BYU Students Value Their Strict Honor Code. But Not the Harsh Punishments
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
This article puts a nasty and unfair spin on the whole situation. While I do accept that there are probably some things that could be changed with the way the HCO handles cases, this article is reporting false or misleading information.
For starters, the bit about "mandatory religious worship" as punishment is nonsense. I don't know where they got that. Probably a misunderstanding of how the HC Office encourages students to attend their worship services---whatever their religion might be. Secondly, "stories of being suspended or expelled for violations such as kissing a date good night," etc. is ludicrous. BYU hasn't expelled anyone in 2019---and only two people in the current academic year. Those were for crimes: Title IX violations and the like. If they expelled people for all the things mentioned in the article, (and on Instagram) BYU would have a much higher expulsion rate.
Many of the stories on the mentioned Instagram page are pure fabrication. Many more are highly embellished. After talking with some people involved with the protest, I went and talked to the HCO myself with some hard questions: the Honor Code Office is not there to expel or punish students---they're there primarily to help students develop character and morally-upright lives. (This being one of the aims of BYU's education.)
Granted, I would like to see some sort of student component in the HCO. I think that's a good idea. There are unfortunately a lot of people who are just angry at an institution trying to do good.
If you're curious, I recommend reading the source instead of trusting the NYT: https://honorcode.byu.edu
My personal opinion is that you shouldn’t sign the Honor Code if you don’t intend to keep it. It’s rediculous that students agree to the code annually and then are surprised when someone holds them to it. BYU Tuition is subsidized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so it’s not unreasonable that they ask you follow some code of conduct.
I was able to graduate with an engineering degree debt free and land an awesome well paying job afterword. Keeping the Honor Code for four years is such a small price to pay in comparison.
Here is a link to some version of the Honor Code. I’m not sure how up to date it is, but it’s probably close if not the same to the current version: https://policy.byu.edu/content/managed/26/ChurchEducationalS...
• Live a chaste and virtuous life
• Obey the law and all campus policies
• Use clean language
• Respect others
• Abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee, and substance abuse
• Participate regularly in church services
• Observe Dress and Grooming Standards
• Encourage others in their commitment to comply with the Honor Code
Are you saying that they offer you financial incentives to conform to this puritanism, and then issue 'actions' when you don't obey?
The difference is where the line is drawn (what the code of conduct requires). My opinion is that the low tuition costs are not reason enough to say that the school is coercing students to live a puritan lifestyle.
> the move was praised by its younger members and galvanized their efforts to push for change on B.Y.U.’s campus
Just goes to show that people “galvanizing for change” will always try to take a mile when you give an inch. It really feels like any sort of compromise in $current_year is just a sign of weakness.
If you attend BYU as an LDS member, you need to maintain an ecclesiastical endorsement. Part of this includes paying tithing and attending at least some services. If you do not maintain your ecclesiastical endorsement, you can have a hold put on your account to where you can't register for additional classes, graduate, and possibly can't even apply for a transcript. In short, they can keep you from transferring schools unless you are willing to start from scratch, in order to get you to comply. Yes, that is mandatory religious worship, just with extra steps between point a and c. I should know. I attended BYU within the last decade and stopped believing at that time. You are not free to cease being a practicing LDS member. As it is a private school, I would have been fine had they simply asked me to pay the non-member tuition, or requested that I transfer schools. Instead they held my transcript as punishment. I had to grovel and go through a family friend to get an ecclesiastical endorsement to get a transcript. What rubbish. Surely you would be upset if Notre Dame treated a student who converted from Catholicism to Mormonism similarly?
The Honor Code Office has a whole history rife with abuse. In 2015, student Madi Barney was raped. She reported this to Provo police. She was placed under investigation by the Honor Code Office and was barred for a time from enrolling in classes. Unlike previous victims of this institutional abuse, she fought back and went public, ultimately forcing the Title IX office to formally separate from the Honor Code office. Previously information had been shared freely between the two.
https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=4732048&itype=CMSI...
And it's not just the Honor Code Office and the Title IX office. BYU's campus police department was and is complicit in the institutional abuse of authority wielded to keep students in line. Earlier this year the BYU police department was sanctioned in a move to decertify the entire police department. This happened because they failed to investigate misconduct where campus officers were accessing and sharing information using external police databases.
https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2019/02/26/utah-moves-d...
In my own personal experience, I and friends disclosed information to religious leaders, which was subsequently disclosed to the honor code office and used to justify academic probation and punishment. Yes, this was absolutely a blatant violation of priest-penitent confidentiality.
Think about that for a minute. Think about the sharing of information between religious authorities, school's honor code office, title IX office, campus police, and external law enforcement. All in a direct line. Institutional abuse of power and crossing lines that should not be crossed.
The social implications of student body awareness that the Honor Code can be used against you as a student, has been taken advantage of by predators. During my time on campus, talking with victims of sexual assault, the following was explained to me. Would-be predators would attempt to target individuals, like women or closeted gay men, and manipulate them into breaking the honor code in some manner. And have a recording of this. And then assault them or attempt to coerce them. If the victim then went to the police, the campus would become aware that they had previously broken the Honor Code and would have action taken against them. This was used to try to silence victims and prevent them from turning to the authorities for help. And you know what? It worked in a number of cases I personally knew of, allowing predators to victimize multiple individuals before being stopped.
I'm no longer a believer, but reading this comment, I assume you are. Is this how you believe Jesus would want his church, and a school supposedly run in his name, behaving?
If my (non Mormon) pastor was told someone was violating title IX (sex assault), I’d expect them to report to various other authorities. Mandatory reporting laws mean most information communicated to religious leaders abouse sexual harm isn’t all that confidential.
Maybe Mormons have a relationship to clergy more like Catholics do to priests?
A student confesses to their religious leaders that they have done some sin. Fine, go through the religious repentance process. That's how things normally work in other religions too. A religious leader doesn't have authority to academically punish someone. What doesn't normally happen, is that this info gets shared with a school authority that does. And then the school authority shares info with campus police, from where it can also go into state or federal databases.
Or it goes the other way, where info given to city police ends up in the hands of academic or religious folks who use it abusively.
A student like Madi Barney is assaulted, she goes to city police. City police share detailed info with campus police, who share it with title ix and honor code office, who share it with religious authorities. She was not the assaulter, she was the victim. Yet, because a part of the police report includes a history of some breaking of the honor code, even though as in my original response predators manipulate folks into doing this, she ends up being investigated and punished academically and religiously. City PD ends up functionally an investigation and enforcement arm of academic and religious authorities. That is ABSOLUTELY institutional abuse of power.
I didn't share much of my personal experiences, just enough to rebut the claim that religious attendance is not mandatory, that was the purpose of paragraphs 1-2 so I don't know what you are going on about. The rest of the response was what detailed the abusive system.
I didn't even touch on how this is used against LGBT students.
1. Anything said to the police, the university, or during confessional can get you, the victim, in trouble with the honor code department.
2. Predators know this, so they intentionally work to get victims to break minor rules that will bring major honor code punishments down - preventing the victims from reporting real crimes, or even talking about them to anyone - the police, the relevant university departments, or even their religious leader.
This isn't about the pastor reporting evidence of a crime to authorities, this is about the honor code department destroying the integrity and value of every other law enforcement or authority and effectively protecting predators.
This happens outside BYU with drugs: predators rape victims after getting them under the influence of minor drugs which will get the victim in trouble if they go to the police.
I think the biggest thing you understate in your post is the percentage of students who attend BYU and are active Mormons. Figure I found says that this number is close to 98%! I feel bad for your situation, but you should have switched universities when you discovered your atheism before things got that bad.
Simply put BYU is not for non-religions and non-conservative people. With so many other great choices in the US and the world it feels disingenuous to once again attack Mormons for simply trying to do their own thing.