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BYU investigating rape victims for violating "honor code"

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J

johnsmith

remember me
Heard about this on the radio this story on the radio this morning, and could not believe what I was listening to. The BYU Honor code which can be read here says students must "Live a chaste and virtuous life." You can't blame the victim any harder than they're doing here.

Just to be clear, they are being investigated for the actions leading up to the assault, not for the assault itself being an act of fornication that would have violated the code.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/byu-students-investigated-school-reporting-rape-38542057

Madeline MacDonald says she was an 18-year-old freshman at Brigham Young University when she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on an online dating site.

She reported the crime to the school's Title IX office. That same day, she says, BYU's honor code office received a copy of the report, triggering an investigation into whether MacDonald had violated the Mormon school's strict code of behavior, which bans premarital sex and drinking, among other things.

Now MacDonald is among many students and others, including a Utah prosecutor, who are questioning BYU's practice of investigating accusers, saying it could discourage women from reporting sexual violence and hinder criminal cases.

Some have started an online petition drive calling on the university to give victims immunity from honor code violations committed in the lead-up to a sexual assault.

This week, BYU announced that in light of such concerns, the school will re-evaluate the practice and consider changes.

All BYU students must agree to abide by the honor code. Created by students in 1949, it prohibits such things as "sexual misconduct," ''obscene or indecent conduct or expressions" and "involvement with pornographic, erotic, indecent or offensive material." Violators can be expelled or otherwise punished.

Mary Koss, a public health professor at the University of Arizona who is an expert on sexual assault, questioned whether BYU is fulfilling its legal duty under federal Title IX to support victims of sexual violence.

"The students agreed to be governed by that honor code when they came there," she said. "But they cannot put things in their contract to students that are in violation of federal guidelines on civil rights."

Alana Kindness, executive director of the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault, warned: "The impact of that practice is that students at BYU who are sexually assaulted will not report that assault."
Click to expand...


In at least one case the school was notified by a friend of the rapist, who is a sheriff's deputy, and she is being prevented from registering for classes. Prosecutors feel they are interfering with the prosecution.


http://www.sltrib.com/news/3773615-155/prosecutor-says-rape-case-is-threatened?page=1
Prosecutors say Brigham Young University is jeopardizing a pending rape prosecution because the school refuses to delay its Honor Code case against the alleged victim.

Deputy Utah County Attorney Craig Johnson brought charges against the woman's alleged attacker and said he implored school officials to consider that their Honor Code investigation of her conduct would further victimize her. He asked them to postpone their investigation until the conclusion of the trial, originally planned for next month.

He said they declined, and have barred the student from registering for future classes until she complies with the school's investigation.

"When we have a victim that is going to be revictimized any time she talks about the rape — it's unfortunate that BYU is holding her schooling hostage until she comes to meet with them," Johnson said. "And we, as prosecutors, prefer she doesn't meet with them."

The Honor Code probe began after a Utah County sheriff's deputy, a friend of the accused attacker, gave BYU a copy of the police case file. Johnson said he has stressed to school officials that the file is "paperwork that lawfully they shouldn't have."
Click to expand...

The school's Title IX Coordinator Sarah Westerberg is awful.

http://jezebel.com/theyre-emboldening-my-rapist-sexual-assault-victims-at-1771222098

MacDonald said that the Title IX office was “very diminishing of my claim.” Westerberg, MacDonald alleges, “outright doubted me,” and told the computer science major that “in her opinion, almost all BYU rape and sexual assault reports are fake; that ‘they’re put out by girls who feel moral regret after having consensual sex and then decide that to escape that regret by calling it rape.’”

BYU’s process also seems to have a dampening effect on rape and sexual assault reporting. On the account of several students present, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Westerberg said, at a campus rape awareness event earlier this month, that she would “not apologize” for forwarding victim reports to the Honor Code; she simultaneously is said to have acknowledged that doing so might have a “chilling” effect on reporting.
Click to expand...
 
J

jackdoe

Member
Wow, that college has a nonsense honor code. The honor code for my college pretty much involved only lying, cheating, and stealing, only in a lot more words.
 
F

Fat4all

Banned
Wait so if you are raped you are being sexually devious or sommit.

Wait what? Am I missing something here, or are they blaming her for engaging in a sexually act even though it was against her will?
 
G

GoldenEye 007

Member
jackdoe said:
Wow, that college has a nonsense honor code. The honor code for my college pretty much involved only lying, cheating, and stealing, only in a lot more words.
Click to expand...

Private religious schools. Well technically all colleges have codes of conduct. But generally the religious ones have.... "special" things in them like this.

Hope they get their federal funding pulled. Then again, the feds don't have the wherewithal to do anything.....
 
J

jackdoe

Member
GoldenEye 007 said:
Private religious schools. Well technically all colleges have codes of conduct. But generally the religious ones have.... "special" things in them like this.

Hope they get their federal funding pulled. Then again, the feds don't have the wherewithal to do anything.....
Click to expand...
I'll be honest, if I had enrolled in a college and was asked to sign an agreement to an honor code like this, I'd be transferred out by the end of the first semester. Colleges take their honor codes seriously and you can't sign nonsense stuff like this willy nilly.
 
L

Luke_Wal

Member
BYU's honor code is even crazier than Liberty's, which I didn't think possible (they have a 10PM curfew on school nights, for one). Absolutely insane, and I'm a pretty religious guy, though I LOVE being at a huge, non-religious liberal arts college.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
Maybe if these kids weren't watching so much porn... or perhaps they didn't watch enough?
 
K

KevinCow

Banned
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this.

So to go to this school, you have to sign a pledge that you won't have sex or look or porn? And violating this can get you expelled? What? Who would go to a school like that? And why the shit would they put that in the code of conduct? You're a goddamn adult, what you do sexually is irrelevant to your education as long as it's not with a teacher or on campus or something like that.

And then, on top of this, they're saying that being raped is a violation of this code of conduct? What kind of insensitive assholes decided it was a reasonable idea to pursue this?
 
D

dabig2

Member
Fat4all said:
Wait so if you are raped you are being sexually devious or sommit.

Wait what? Am I missing something here, or are they blaming her for engaging in a sexually act even though it was against her will?
Click to expand...

Fundamentalist Christian universities have a pretty horrific record when it comes to this:
Al Jazeera America: Bob Jones University shamed victims of sexual assault
For decades, Bob Jones University (BJU), a self-described fundamentalist Christian college, has urged sexual abuse victims not to go to the police and counseled them to repent for the blame it said they share, according to an extensive independent investigation published Thursday.

The report, nearly two years in the making, is a catalog of grief stretching back four decades, based on hundreds of survey results, dozens of in-depth interviews and a wealth of corroborating documentation. It details a culture that shamed victims into believing they were ruined by their abuse. It also strongly criticizes the school's brand of counseling, which rejects modern psychology and urges victims to look for the "sin" behind their rapes and view their continued trauma as a struggle with God.

More than half the alleged victims surveyed reported they felt the school's response was hurtful or very hurtful. Some victims said they found counseling sessions worse than their abuse. But the vast majority of the 50 self-identified victims interviewed for the study said they loved Bob Jones University, that they wished it no ill and hoped sharing their experiences would bring much-needed change.

A nonprofit group, Godly Response for Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), conducted the probe at the request of Bob Jones, after revelations that one of the university’s trustees covered up sex abuse at his church. The scope of such a review would be extraordinary for any university, but BJU, a campus of about 3,000 in Greenville, South Carolina, known for its strict biblical teachings, is one of the most insular in the country.

The GRACE report not only indicts the culture and counseling philosophy at BJU but also names four individuals it considers the main architects of the school's approach. Among its many policy recommendations, GRACE urges BJU to strip its campus bookstore of the works of these individuals, bar its onetime primary counselor from counseling and take action against Bob Jones III — the chancellor and a former president of university and a grandson of its founder, for whom it was named.

BJU has maintained an insular, conservative culture that prohibits drinking and television. Unmarried men and women may not touch. Opposite sexes may gather socially only in well-lit outdoor areas on campus until 10:20 p.m. Even Christian music is not permitted if it has a rock, pop, jazz or hip-hop beat. Much of the outside world — from "worldly friends" to websites, which are deemed un-Christian — is shunned.

...
Click to expand...

So, not surprised by BYU who is probably even more batshit.
 
S

Starfish Hero

Member
KevinCow said:
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this.

So to go to this school, you have to sign a pledge that you won't have sex or look or porn? And violating this can get you expelled? What? Who would go to a school like that? And why the shit would they put that in the code of conduct? You're a goddamn adult, what you do sexually is irrelevant to your education as long as it's not with a teacher or on campus or something like that.

And then, on top of this, they're saying that being raped is a violation of this code of conduct? What kind of insensitive assholes decided it was a reasonable idea to pursue this?
Click to expand...

Mormons. They get reduced tuition.
 
D

Dishwalla

Banned
KevinCow said:
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this.

So to go to this school, you have to sign a pledge that you won't have sex or look or porn? And violating this can get you expelled? What? Who would go to a school like that? And why the shit would they put that in the code of conduct? You're a goddamn adult, what you do sexually is irrelevant to your education as long as it's not with a teacher or on campus or something like that.
Click to expand...

Mormons don't think like that though, most would be more than happy to sign such a pledge. At least if they had stuck with the religion up to college.
 
Zoe

Zoe

Member
Whatever happened to that GAFfer who was stuck at one of these ultra-religious schools?

Edit: ITT, people too young to remember Real World: New Orleans
 
B

BigDug13

Member
Doesn't this sort of thing happen in the Middle East in parts? Where a woman is stoned to death for adultery after being raped.
 
T

Toothless

Member
D

devilhawk

Member
Some have started an online petition drive calling on the university to give victims immunity from honor code violations committed in the lead-up to a sexual assault.
Click to expand...
Definitely puts victims in a tough spot if they are breaking the honor code prior to the assault. If they are saying that being assaulted is an honor code violation - they can def fuck off.
 
C

Cabbagehead

Member
Overly religious contingents or contingencies are scary as fuck. Common sense, relational thought and human rights be damned if it does not fall under certain special rules (even unspoken ones). I'm convinced some times that Utah and it's neighboring states that hold the same extreme belief systems are just giant state controlled cults. That just so happen to obey the larger laws but are just as likely to ignore them.


Plus history seems to support that notion. Either way I can't fathom how many people are silenced or are forced into unholy contempt in these situations. Especially if the individual or group are important in some sense and the.victim gets the unseen axe. Otherwise classic victim blaming.
 
A

Ala Alba

Member
devilhawk said:
Definitely puts victims in a tough spot if they are breaking the honor code prior to the assault. If they are saying that being assaulted is an honor code violation - they can def fuck off.
Click to expand...

The article suggests to me that this is the case. The report was filed, the honor code office looked at it, said "hey, it seems like the situation that led to this was against the honor code, let's look into that", and started investigating.

Notably, they are considering changing policy so as to avoid this kind of investigation in the future.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Zoe said:
Whatever happened to that GAFfer who was stuck at one of these ultra-religious schools?
Click to expand...

Atramental. I think he bailed or got kicked out or something. You'll have to look elsewhere to ask him, since he flamed out of here on a really weak account suicide.
 
P

PaulExcellent

Member
Fuck BYU's backward codes based around a culture of nonsense, stupid-ass superiority complex, and all of the stuck-up students that would marry a fucking tree if it came back from a mission.
 
C

Catdaddy

Member
What a terrible school, a crime is a crime fuckheads...

Went to a private christian school during my middle school years, and me and my folks had to sign something similar. One of the high school kids got busted for pot off school grounds and was expelled. I went back to public school the next year.
 
poppabk

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Fat4all said:
Wait so if you are raped you are being sexually devious or sommit.

Wait what? Am I missing something here, or are they blaming her for engaging in a sexually act even though it was against her will?
Click to expand...
It's not the rape that they consider a violation but the events proceeding it, like if they were drinking or fooling around with someone. It seems like all these details should be completely confidential though.
 
B

Box of Kittens

Banned
Toothless said:
Ehhh... doubt that tbh. In my college search, I looked at BYU and BJU just because I was ridiculously consuming information, and BJU was much more restrictive in a dress code and basically doing anything in your free time.
Click to expand...

When I was in college I remember getting an advertisement for a summer program at BYU which mentioned that all students participating in the program would be expected to abide by their honor code. Out of curiosity I checked it out and felt it was pretty extreme. I immediately wondered if I could find something more extreme and decided to check out what the rules were at Bob Jones, which had made the news during the 2000 campaign for its ban on interracial dating after Bush spoke there. My sense at the time was that Bob Jones was indeed more extreme. I remember specifically that they banned televisions but then had rules on how to properly store your handgun. I don't know what the rules look like now though.
 
B

Bornstellar

Member
Ala Alba said:
The article suggests to me that this is the case. The report was filed, the honor code office looked at it, said "hey, it seems like the situation that led to this was against the honor code, let's look into that", and started investigating.

Notably, they are considering changing policy so as to avoid this kind of investigation in the future.
Click to expand...

. Being a victim of sexual assault is not an honor code violation. Still, happy to see them considering immunity for the sake of allowing victims to speak more freely without fear of repercussions.
 
P

Purple Cheeto

Member
Provo gonna Provo. I don't understand why anyone but straight white men would ever want to be a part of the LDS church because everything about their beliefs is pretty awful to anyone who isn't a rich, straight, white man (preferably from Utah).
 
D

diehard

Fleer
Came in expecting johnsmith to be the thread creator, and people not know what the hell they are talking about because they can't read.

Left satisfied.
 
G

GoldenEye 007

Member
dIEHARD said:
Came in expecting johnsmith to be the thread creator, and people not know what the hell they are talking about because they can't read.

Left satisfied.
Click to expand...
Considering BYU is rethinking their shit code and others acknowledge it can and does supress sexual misconduct issues, even if the core situation was in violation of the code, tells me plenty in this thread could read and comprehend the idiotic situation here.
 
R

radios shipping overview

Member
There are some layers to this, and some of the nuance gets lost easily. The students aren't in trouble for being victims of sexual assault. But the Title IX office at BYU has a policy of informing the Honor Code office about assault investigations, at which point the Honor Code office is free to investigate the victim for anything else they might have been doing at the time that was a violation.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/3773615-155/prosecutor-says-rape-case-is-threatened?page=1

And, to add to the fuckery, a Utah County sheriff's deputy has been providing information on ongoing rape and assault investigations to the Honor Code office. The Honor Code office is free to use information obtained illegally in their investigations.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/3794594-155/sheriff-says-employee-who-shared-rape?fullpage=1
 
P

peaceiscloser

Member
Zoe said:
Actually, them reconsidering their process is huge.
Click to expand...

Yeah, BYU lately has been pretty reactive to poor press in the last few years, so I could see there being, if not a policy change, some sort of exception made for these sorts of situations.

I go to an LDS Church-run school, I have to live by the Honor Code standards, and there's a lot of it I just plain have a hard time agreeing with. But at these schools they're the law. In fact, they're even more than that -- many of my professors explicitly stated that the Honor Code is a type of covenant; the highest binding order that exists in our church, under severe penalty, including and beyond expulsion from school and revocation of privileges in church functions. That's pretty strong language.

I love the school, but Honor Code covenant philosophy MUST be reconsidered.
 
J

johnsmith

remember me
jiji said:
There are some layers to this, and some of the nuance gets lost easily. The students aren't in trouble for being victims of sexual assault. But the Title IX office at BYU has a policy of informing the Honor Code office about assault investigations, at which point the Honor Code office is free to investigate the victim for anything else they might have been doing at the time that was a violation.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/3773615-155/prosecutor-says-rape-case-is-threatened?page=1

And, to add to the fuckery, a Utah County sheriff's deputy has been providing information on ongoing rape and assault investigations to the Honor Code office. The Honor Code office is free to use information obtained illegally in their investigations.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/3794594-155/sheriff-says-employee-who-shared-rape?fullpage=1
Click to expand...

Uh, wow. This is even worse than the article I posted. I didn't hear about it until it hit the AP and the national sites, so I missed a lot of the back story.


http://www.sltrib.com/news/3773615-155/prosecutor-says-rape-case-is-threatened?page=1
Prosecutors say Brigham Young University is jeopardizing a pending rape prosecution because the school refuses to delay its Honor Code case against the alleged victim.

Deputy Utah County Attorney Craig Johnson brought charges against the woman's alleged attacker and said he implored school officials to consider that their Honor Code investigation of her conduct would further victimize her. He asked them to postpone their investigation until the conclusion of the trial, originally planned for next month.

He said they declined, and have barred the student from registering for future classes until she complies with the school's investigation.

"When we have a victim that is going to be revictimized any time she talks about the rape — it's unfortunate that BYU is holding her schooling hostage until she comes to meet with them," Johnson said. "And we, as prosecutors, prefer she doesn't meet with them."

The Honor Code probe began after a Utah County sheriff's deputy, a friend of the accused attacker, gave BYU a copy of the police case file. Johnson said he has stressed to school officials that the file is "paperwork that lawfully they shouldn't have."
Click to expand...
 
C

Cyan

Banned
dIEHARD said:
Came in expecting johnsmith to be the thread creator, and people not know what the hell they are talking about because they can't read.

Left satisfied.
Click to expand...

Ok. It looks to me like a woman was raped, and the BYU honor code people are investigating her for possible honor code violations for the events around her rape, thus endangering the actual case against the rapist and effectively victimizing her a second time, plus a knock-on effect of disincentivizing victims from reporting sexual assault or rape. Maybe you can explain what I'm missing.
 
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