Basketball player kicked off team for having premarital sex

A basketball player at the Mormon Brigham Young University was removed from his team after violating the school’s strict honour code, reported the Canadian Press.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that the student, Brandon Davies, was kicked off for engaging in premarital sex, though the university refused to release details on the violation.

The code demands students abstain from alcoholic beverages, coffee, tea and illegal substances, live a chaste and virtuous life, and go to church regularly, among other things.

University official have stood behind the decision, and a review committee will determine whether or not Davies will be allowed to stay at BYU.

“There are no secrets here as to the environment that exists at BYU,” said university spokesperson Carri Jenkins.

“But it’s an environment our students choose. It’s an environment they want to live in. And that is very much true for our student-athletes as well.”

U.K. university condemned for training Libyan police officers

A U.K. university has been lambasted by a police group for schooling Libyan police officers and civilians in forensic science.

Chairman of the Police Federation Paul McKeever told BBC News that the presence of 103 Libyan students, including a dozen officers, in the Huddersfield University science program shows “a lack of respect to police officers in this country that we’re assisting in the training of police officers who’ll be doing what, we have no idea, when they return to Libya.”

However, Huddersfield University’s deputy vice-chancellor, Prof. Peter Slee, defended their presence, saying that every student was simply “upgrading their skills in forensic science as part of a wider contract,” and many were not necessarily connected to the Libyan police.

“They are in the country studying as any other student would be,” he said.

University bans queer student zine

The website for a queer student zine, State of the Gay, has been effectively shut down at Harding University by university officials, reported the Arkansas Times.
University officials at Harding, a Christian university in Arkansas, blocked the zine’s website after creators of the zine distributed printed copies around the Harding campus and posted its content online Wednesday.

The zine’s editors state that its mission is “to bring attention to lives and issues of demoralized minorities.”

Harding director of public relations, David Crouch, told the Times that the university’s mission and policies are based on Christian principals, and stated that the university “holds to the biblical principle that sexual relationships are unacceptable to God outside the context of marriage and that sexual immorality in any form will result in suspension from the university.”

Based on that policy, university administrators felt that having this website available on campus goes against said mission and policies.

The site has since been relaunched at www.huqueerpress.com.