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BYU Students Investigated for REPORTING Rape

by byufan4ever · 4/21/2016

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byufan4ever
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/04/21/byu-students-investigated-for-breaking-conduct-code-after-reporting-rape.html?intcmp=hplnws



Wow, this seems like big news to me. Making national headline at Fox News. If true, this really is disgusting that a woman gets raped, reports it, and then she gets investigated by the Honor Code office for having premarital sex!! It's too bad that it's taking something like this for BYU to consider making changes. Ugh. While the idea of an honor code sounds great, I've just heard too many horrible things about how it is executed.
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Ddawg
Wow! That's an eye opener. These girls that get sexually assaulted, and some raped, should not become the targets of BYU Honor Code investigations. I'm glad this practice is being exposed - and should stop.
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snoscythe
I have a problem with the Title IX office reporting possible violations to the Honor Code office--they should operate completely independently.



That said, if the Honor Code office learns of a possible violation, I think they have to investigate. Otherwise, the claim of sexual assault, proven or unproven, true or false, becomes a get-out-of-jail free card. There does need to be some sensitivity training and possibly deferral of the investigation until police and criminal processes run their course.
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snoscythe
byufan4ever wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/04/21/byu-students-investigated-for-breaking-conduct-code-after-reporting-rape.html?intcmp=hplnws



Wow, this seems like big news to me. Making national headline at Fox News. If true, this really is disgusting that a woman gets raped, reports it, and then she gets investigated by the Honor Code office for having premarital sex!! It's too bad that it's taking something like this for BYU to consider making changes. Ugh. While the idea of an honor code sounds great, I've just heard too many horrible things about how it is executed.


In these cases they were not investigating the girls for premarital sex. Both of the girls mentioned in the article were investigated for having members of the opposite sex in the bedroom areas of their apartment--consensual conduct prior to the rape/assault, not the rape/assault itself. Not saying that they should be doing even that, but that is what they were looking at.
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byufan4ever
snoscythe wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/04/21/byu-students-investigated-for-breaking-conduct-code-after-reporting-rape.html?intcmp=hplnws



Wow, this seems like big news to me. Making national headline at Fox News. If true, this really is disgusting that a woman gets raped, reports it, and then she gets investigated by the Honor Code office for having premarital sex!! It's too bad that it's taking something like this for BYU to consider making changes. Ugh. While the idea of an honor code sounds great, I've just heard too many horrible things about how it is executed.


In these cases they were not investigating the girls for premarital sex. Both of the girls mentioned in the article were investigated for having members of the opposite sex in the bedroom areas of their apartment--consensual conduct prior to the rape/assault, not the rape/assault itself. Not saying that they should be doing even that, but that is what they were looking at.


Where did you read that? I didn't get that from the article.
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snoscythe
The story is now evolving--turns out the deputy who turned the file into the Honor Code office is now lawyered up and claiming he was never trying to get the girl in trouble--evidently he, per his attorney "intended that BYU investigate male students, particularly male athletes," so there may be another shoe dropping here.



http://kutv.com/news/local/utah-county-sheriffs-deputy-denies-allegations-in-byu-rape-case



Note that the Utah County Attorney has walked back the comments of his underling (who, if you read his original statements was most concerned that if the victim was not in school, she would be out of state at the time of trial) and stated that in his mind BYU is supportive of victims.



http://www.sltrib.com/home/3783429-155/boss-of-prosecutor-who-criticized-byu
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snoscythe
byufan4ever wrote:
byufan4ever wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/04/21/byu-students-investigated-for-breaking-conduct-code-after-reporting-rape.html?intcmp=hplnws



Wow, this seems like big news to me. Making national headline at Fox News. If true, this really is disgusting that a woman gets raped, reports it, and then she gets investigated by the Honor Code office for having premarital sex!! It's too bad that it's taking something like this for BYU to consider making changes. Ugh. While the idea of an honor code sounds great, I've just heard too many horrible things about how it is executed.


In these cases they were not investigating the girls for premarital sex. Both of the girls mentioned in the article were investigated for having members of the opposite sex in the bedroom areas of their apartment--consensual conduct prior to the rape/assault, not the rape/assault itself. Not saying that they should be doing even that, but that is what they were looking at.


Where did you read that? I didn't get that from the article.


Other articles. Here is Barney: "Barney was reluctant to detail the charges the Honor Code Office brought against her: “I can outline things in the Honor Code that are usually put against rape victims,” she said. “The Honor Code prohibits drinking alcohol, being in the bedroom of the opposite sex, being in the apartment of the opposite sex after a certain curfew, and of having any kind of consensual contact.”"



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



Again, not saying BYU is completely in the right here, but it seems we haven't learned much since Duke lacrosse and the Rolling Stone's campus rape article as far as knee-jerk responses to rape allegations go.
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BoiseBYU
I am glad BYU is going to take a look at the process. Sexual assault is unacceptable. If you know you might be subject to an honor code office review--you let the boy in your bedroom for example--you might not report. That disincentive rewards the assaulter and perhaps even emboldens him. The Utah County deputy sheriff who took the rape case to the honor code office has stated that he did so because he is concerned that male athletes and students need to be dealt with. But the alleged rapist is not a BYU student; the girl who was allegedly raped is a student. So guess what? The honor code office is reviewing the matter and the girl's registration is on hold. The girl alleges rape and the State has charged him. But because she might have let the man into her bedroom, there might be a potential honor code violation. If by chance the girl gets booted from school and stays home in CA and the prosecutor has no direct witness at trial might not the alleged rapist walk? It might be far fetched, but the fact that it is possible tells me we have a screwed up process. I am sure BYU does not want its honor code office to be a tool of third parties. And I am sure BYU does not intend that its title IX office have procedures in place that disincentivize the reporting of assaults (right now they forward all sexual assaults reports to the honor code office) But that sure looks like it is happening too often. So I am very pleased that President Worthen has stated that BYU is going to reevaluate its processes and get things right. I have confidence in him and will pray for wisdom and judgment as he works to fix a problem that is real and serious. I believe in the honor code. It can build and stand for character. But something too often is going on that is not honorable when it comes to sexual assaults of BYU coeds.
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snoscythe
BoiseBYU wrote:
it is indisputable that the alleged rapist in the report just happens to be his friend.


Actually, it's quite directly disputed.



https://www.scribd.com/doc/308916234/Edwin-Randolph-Press-Release



The DA's office and an IA investigation by the sherriff's department have both determined that there was no witness tampering motive and no friendship between the deputy and the alleged rapist.



This is why this story sucks so bad--the original story/accusations from over a week ago keep getting recycled and the new, more accurate information just gets drowned out as a new national site picks up the old news and drowns out the new developments.
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Schmoe
So, if you're doing something you're not supposed to do, and something bad happens to you, you shouldn't be held responsible for what you did? "But officer, I was assaulted during the drug deal, so you should ignore that I have illegal drugs."
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BoiseBYU
snoscythe wrote:
it is indisputable that the alleged rapist in the report just happens to be his friend.


Actually, it's quite directly disputed.



https://www.scribd.com/doc/308916234/Edwin-Randolph-Press-Release



The DA's office and an IA investigation by the sherriff's department have both determined that there was no witness tampering motive and no friendship between the deputy and the alleged rapist.



This is why this story sucks so bad--the original story/accusations from over a week ago keep getting recycled and the new, more accurate information just gets drowned out as a new national site picks up the old news and drowns out the new developments.


Thank you. I stand corrected on that point and apologize for relying on older apparently outdated news. I will edit above to fix the post above. Was the Sherrif reprimand of the deputy also lifted? He should not have turned the report over is my understanding. It is odd he claims he wanted BYU to deal with athletes and male students when the alleged rapist is not a BYU student.
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snoscythe
BoiseBYU wrote:
It is odd he claims he wanted BYU to deal with athletes and male students when the alleged rapist is not a BYU student.


Reading between the lines, my guess is that the police report contains reports of other HC violations prior to the rape that involved athletes.
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ABYUFAN
The headline to this thread is exactly what a bunch of BYU attackers want people to believe. The truth is that there have been honor code investigations of rape victims after they were raped, but never never never never never never never an honor code investigation FOR being raped. This is a very craggy area, and I personally am a bit uncomfortable with someone getting a free pass on an honor code violation in consideration for their honor code violation leading to them being raped. But I realize that that opinion makes me an insensitive prick. I just am going to have to learn to live with myself.
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redneckjedi
ABYUFAN wrote:
The headline to this thread is exactly what a bunch of BYU attackers want people to believe. The truth is that there have been honor code investigations of rape victims after they were raped, but never never never never never never never an honor code investigation FOR being raped. This is a very craggy area, and I personally am a bit uncomfortable with someone getting a free pass on an honor code violation in consideration for their honor code violation leading to them being raped. But I realize that that opinion makes me an insensitive prick. I just am going to have to learn to live with myself.


I guess I'm an insensitive prick, too. If you set the precedent that crying rape gives you a get out of jail free card for everything else, it's going to be Duke Lacrosse all over again. The formula for fun and profit will be 1) girl violates the honor code however she wants, as long as at least one guy is involved, 2) girl ends up in an HC investigation, 3) girl cries rape, whether or not it actually happened, 4) girl receives no consequences, guy gets criminal investigation for rape and name tarnished in the news, 5) rinse and repeat.



I hate sexual assault as much as any decent man should; however, this is part of a larger societal problem where nobody wants to take responsibility for their own actions. Amnesty for illegal immigration, amnesty for student loan debt, amnesty for doing bad things because something worse happened to you in the process....it's all way too popular right now. At BYU of all places, we should be doing something about that. After all, Elder Oaks said it was a huge problem at a BYU devotional - in 2004.
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HoosierCougar
I'm not gonna weigh in on the allegations or the process, but I'll say it has been interesting to read local media, national media and social media and hear quotes like "I chose not to go to BYU because of the overreach of the HC office." And other statements that indicate an intimate knowledge of how the HC office works from people who never attended BYU.



I went to BYU twice for a total of 6 years (4 years in the Lee administration for my BS; 2 years in the Bateman administration for my MBA). I was never contacted by the Honor Code office. I never went there. I know they have an address in the Kimball Tower, but I've also heard they have offices in other buildings (WILK, SFLC) and if you are really in trouble, you end up in the ASB. But those are just rumors. Because in 6 years, I never had an occasion to be there. I did know where my Bishop was, and made liberal use of his authority vis-a-vis my spiritual welfare.
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Cougarfan87
redneckjedi wrote:
The headline to this thread is exactly what a bunch of BYU attackers want people to believe. The truth is that there have been honor code investigations of rape victims after they were raped, but never never never never never never never an honor code investigation FOR being raped. This is a very craggy area, and I personally am a bit uncomfortable with someone getting a free pass on an honor code violation in consideration for their honor code violation leading to them being raped. But I realize that that opinion makes me an insensitive prick. I just am going to have to learn to live with myself.


I guess I'm an insensitive prick, too. If you set the precedent that crying rape gives you a get out of jail free card for everything else, it's going to be Duke Lacrosse all over again. The formula for fun and profit will be 1) girl violates the honor code however she wants, as long as at least one guy is involved, 2) girl ends up in an HC investigation, 3) girl cries rape, whether or not it actually happened, 4) girl receives no consequences, guy gets criminal investigation for rape and name tarnished in the news, 5) rinse and repeat.



I hate sexual assault as much as any decent man should; however, this is part of a larger societal problem where nobody wants to take responsibility for their own actions. Amnesty for illegal immigration, amnesty for student loan debt, amnesty for doing bad things because something worse happened to you in the process....it's all way too popular right now. At BYU of all places, we should be doing something about that. After all, Elder Oaks said it was a huge problem at a BYU devotional - in 2004.


I am there with you. We get all kinds of "training" in the Army about preventing sexual assault. However, the training consists of looking out for people who are too stoned out of their minds or drunk to consent to sex and then intervening. If I were ever around that environment where people were getting drunk/stoned (which I wouldn't be), I would certainly intervene if I thought someone was about to take advantage of another. But hey, how about teaching people not to put themselves in really bad situations where other people have to rescue them? My guess is, if the girl doesn't drop LSD and black out, she doesn't get assaulted. The honor code would actually protect many of these people (not all) if they would simply have followed it.



That being said, Title IX should probably not be required to report to the Honor Code office. If it comes up some other way, then fine, do the HC investigation. But, just as I would not want to encourage people to yell rape to avoid an HC investigation, I would likewise not want to discourage a sexual assault investigation to avoid an HC investigation.
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redneckjedi
I actually have been to the Honor Code office. I intervened in what might have become a sexual assault in my apartment. The aggressor was my roommate, a BYU athlete, and a girl in the next building over. At the time of the incident, she was technically across the "chastity line" in the apartment. There was a physical altercation between me and the roommate (which I lost, badly - 135 lb. CS major vs. 225 lb. athlete), she got away, and later on he made a death threat. I went to University Police, and was later called into the HC office.



My experience was that they are not the lynch mob that media and malcontents make them out to be. They asked about the full details of what happened, to be sure. Nothing happened to the potential victim. At all. The HC office apparently had received other complaints about the athlete, who was a minority. Until that point, they had just been sitting on them. At the time, that pissed me off, because my thinking was that if they had immediately booted him, I wouldn't have had such a crappy living situation that year. But now that I'm older and wiser, it makes sense. They didn't act unless and until there was a bad or dangerous pattern that needed to be corrected. I would assume that is fairly consistent in how they handle these things. What I was told about what would happen was similar to what we always heard out of Bronco: specific expectations would be set, and if they were not met, there would be consequences.



I don't know what happened to my roommate. I graduated and moved out of state. I've heard he served a mission, and if so, I'm happy he turned things around. That's the point of discipline, though, right? To help people turn things around? To help people see the error of their ways with milder consequences than they would face if there were no safety net in place?



I don't know specifics about this case, especially about the particulars about how the HC office got their information and got involved. I trust that if there's a problem in that process, Pres. Worthen will get it straightened out. I also hope her attacker gets the justice he deserves for such an awful crime. At the same time, the feeling I get from the victim is that she truly doesn't believe she did anything wrong. I would never blame her for her attacker using his agency to do something terrible. But I would blame her for breaking her word about the Honor Code she signed. At the risk of being accused of promoting rape culture, I would say her mistakes put her in a bad situation, and her attacker took it from there. She is accountable for her mistakes. The attacker is accountable for his. Giving her amnesty from her mistakes might make BYU seem more caring, but ultimately it fails to help her learn from the mistakes she is accountable for. I suspect that the process has only come to the point it did for her because the very suggestion that she did anything wrong got her angry and defensive. In the Church and at BYU, it seems like if you come forward about something and are repentant about it, the consequences are much better for you, because you've learned from your mistake. If not, the consequences are worse, because you obviously haven't learned anything.
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Schmoe
Cougarfan87 wrote:
...I would likewise not want to discourage a sexual assault investigation to avoid an HC investigation.


I guess that's the chance one takes when one does something wrong -- that if something bad happens to you in the course of that, then you've put yourself in a tough spot. It's not the honor code office's fault you put yourself in that position, it's yours.
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Mars
Schmoe wrote:
So, if you're doing something you're not supposed to do, and something bad happens to you, you shouldn't be held responsible for what you did? "But officer, I was assaulted during the drug deal, so you should ignore that I have illegal drugs."

BYU is, in effect, supporting rape by punishing victims (and thus suppressing reporting). Which they have done before. It's wrong, plain and simple. It was wrong when they've done it before, and it's wrong when they're still doing it now. And not just a little wrong. And not just ignorant either.



It's like locking your child in a closet for 48 hours because they come home 10 minutes late from school, and then claiming "they deserved it" because they broke your house rule. That is abuse, and it's not justified. This is abuse, and it's not justified. "No one is perfect" is not a valid excuse to commit evil.
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Schmoe
Mars wrote:
So, if you're doing something you're not supposed to do, and something bad happens to you, you shouldn't be held responsible for what you did? "But officer, I was assaulted during the drug deal, so you should ignore that I have illegal drugs."

BYU is, in effect, supporting rape by punishing victims (and thus suppressing reporting). Which they have done before. It's wrong, plain and simple. It was wrong when they've done it before, and it's wrong when they're still doing it now. And not just a little wrong. And not just ignorant either.



It's like locking your child in a closet for 48 hours because they come home 10 minutes late from school, and then claiming "they deserved it" because they broke your house rule. That is abuse, and it's not justified. This is abuse, and it's not justified. "No one is perfect" is not a valid excuse to commit evil.


Your analogy is so flawed it's hysterical.

It's like if your kid sneaks out after curfew and then gets beat up by older kids. He gets to decide if he tells you he snuck out so the bigger problem can get handled, but he still gets grounded for sneaking out. You're not punishing him for getting beat up, you're punishing him for breaking the rules that he knows he's supposed to follow. He's the only one to blame for putting himself in that position.
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