link. I wouldn't be surprised if they now have one. But here is why I ask.

As I'm sure you know, the most used definition is the Carnegie Foundation. Been around for a long time. BYU, with just one recent exception, is classified as a "RU/H" for Research University/High Research Activity. Essentially, Carnegie has had roughly about 300 research universities divided (again very roughly through the years) into three groups of 100 schools. Currently it is Very High Activity, High Activity, and DRU for Doctoral Research Universities (these used to be the old Tier 1, Tier 2, etc.)

So, BYU is among the top 200 Research Universities in the U.S. This is also well documented in ASU's publication a few years back on "America's Top 200 Research Universities" where I believe BYU qualified as one of America's Top 200 Research Universities in, IIRC, 7 of the 10 categories. Even in the ARWU rankings, that rely heavily upon research, BYU is now in the top 300 to 400 in the world rankings and comes in between top 105 to 125 in the US (consistent with Carneige and ASU).

But, as someone who has followed these for more than 20 years, it has only been in I would say the last 10 years that all the PAC schools have been Tier 1 (or VH). One of the Oregon schools (its counter-intuitive but I recall it being Oregon, not OSU) as little as 10 years ago was also only tier 2--the same as BYU.

Therefore, on the question as to whether the research status is an excuse or legit, I say almost entirely an excuse to cover the bigotry. True, BYU just barely does not meet the VH level but they are a High Research University that is the same level as one of the PAC schools not that long ago.