This story is just too weird not to document. I hope I'm not violating any privacy laws by posting it for public viewing. About 2 years ago, one of Bret's coworkers left the firm. Among that guy's client base was a group of FLDS leaders (City Mangers and other officials of Hilldale and Colorado City, etc) who were concerned that other people at the firm would lack an unbiased approach to their case (regarding a land dispute that the firm believes will eventually go to the US Supreme Court over the issue of polygamy). The men were considering leaving Bret's firm, so Bret's boss told him that he'd better go make some friends.
The guys knew Bret was LDS. Most mainstream Mormons share a general disapproval of the practices of the FLDS and wish to distance their religion from the break-away group, so the men were less that optimistic about the new partnership. However, Bret is great at making friends and took on the challenge. In his pursuit, he expressed his personal doubt that polygamy is in fact "unconstitutional" and cited my senior thesis as evidence that he was not just paying lip service. He told them "my own sister wrote about this at Princeton".
My thesis title was "Separation of Zion and State: The Effects of the 19th Century Mormon Polygamy Controversy on American Constitutional Jurisprudence." Although I barely mentioned the FLDS in my thesis, my conclusion was that the Reynolds vs. United States decision which outlawed polygamy back in the late 1800's was based on illegitimate evidence and poor substance. Regardless, that one case changed the LDS church forever and set church-and-state court precedent that is still used today.
Bret emailed my thesis to the city officials and they ALL read it (Bret thinks they saw "Princeton" and assumed I was more important than I really am ;-). It circulated all around the FLDS communities and is still a topic of conversation. I suppose they see it as a contemporary work that is sympathetic to their cause, yet my arguments were strictly constitutional and less than emotional. There seems to be very little academic analysis of the century-and-a-half polygamy battle.
Fast-forward. About 2 months ago, I was at lunch with Bret and my mom in Salt Lake. We decided to make a stop at the State Capitol building so that Bret could avoid running into an obnoxious client back at the office. We walked inside, and Bret immediately saw one of his coworkers. Further inside, the coworker introduced us to their clients...the City Manager of Hilldale and the CM of Colorado City, and some other officials that I'm failing to remember. TOTAL coincidence. Bret introduced us as his mom and sister and one man asked "Wait, is that THE sister who wrote the paper?"
They all had read it and told me that I'm famous in the FLDS community and that someone had even sent it to their highest leaders. One of the guys mentioned that I included a picture in my thesis of his family and that the same picture now hangs in his house. They were VERY friendly and if I didn't know better, I would say they would've tried to recruit me if Bret hadn't been there or if I hadn't have had my wedding ring on!
I didn't think that thesis would be my claim to fame, but I guess you never know. It's a very very small world.
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