My quarterly BYU alumni magazine came in the mail this week.  I think it’s quite a good magazine.  Compared to my University of Chicago alumni magazine it has a lot of interesting content.  But this issue really irritated someone in my household. 

There was an article reporting that the president of the American Enterprise Institute had given a talk at the University.  He was talking about a fundamental conservative belief - that people are better at acquiring and allocating charitable donations than government, and they quoted him taking a stab at Jimmy Carter (who at least in the opinion of the Nobel Peace Price committee is the most charitable past president). 

The American Enterprise Institute president coming to BYU reminded me of another (in)famous conservative coming to BYU - Vice President Dick Cheney.  So I wondered, does BYU invite mainly right-wingers?  Are funds from my church going to pay speaking royalties from people I’d like to see move to Siberia?

So I took a look at the BYU commencement speakers from the past 10 years.  There have been 32 speakers and most of them are ecclesiastical leaders.  Of the 14 secular speakers, two have been politicians: Dick Cheney and Rep Tom Lantos (D) California.  50:50 so far on the political score card.

Of the remaining 12, I’d say four have a fairly clear political leaning; two liberal and two conservative.  One of them was the speaker at my commencement (barely still on the list!) - Neil Postman.  I’d never heard of him, but I remember he was a great speaker.  I learned the adjective “philistine” from him.  He wasn’t a political figure (he was an NYU professor), but he was on the editorial board of The Nation, which is as good as proof of him being a card-carrying liberal.  The remaining 8 speakers don’t have any dead giveaways.

So while this is only a glimpse at all the speakers that are invited to BYU, I’d say they are pretty balanced in their choice of commencement speakers.  They could still be in cahoots with the AEI, but I feel better that at least their most visible speakers, the commencement ones, are politically balanced.  And mostly not political at all.