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Sue Bergin, a longtime adjunct professor of management communication, says Brigham Young University fired her because of her LGBTQ advocacy, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Bergin says she was in good standing and about to be promoted to director of a campus business writing center when her department chair called her in December and apologetically said she couldn’t come back to work. No one has given her an answer as to why, Bergin told the Tribune, so she can only guess it’s because she wears a rainbow flag pin on the first day of classes and sometimes mentions that she has two gay brothers.
BYU has reportedly been cracking down on LGBTQ activism on campus this academic year, including by requiring that new Mormon professors have a temple “recommend,” or card attesting to their adherence to the faith’s teachings. BYU, which is affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, does not permit same-sex relationships.
Bergin’s father is Allen Bergin, a retired professor of psychology at BYU who taught that homosexuals could become straight through hard work and opposite-sex marriage, and who apologized for promoting these views in 2020, according to the Tribune. Carri Jenkins, university spokesperson, said BYU can’t comment on reasons behind specific faculty contract renewals or nonrenewals, as these decisions are made “for many different reasons.”
