Beards are revolting. 

At Brigham Young University, a small but vociferous group of students are furiously fighting for their fundamental facial fuzz freedoms, literally donning paper beards at their university. The school has mandated its mustachioed matriculators to appear clean-shaven on campus. 

“When some of our mutual friends tried to sneak my little brother, five o’clock shadow, in with them to take a test, you made them go home and shave … again. That hurt,” the protesters wrote in a letter to the university, according to Deseret News.

And these hirsute heretics have a right to fight for their facial hair freedoms. 

From the goatee to the hipster beard, the decision to beard or not to beard is a highly personal one that is something of a modern-day expression of machismo.  

The spokeswoman for the university owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints said the university has nothing against beards or people with beards — after all, Brigham Young himself and many other early Latter Day saints donned quite impressive ones. However, the university, she said, would like to respect BYU’s Honor Code, created by students in the 1940s. 

Also banned by the honor code: tattoos, premarital sex and alcohol consumption. 

Simply a hair or two on one’s chinny chin chin couldn’t be too much to ask for? 

But perhaps as this hairy issue finally comes out of the (five o’clock) shadows at Brigham Young, it is a more serious reminder for all in academia to look in their shaving cream-frosted mirrors a little longer. 

Perhaps this call to action is a friendly reminder for all higher education institutions to re-evaluate some of the archaic and mundane customs and traditions that no longer hold much relevance or meaning in order to adapt to changing times. 

Or perhaps, at the end of the day, change will find its way into Brigham Young University and it won’t be worth splitting hairs over.

Divya Kumar is a senior majoring in mass communications and economics.