Derogatory chants about opposing teams at the University of Oregon’s football games are commonly heard from the student section. 

But UO made national headlines after videos recorded of students shouting “Fuck the Mormons” at a football game against Brigham Young University.

“Religious bigotry alive and celebrated in Oregon,” Utah Governor Spencer Cox Tweeted in response to the video.

BYU, which was founded and named after religious leader Brigham Young in 1875, is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Almost 99% of BYU students are Mormon, according to BYU’s Y Facts page from 2014.

“The university apologizes for the despicable chants made by some University of Oregon fans at today’s football game with Brigham Young University,” Kris Winter, interim vice president for the Division of Student Life at the University of Oregon, wrote in a statement. “There is no place for hate, bias or bigotry at the University of Oregon. These actions are simply unacceptable. We will investigate, and we call on our students and campus community to refuse to accept or tolerate this type of behavior.”
The Oregon Pit Crew’s Twitter, the official Twitter account for the UO student section, apologized for the actions of the students and said it does not condone religious hate speech and is ashamed of those who participated.

Oregon Governor Kate Brown reTweeted an apology from UO’s Twitter account.

“In Oregon, we strive to be a welcoming, inclusive state to all, regardless of race, religion, gender, or background,” Brown  said. “Our state and nation have an ugly history of discrimination and bigotry. The chant at yesterday’s Oregon-BYU game was unacceptable. We must do better.”

Before the game began, BYU’s football team set a bouquet of flowers down at the 4 yard line to honor former UO tight end Spencer Webb, who died from a head injury in July. BYU players also ran a flag with Webb’s jersey number, 18, onto the field.

Interim President Patrick Phillips mentioned BYU’s honoring of Webb in his statement condemning the chants, which he said were an attack on all members of the local community.

“There are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on our own football team, and we know there were members of that faith wearing green and yellow sitting right next to those chanting on Saturday,” Phillips said. “How did they feel in that moment? I hope that everyone will reflect on the reality that, what may seem like a lark to some, tells someone else in our community that they are not welcome –– and that they should be afraid based on who they are and what they believe.”

Rod Carter, a professor and department chair at Linn-Benton Community College, was seated in section 12 in Autzen when he heard the chanting. Carter said he attended games frequently as an undergraduate, but he couldn’t remember a time when school spirit manifested itself in such a particularly ignorant and hurtful way. 

Carter said the crowd sitting around him in that section, composed mostly of older people, became visibly upset at the anti-Mormon chant. Carter said he felt a sense of shame from the crowd because the students who were cheering for their university were acting so disrespectfully toward their opponents. 

“The students who were seated next to the students chanting are complicit,” Carter said. 
Carter said he didn’t think tracking down and disciplining the students responsible for starting the chant was necessary, but visibility of the issue was just as important. 

Carter wrote a letter to the editor of the Emerald about the incident:

“The BYU teams runs onto the field bearing a flag in tribute to Spencer Webb. The student response is to chant an obscenity directed at members of the Mormon Church. Congratulation [sic] members of the ‘Pit Crew.’ You’ve demonstrated to the world that religious bigotry is alive and well in Eugene. Every thinking person should be ashamed of what happened that afternoon.”

University of Oregon football head coach Dan Lanning and athletic director Rob Mullens both publicly condemned the behavior after the game.

“I know our athletic director Rob [Mullens] got to reach out to Tom [Holmoe], their AD there at BYU, and express our frustration and also apologize for the behavior of a few that really puts a cloud over a great group and a really fun situation for our players and our fans on Saturday,” Lanning said at a press conference on Sept. 19. 

“There’s no room for that in our stadium, and anybody that’s going to partake in that doesn’t need to be in our stadium,” Lanning said.
Kundai Kapurara is a UO student who attended the game against BYU. She said, in her experience, the general competitiveness of games brings out intense school spirit but not usually to the extent where student chants become overtly hateful.

The student section is no stranger to making up creative chants, though it’s not typically intended to be overtly hateful or intolerant, Kapurara said.

“Some chants will just kind of disperse and dissolve through the crowd, but that one was said a number of times,” Kapurara said. “I was surprised because in 2022 I wouldn’t expect to hear that.”

It wasn’t the whole student body who was chanting along, and it wasn’t a significant number of people, but the phrase was still able to be heard throughout the stadium, Kapurara said. 

Last year, University of Southern California students shouted the same chant at a November football game against BYU. In a Tweet, the athletics department said the chants were distasteful and apologized to BYU.

In late August, BYU came under fire after Duke volleyball player Rachel Richardson wrote in a Tweet that her team and she were “targeted and racially heckled their entire match” by BYU students.

Richardson said this is not the first instance of racially motivated harassment from the stands; this was one instance in many.

BYU Athletics apologized and banned a fan accused of shouting a racial slur from attending future BYU sporting events. However, a statement from BYU athletics said it conducted an investigation and did not find any evidence that BYU fans engaged in racial heckling or said racial slurs. BYU lifted the ban on the fan and apologized. 

The Emerald reached out to representatives for the Church of Latter Day Saints in Eugene to comment on the student community response to the chant. The church had no official statement to put out regarding the issue. 

So far, UO has not released any information about discipling students for the chants.