BYU prioritizes complaints against student defector of Communist China, ignores several against leftist 'Black Menaces' group for months

Multiple disciplinary complaints against the left-wing activist group the "Black Menaces" were ignored for months by Brigham Young University's (BYU) Office of Belonging while a complaint levied against a conservative student, who is also a defector of Communist China, was investigated immediately by the office. The defector's alleged misdeeds were contributing one comment to an off-campus college newspaper and allegedly interacting with a student by "aggressively waving.”

According to the independent and student-led publication The Cougar Chronicle, as well as other materials viewed by The Post Millennial, BYU sat on several discrimination complaints for months against the Black Menaces at the school’s Office of Belonging while complaints towards BYU student Alvin Guo, who is also a defector of Communist China, were investigated within a few weeks after they were filed by two club leaders in the BYU Arab Student Association (ASA) club.

The Chronicle reported, “For perspective, the majority of the complaints against the Black Menaces were filed the week of September 21, 2023, and were not addressed until mid-January 2024, while the complaints against Alvin were addressed within a few weeks.”

The Black Menaces are a left-wing group that has broken school filming policy multiple times. They have also been making man-on-the-street style videos on BYU's campus for around two years by asking questions to students such as, "Do you know how many holes women have?”

Among other activist campaigns, the group has also encouraged followers to “apply pressure” to the Olympics to not come to Utah in 2034 because Utah passed a law striking down DEI in public institutions as well as a bill not allowing biological men into public bathrooms with women.

At least 7 complaints were made against the activist group for various reasons including the Black Menaces showing support for comments on their posts which advocated physical violence against those they disagree with. These complaints were later dropped by BYU.

The complaints about Alivn Guo were made by two students who are leaders in the Arab Student Association at BYU after Guo offered a single comment in an article from The Cougar Chronicle published in November where he denounced antisemitic comments made by other students.

The article mostly addressed one of the complaint-filing students who posted supportive messages of Oct. 7 terrorist attacks the very day they occurred. One post the ASA leader shared was a flyer advertising an “emergency demonstration” to take place on Oct. 8, the caption read, “In recent hours, the Palestinian resistance launched a historic new counteroffensive against the unrelenting oppression, murder, torture and occupation carried out by the Israeli apartheid regime.” The student in question then attended this rally the next day.

She later attempted to give context to her comments, telling a reporter, “I’m saying OK, if we’re going to talk about this, let’s also talk about what Palestinians have been going through for 70-plus years” and offered a general denunciation of killing people “point blank.”

The article from the Chronicle, though mainly about the one club leader’s comments on social media supporting the terrorist attack, featured Guo offering a comment about two other students in the ASA that he talked to in the BYU library who allegedly told him Israelis are “evil” and want to “kill all Palestinians.”

Guo commented in the report in response to this, “I feel deeply ashamed when those merciless, unreceptive, unprincipled, and unjust students attend a Christian college while embodying anti-Christian doctrines.”

Emails from BYU officials reveal that the students who filed the complaint were not those that Guo offered comments about either.

The complaints against Alvin by the two female ASA club leaders said he “made false and inflammatory statements about them to the publishers of the Cougar Chronicle” even though the comment that was published was not about them.

The other complaint-filing student, who did not make the comments about Oct. 7, alleged that Guo at one point “started aggressively waving at her when he saw her on campus and saying ‘hi’ in a manner intended to mock, intimidate, or harass her.”

Guo was asked in the complaint interview process if he remembered “waving and smiling” at the student. He responded that waving and smiling was the “most common way to show friendly” feelings towards others in America and to say, “Hello, how are you doing?”

The complaint against Guo was eventually dropped by the BYU office. The student told TPM, "Rulings by law means equality and justice for all" and added that there needed to be equal "community standards" applied to students across the board. 

One student who was being interviewed by BYU officials as part of a complaint involving the Black Menaces asked a school officer why the several complaints against the left-wing activist group had not been pursued earlier in comparison to the investigation against Guo. The Equal Opportunity officer in the interview could not provide a substantive answer. 

TPM requested comment from BYU regarding this report and did not receive a response.

Editor’s Note: Thomas Stevenson is the Cofounder and Editor Emeritus of The Cougar Chronicle as well as a graduate of BYU.