably what earned him the position.

On top of that, the entire culture of the Clark era was one of unproductive discomfort. Students were encouraged to spy on their roommates and tell Priesthood leaders if their roommates were missing Church meetings or involved in unwholesome behavior. I am not suggesting that there would never be correct circumstances for informing a Church leader about disobedience, but I think those instances should be guided by the Spirit and not by direct teachings that failure to turn in a disobedient roommate could threaten your own standing at the university and in the Church. Students should be taught to treat their roommates with love, not with suspicion. It was more like Big Brother than being your brother’s keeper.

I am not saying that Kim B. Clark’s administration was a complete failure or that he accomplished nothing worthwhile. He oversaw remarkable expansion of the university and encouraged students to be disciples of Jesus Christ. I do not believe that Clark’s pervasive progressivism represents a deliberate attempt to undermine the Church’s teachings, but instead represents that the CES needs more guidance than it is currently receiving.

Let’s not forget that war criminal Dick Cheney spoke at a BYU commencement and received an honorary degree there. The entire CES has strayed from the principles by which it was created. As Hugh Nibley used to say, the Church schools are so focused on proper dress and grooming that we believe they are inherently righteous institutions. But that is only how a Pharisee would see things. In reality, the CES is in dire need of cleansing.”)

President Clark gave a couple of talks that might give insight into why he would want to rid the university of those with views similar to Skousen’s. These talks were featured prominently on BYU-I’s official website, and we include key elements of his talks that might shed light on the subject:

Listen to full audio of Kim Clark’s first presentation

www.ifcityclub.com/archives/081218KimClark.mp3

Listen to the full audio of Kim Clark’s second presentation

www.ifcityclub.com/archives/100122KimClark.mp3

2008 talk
Markets have become so powerful and so pervasive, that they have literally overwhelmed the governance mechanisms that were set up to govern them. Now, I love markets and I know that markets have been so important in establishing in our country and throughout the world much more prosperous and much better living conditions for people. Markets have been really wonderful. But Markets need governance. Markets are not inherently self-stabilizing, and they are not inherently self-regulating under all conditions. They need kind of a governance system that surrounds them. Not only a legal system, but a regulatory system that watches over the markets, and makes sure they continue to function effectively.

Well, we have outstripped the governance mechanisms because the markets have grown so powerful. I think our economic system has proven phenomenally successful at bringing growth, innovation, productivity and a rising standard of living to millions of people. It is an engine of progress and development un-matched in the world. But the engine has grown so complex and its capabilities so swift and powerful that it has outstripped the governance mechanisms designed in a simpler time.

Every institution of governance…has failed in the last year. Every single one. The institutions of governance have been completely overwhelmed by the power of these markets that have been created.

Now, get all the education you can. Go to school. Get educated. This is so crucial, it should be a national priority. And you’d think it would be because we know how true it is. But it’s kind of a scandal actually. It’s a scandal. It’s a total scandal that we would let the life blood of our economy go that way. It’s just not right. We ought to be willing to pay for it because it has a huge positive return to the country, to families, to individuals, but we haven’t been willing to. We just haven’t been willing to, as a society, willing to pay for it. Now we spend a lot of money on education, but we don’t spend it very well, and we don’t spend enough frankly.

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: What is your position on the proposed bailout for the Detroit automakers?

Clark: First of all, I would define what was under discussion in the congress not as a bailout. What it was, was how to put all these companies, well not all of them, maybe not Ford. But GM and Chrysler had put them in bankruptcy, without putting them in bankruptcy. How to have a bankruptcy workout going through the process of bankrupting them. But I think that’s what should happen. Actually I think the best way for it to happen is for the government to use the leverage of a bridge loan, to bridge them to a work out. That is basically a choose somebody whose just like a bankruptcy judge, but is not a judge, and you put him in a position where by law they have the power to get these companies restructured. It means you have to put them on a different footing and then let them compete.

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: As you know the Federal Reserve Bank is pursuing a very aggressive monetary policy. What is your opinion of that and what are your fears about the impact of that policy on the declining value of the dollar?

Clark: Well this is how I think about it; The Federal Reserve Bank is, by law, and by concept and by practice and tradition, the lender of last resort. And that means that we decide, and this is absolutely true, we need an institution that basically stands outside the normal fray of things and can serve as the lender, the capital market player that plays when nobody else can play. And that’s exactly what they’re doing and I applaud what they’re doing. I think it’s exactly right. The thing we need right now is to restore confidence. Think about the economy. Look, the US economy, if you strip out the current stuff, fundamentally is very strong. And what you need, is you need to restore confidence that people have in the future, that this is gunna work. We’re going to get through this, this is gunna work. And so you need somebody, and the only one that can do it is the government, you need somebody to stand up and say ‘Folks, it’s a little troubling right now, but we’re here and we will do anything it takes to get this thing moving again and is gunna work. Period.’ And that’s what they’re trying to do. And I think they’re doing it.
Basically whenever you take action, like they are taking, you get to choose which set of problems you want. Do you want the great depression X3, or do you want to have to worry about the value of the dollar? I pick worrying about the value of the dollar and let’s not have the great depression. And I think that is what Ben Bernanke is trying to do. And he’s trying to say, ‘look, we are authorized to whatever it takes to keep this baby going’, and I think that’s what he is doing.

When I was in graduate school, and as an undergraduate, we studied all about the Federal Reserve buying assets as a way of stimulating the economy. So buying bonds, buying you know, whatever they needed to do. Hey, the Federal Reserve buying bonds or even buying equity? Sure. Whatever it takes. Move that baby forward. Because then, after the economy is up and moving, then we can figure out how are you going to deal with the value of the dollar, what are we going to do. But I’d much rather worry about getting the economy moving again.

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: Are we all Keynesians now? Will we ever hear the name Milton Freedman again? (Audience laughs)

Clark: What’s happened is those distinctions are not very useful anymore, because it’s really clear that (and this is where the academic research has gone) is that we basically all became monetarists in the sense that we started to recognize how powerful the money supply and its associated instruments is on the economy. And today we are recognizing that that set of instruments is actually insufficient because we need visible action that to restore confidence, and you can’t do it just by tweaking the open market window or even by the Federal Reserve buying assets. There needs to be more sustained, substantial intervention. And so we are kinda all Keynesians, and so I think the government has an array of tools it can use to restore confidence and to keep the markets functioning. And it uses them, hopefully, rarely, in periods of crisis. And so I don’t think it’s all that useful of a distinction any more, and certainly from the practical standpoint of actually running the government, you’ve got to use all of the tools available to you to restore confidence, to strengthen the economy. And I think that means you take advantage of all of the insights that have come.

By the way, one footnote, what the power of what the President elect (Obama) has suggested, with his infrastructure idea, the power of that is actually not in the projects themselves. The projects are like a drop in the bucket. The US economy is like $14 trillion, or something like that. And is growing and so it’s, you know, 14 or 15 trillion, he’s talking about $600 billion over two or three years. You run those numbers out, it’s a drop in the bucket. The value is in its signal to the rest of the decision makers in the economy, ‘we are going to move forward in this country. We are gunna make it.” Now, if the right projects are done, it will be good.

We need better schools, it’s really a drop in the bucket, the real value is in the signal it sends to the rest of the decision makers.

2010 talk
I think it is fair to say over the last year, governments, really all across the world, have reacted relatively quickly, certainly compared to history. Governments have reacted relatively to replace falling demand with new spending.

It’s a testament to the power of ideas. The fact that in this, really the greatest economic crisis we’ve seen in the world, since the great depression. Governments behaved so differently than they did in the 1930’s. But all across the world governments have injected a tremendous amount of spending into the world economy. When president Obama first talked about what he thought we ought to do, I was encouraged, I mentioned this to you last year, that we had the possibility of using this crisis as an opportunity to invest in the country in ways that would have long term benefits. Particularly in things like schools, roads, R&D, infrastructure things, bridges that would really strengthen our transportation system, strengthen our education system.

Just as a footnote, my favorite stimulus program still remains building schools. It’s a little part of what’s been done, but it hasn’t been a big part.

In any case, what happened, I think for a lot of reasons, is we ended up with kind of a ‘grab bag’ of all sorts of things. Most of it was spending, and the argument was made, ‘any spending is good”. And it does have the effect of having additional spending in the economy, but in a lot of places it has rolled out very slowly and has not been targeted at things that would create new jobs. There has been, and we have to admit this, there has been an important influence of the stimulus package on the preservation of jobs. There has been that affect. But as far as really igniting the economy again and creating the basis for further economic growth, the stimulus I think has been less effective than we’d hoped.

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: You pointed out at the outset of your remarks that you thought Obama’s stimulus package was a good idea but it missed its part.

Clark: Yes

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: If you had the opportunity now to redirect stimulus funds, what would you prescribe?

Clark: I’d do a couple things. One is I’d do much less frittering of stuff, like a thousand different things, and I’d pull it together and focus on a couple things. My favorite: build schools. That’s my answer: Build schools. Invest in R&D, build roads, build bridges, put the money in construction, into research and development, into education. That’s what I would do.

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: A number of our listeners and people here in the audience also want to hear your remarks about the Federal Reserve. What kind of a grade would you assign to the fed over the past year, and would you re-appoint Ben Bernanke?

Clark: One of the roles of the Federal Reserve is to be the lender of last resort. Is to take action in the financial markets when the markets are in a extreme situation. And I think I give the Fed high marks, I think Ben Bernanke did a really good job in responding to the crisis and getting things done that kind of calmed the markets. But I am would give them high remarks for being the lender of last resort, because I think it was necessary to be creative and do extraordinary things in those moments. It’s after the fact, it’s very easy to go and say, ‘you know, why did they do that?’ but in those moments the world looks very different than will a year later and I think it’s not fair to go back and be like Monday morning quarterbacking, but in those moments, I give Mr. Bernanke high marks for creativity and courage to do things that really did help things. But I think Mr. Bernanke merited re-appointment.

QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE: Now we are going to put you in the role of philosopher. How much government should we have in the regulation of the economy?

Clark: Just as much as we need.

(Laughter)

Comment: but not more than that

Clark: but not more than that. Look there is a philosophy difference. There are people, and many of them are in power now in Washington, who want the US to look like the social democracies of Europe. They want more state intervention in the economy and state control of the economy. They want to be more like France. There are other people who feel that any government involvement is terrible and there shouldn’t be any, and people should be left to do what they want, with basically reliance on the legal system to sort of set the rules, but keep the government out of it. I am somewhere in the middle. I don’t know exactly where in the middle, but I’m in the middle. That is I don’t think we want to be France, and I don’t think it’s realistic to have unfettered economic or business enterprise action without some regulation. In fact, regulation can be very positive and have a very, um, because the reality is, look, when you look back over the last forty-fifty years, the economy, a capitalist economy, based on the rule of law, with essentially free enterprise, is not self-stabilizing (said while thumping podium). It can get stuck. And it can have, bad things can happen, so regulation and the actions of government can be very, very effective and positive in maintaining sort of the rules of the game. But it can go overboard. And so we will see.

To be contrasted with:

Coming out against the official position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as found in this letter written by the First Presidency (which constitutes doctrine)

Ezra Taft Benson explained these same principles when he said (speaking as a “watchman”)

“As a watchman on the tower, I feel to warn you that one of the chief means of misleading our youth and destroying the family unit is our educational institutions. President Joseph F. Smith referred to false educational ideas as one of the three threatening dangers among our Church members. There is more than one reason why the Church is advising our youth to attend colleges close to their homes where institutes of religion are available. It gives the parents the opportunity to stay close to their children; and if they have become alert and informed as President McKay admonished us last year, these parents can help expose some of the deceptions of men like Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, John Dewey, Karl Marx, John Keynes, and others.  Today there are much worse things that can happen to a child than not getting a full college education. In fact, some of the worst things have happened to our children while attending colleges led by administrators who wink at subversion and amorality.” (Ezra Taft Benson, Strengthening the Family, Conference Report, October 1970, pp. 21-25)

“The root of all evil is money, some say. But the root of our money evil is government. The very beginning of our troubles can be traced to the day when the federal government overstepped its proper defensive function and began to manipulate the monetary system to accomplish political objectives. The creation of the Federal Reserve Board made it possible in America for men arbitrarily to change the value of our money.

In our economic stupor, when we manage to think ahead about the coming hangover, we have merely taken another swig from the bottle to reinforce the artificial sensation of prosperity. But each new drink at the cup of inflation, and each new drain on the gold supply of our bodily strength does not prevent the dreaded hangover, it merely postpones it a little longer and will make it that much worse when it finally comes. What should we do? We should get a hold on ourselves, come to our senses, stop adding to our intoxication, and face the music!

When the going gets rough, we mustn’t rush to Washington and ask big brother to take care of us through price controls, rent controls, guaranteed jobs and wages. Any government powerful enough to give the people all that they want is also powerful enough to take from the people all that they have. And it is even possible that some of the government manipulators who have brought us into this economic crisis are hoping that, in panic, we, the American people, literally will plead with them to take our liberties in exchange for the false promise of “security.” As Alexander Hamilton warned about two hundred years ago: “Nothing is more common than for a free people, in times of heat and violence, to gratify momentary passions by letting into the government principles and precedents which afterward prove fatal to themselves” (Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation, p. 21). Let us heed this warning.

In our economic stupor, when we manage to think ahead about the coming hangover, we have merely taken another swig from the bottle to reinforce the artificial sensation of prosperity. But each new drink at the cup of inflation, and each new drain on the gold supply of our bodily strength does not prevent the dreaded hangover, it merely postpones it a little longer and will make it that much worse when it finally comes. What should we do? We should get a hold on ourselves, come to our senses, stop adding to our intoxication, and face the music!

When the going gets rough, we mustn’t rush to Washington and ask big brother to take care of us through price controls, rent controls, guaranteed jobs and wages. Any government powerful enough to give the people all that they want is also powerful enough to take from the people all that they have. And it is even possible that some of the government manipulators who have brought us into this economic crisis are hoping that, in panic, we, the American people, literally will plead with them to take our liberties in exchange for the false promise of “security.” As Alexander Hamilton warned about two hundred years ago: “Nothing is more common than for a free people, in times of heat and violence, to gratify momentary passions by letting into the government principles and precedents which afterward prove fatal to themselves” (Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation, p. 21). Let us heed this warning
In America, only the federal government can increase the money supply. Government can create inflation. The most common method of increasing the money supply today is by spending more than is in the treasury, and then merely printing extra money to make up the difference. Technically this is called “deficit spending.” Ethically, it is counterfeiting. Morally, it is wrong.” (Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 637-641.)

“The drift toward centralization of power is not inevitable. It can be slowed down, halted, reversed.

The thought that the federal government is wealthy and the states poverty-stricken is a dangerous illusion. The federal debt is now eight times as great as the combined debt of the forty-eight states. On June 30, 1954, state governments had invested nine billion dollars of their long range funds in federal securities.

It is difficult for the states to make a strong case for assistance from the federal government when anything the federal government spends must come from the states. There are no resources of consequence in the United States—no income of wealth which is not located within the borders of the states and subject to their taxing powers.

The states not only have rights, they have responsibilities and they have opportunities.

In the last analysis, we are not trying to protect one government entity from another. We are trying to protect the rights of individual people. If we ever forget this, the whole process of government is pointless.” (Ezra Taft Benson, 1957, E-60:306)

David O. McKay on Federal Aid to education :

(Church News Editor’s Note;—The following letter from President David O. McKay to Representative Ralph R. Harding of Idaho, sets forth the Church’s view on the subject of Federal Aid to Education, and is published by permission of the First Presidency.)

Honorable Ralph R. Harding
House of Representatives
Washington D.C.

Dear Brother Harding:

Re: Federal Aid to Education

I appreciate your letter of May 31, 1961 and the spirit in which it was written . . . .

Regarding your inquiry as to whether the Church has taken an official stand against a general program of federal aid to education as embodied in the bill already passed by the Senate, please be advised that this matter was discussed by the First Presidency and the Quorum of [p. 193] the Twelve sitting as members of the Board of Trustees of Brigham Young University and the Board of Education of the Church. We were unanimously of the opinion that the proposed legislation before the Congress is unnecessary and unwise. In accordance therewith President Wilkinson was requested to prepare and forward to Washington the statement, which I understand was placed in the Congressional Record by Senator Bennett . . . .

In our deliberations, . . . we approach the matter entirely from what we considered to be right from the standpoint of the nation, for we have no personal interest to serve. While our record shows our dedicated interest in education, we are not on educational payrolls . . . .

Local communities and the states are doing a pretty good job in taking care of school teachers’ salaries. We have noted, for instance, that over the last thirty years (from 1929 to 1959) the increase in teachers salaries was 106 percent in constant dollars. During the same period other state and local employees had an increase of only 58 percent and federal civilian employees only 73 percent.

We noted further that the average annual salary of school teachers rose from $3,126 in 1950-51 to $5,389 in 1960-61 (or 72.4 percent in a decade). The number of teachers with salaries below $3,500 decreased from 62 per cent in 1952-53 to 9.6 percent in 1960-61, and the number with salaries of $4,500 or more rose from 13 per cent to 63 per cent during the same period. The significant aspect of the matter is that the teachers’ salaries rose sharpest in the states where they have been lowest. Between 1938 and 1954, for instance, teachers’ salaries rose 101 per cent in dollars of constant value in the 12 lowest income states as compared with 28 per cent in the 12 top income states. The difference in salaries in different parts of the country are narrowing perceptibly each year.

With respect to the so-called building shortage . . . as shown by Mr. Freeman, the “incontestable fact is that over the past decade more than 600,000 classrooms were completed while the increased attendance required the addition of only 400,000. This means that over 200,000 new classrooms were made available to replace old ones and to reduce class sizes. This record is the result of [p. 194] thousands of communities voting bond issues and higher taxes year after year. It may be well to note that the new public schools, built in the postwar period, now house close to 20 million American children compared with schools for 9 million children which, according to their own claims, the Russians built in the same span of time . . . .”

. . . On the whole, the record has been excellent, and it demonstrates there is no justifiable basis for the present drive for general federal aid for schoolhouse construction. To the extent there was an emergency, that emergency is passed, for there will be only one-half the increase in school attendance over the next ten years. If, therefore, we keep building as many classrooms as we have built over the last ten years (which is probable), we shall build double the number we need for new students.(12)

Consequently, we finally came to the conclusion that federal aid, unless of mammoth proportions, might slow down, rather than accelerate the construction of needed buildings . . . .

We agree completely that this matter is non-partisan, which is the reason we believe it proper for us to take a position on the matter. We are frankly gravely concerned over the increasing tendency of the Federal Government to assume more responsibilities with an everlasting indebtedness. In this respect we note your statement that the Federal Government controls most of the revenue in this nation through the federal income tax, and that you, therefore, think that the Federal Government should take on this new burden. In our judgment, the tendency of the Federal Government to more and more control the revenue of the country should be reversed, not increased.(13) [p. 195]

It goes without saying that we are not attempting to control your vote in this matter, which should be determined by you in the clear exercise of your own conscience. But we have given to you our best advice based on no little study on our part . . . .” David O. McKay (President) (CN-11/10/62)