Students light up Old Main for Rainbow Day
Huddled together wearing coats, striped beanies, and even a rainbow crochet blanket, more than 40 attendees gathered in sub-30 weather on Monday night to light up Old Main in rainbow colors.
Rainbow Day, celebrated each year at the beginning of March, aims to honor LGBTQ+ students attending BYU.
Event organizer Kris Carpenter said in 2020, they were a student at BYU who had recently come out after a change had been made in the school’s honor code that removed a section titled “homosexual behavior.”
Only a few weeks later, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints clarified that though the wording in the honor code had changed, the church and university stance on same-sex relationships had not.
Carpenter described the fear they felt after someone acquired screenshots from one of their group chats and threatened to report them.
Though it was a “scary time to be at BYU,” Carpenter said when they say the Y light up in rainbow colors that March, they felt seen.
This year, BYU’s Y was dark. Instead, other universities, including USU and UVU, lit up their own school symbols with rainbow colors in solidarity.
“I do know that in years past, BYU has fenced off the Y,” Carpenter said. “This night is especially policed for BYU.”
After discovering the front of Old Main was too bright to show the colors from their rainbow flashlights, attendees moved to the northeast side of the building, lighting up the walls.
Lexi Klein, a sophomore studying speech pathology, said growing up in the Orem area, she used to see the Y light up in rainbow colors.
“It’s kind of sad that it can’t be lit up this year, but I’m really glad that we get to do something in solidarity,” Klein said. “It’s really nice to have and see that we’re accepted.”
Klein said she feels like USU is a safe place for herself as a queer student.
“People are having great conversations,” Klein said. “That’s really nice to not have to feel like I’m in danger or my education is in danger if I’m queer and out.”
Isabel Muir, a sophomore studying landscape architecture, said she attended the event with Klein as an ally.
“From my queer friends, they’ve always felt pretty safe and secure around here, and I hope that that continues,” Muir said.
Beau Jenson, vice president of USU Queer Student Alliance, helped Carpenter organize the lighting ceremony, although it was not an official club or university event.
“This is not an event that the Queer Student Alliance is putting on. This is just students coming together to make a change and to make a difference,” Jenson said.
Carpenter said the idea to hold a light ceremony at Utah State came from Gracee Purcell, president of the RaYnbow Collective, a nonprofit that works with the LGBTQ+ community at BYU.
Carpenter said they were reached out to as an ambassador with Equality Utah, a civil rights organization focused on LGBTQ+ rights within state and local politics. They then worked with Erika-Danielle Lindström, program coordinator at the USU Inclusion Center, to work out logistics with flashlights and flyers to promote the event.
“It’s been a group effort,” Carpenter said.
Jenson referenced a recent protest, also organized by Carpenter, held on Feb. 5, when Gov. Spencer Cox came to USU’s Logan campus for the first President’s Forum on Conflict and Conflict Resolution.
Jenson said Cox’s promotion of his “Disagree Better” initiative at the forum felt like “a slap in the face to a lot of people in the queer community here at Utah State.”
“A lot of the politics in Utah have made lots of students feel less accepted here at Utah State,” Jenson said. “Events like these show students who are scared and looking for a place to be able to be themselves — to thrive, to be respected and to live their lives authentically — that we have a place and we have a student body and that we have a campus that accepts everybody and allows you to be yourself.”
Dannon Loveland, a faculty member at the Career Design Center, attended the event and said he hopes USU feels like a safe place for people.
“I really value diversity, and I think this is an important part of what Utah State’s all about, and what it means to be part of the Aggie family,” Loveland said. “I have family members and friends who identify with the queer, LGBTQ+ community, and I want the world to be a better place for them. And I think things like this are maybe small steps, but good steps in the right direction.”
Carpenter said despite the simplicity of lighting up a building, the event means a lot.
“It just means the world to me that so many people showed up, because it shows that they care,” they said. “It shows they care about BYU students, it shows they care about USU students. They show they care about continuing to make change in the queer community and continuing to make change just regardless — no matter how cold it is outside.”