BYU Students Investigated for REPORTING Rape

[BoiseBYU]

it is indisputable that the alleged rapist in the report just happens to be his friend.

Actually, it's quite directly disputed.



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 I stand corrected on that point and apologize for relying on older apparently outdated news.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.

[snoscythe]

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.

[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.

[redneckjedi]

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.

[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.

[Cougarfan87]

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.

[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.

[Schmoe]

...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.

[Mars]

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.

[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."

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.