Beard Crusader

Brigham Young has banned most types of facial hair for decades. One emeritus professor at the university is leading the charge to change that.

At Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, beards have been banned on campus since the rise of the counterculture movement, when they were thought to be associated with hippies and antiwar sentiments many young people expressed in the 1960s and ’70s. “Men are expected to be clean-shaven; beards are not acceptable,” the school’s dress and grooming standards state. Sideburns are allowed, but they “should not extend below the earlobe or onto the cheek.” Mustaches must be “neatly trimmed and may not extend beyond or below the corners of the mouth.” These styles, the standards advise, are “consistent with the dignity adherent to representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and any of its institutions of higher education.”