BYU Determines Project 2025 is Prohibited Campaign Intervention
The Smoot Administration Building at BYU
Brigham Young University has a surprisingly detailed Political Neutrality policy. Here is an excerpt describing its purpose:
The essential functions of the university require strict institutional neutrality, integrity, and independence regarding partisan political activities, particularly because perceived partisanship is often interpreted as endorsement by the university’s sponsor, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (“Church of Jesus Christ”). This policy is designed to protect the neutrality of the university and the Church of Jesus Christ in the course of political activities that involve members of the campus community or university facilities and resources and to preserve the university’s tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code.
The policy mandates a strict approval process for every university affiliate that wants to invite “partisan political speakers or arrange an event (such as a debate or a forum) that involves candidates for public office, public officials, or campaign officials.” It even talks about faculty members inviting any speaker to class:
Where appropriate to the objectives of the course, faculty members may, with the prior approval of the department chair and the dean, invite public officials, candidates, or their representatives into the classroom to speak in a noncandidate capacity. No publicity outside the classroom may precede or follow the appearance, and no attempt will be made to ensure equal time for other candidates except at the discretion of the faculty member. Only course-enrolled students are invited to attend.
The policy also limits the distribution of “partisan political materials (fliers, posters, bumper stickers, pins, literature, films, etc.) requiring that such materials can only be “distributed only under the sponsorship of student-charted clubs or student academic associations,” and then only via display booths in the student center. Overall, the policy prohibits any sort of communication that might “reasonably be interpreted to imply university participation or intervention in a political campaign.” High ranking University administrators are prohibited altogether from political participation, even in their private capacities:
The Internal Revenue Code and related regulations and rulings generally prohibit the university from participating, intervening, or otherwise showing bias in political campaigns. Because individual activity by university leaders may be imputed to the university, certain university personnel who influence or make university policy could compromise the university’s position of political neutrality by participating in activities on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate for public office. Therefore, members of the President’s Council, vice presidents, associate and assistant vice presidents, and deans (“Officials”) may not participate in activities on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate for public office, publicly endorse partisan political candidates, donate money to or for the benefit of partisan political candidates, or hold partisan political office at the city, county, state, or national level.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported last week that David Moore, BYU Law School Dean, removed his name as a contributor to Project 2025. Dean Moore felt it necessary so he would not violate the Neutrality Policy.
To avoid having faculty support for political candidates “imputed” to the university, BYU’s political neutrality policy says that officials at the university, including deans, “may not participate in activities on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate for public office, publicly endorse partisan political candidates, donate money to or for the benefit of partisan political candidates, or hold partisan political office at the city, county, state, or national level.”
. . .
Lynnett Rands, dean of communications at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School, said Moore was asked in 2022 to share his insights with The Heritage Foundation, which created Project 2025, because of his experience working for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Moore was the acting deputy administrator and general counsel at USAID from 2017 to 2019. “He did not do so on behalf of Brigham Young University,” Rands said of the dean. “As such, Moore, after becoming dean of the law school, asked that his name not be included, in accordance with BYU’s political neutrality policy.”
The policy is way too strict, it seems to me, if the intent is only to comply with the prohibition against campaign intervention. It prevents even the making of private donations by certain University employees. Covered employees can’t have a Trump/Vance or Harris/Walz bumper sticker, at least not on the car they drive to work. I can’t imagine that restrictions would be upheld at a state university. Faculty, staff and even high level administrators don’t forfeit their private identity and constitutional rights by employment by a state university. Of course, a private employer can demand more from its employees than a public employer. And private charities have sensible reasons for prohibiting political activities even if there were no prohibitions and even if those prohibitions are unconstitutional.
The more interesting point is that BYU implicitly, if not explicitly, determined that Project 2025 is a document in support of President Trump. The document is sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization prohibited from supporting or opposing Trump or Harris. Law School Deans are a careful bunch. They don’t act hastily, particularly in high profile matters. They are attorneys, themselves, but they invariably seek advice from General Counsel. So it must have been that Dean Moore withdrew his name after consultation with General Counsel and that General Counsel advised that Project 2025 constitutes an activity in support of Trump and in opposition to Harris.
It would not be an earth-shattering conclusion that the Heritage Foundation exists precisely for campaign intervention. I just gotta wonder whether the Heritage Foundation has received even so much as a letter of inquiry from the IRS about the readily apparent endorsement and opposition. The BYU General Counsel’s Office is one of the larger ones I’ve seen, by the way — I served as Associate and then General Counsel for a public and a private university in a prior life. The BYU office has 15 attorneys who must have divvied up and read the nearly 1000 page Project 2025 document before deciding that it constitutes campaign intervention. And that Dean Moore should separate himself from it.
I wonder if there are 15 attorneys in Chief Counsel’s Office that have likewise read the document.
darryll k. jones