The BYU sophomore, Madi Barney, says she was sexually assaulted by a non-student. Barney said she was raped and that the university now has placed her classes on hold because she has declined to participate in an honor code investigation. So she filed the complaint with the Civil Rights Office because she believes it’s a violation of Title IX.
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Perhaps BYU President Kevin Worthen is feeling the pressure to re-evaluate the school’s honor code now in light of the latest BYU sexual assault investigation.
Eighty protesters, including a handful of BYU students, held a rare rally on the edge of campus at noon Wednesday to call for honor code amnesty for victims of sexual assault.
The Mormon-owned school has a notoriously strict code of conduct that requires chastity, “clean language”, and abstaining from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee, among other things. She said after she reported the crime to the Title IX office, the honor code office received a copy of her report, and even though she did not violate the code, she was made to feel guilty until the office said the investigation was complete. Barney says she invited the man into her apartment but not into her bedroom.
Barney drafted a petition this week that demanded the school exempt victims of sexual assault from its honor code.
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. That’s 11,000 more signatures than the petition had 24 hours earlier.
The university won’t say how many people have been investigated and whether any have been punished. “In all Honor Code proceedings, the university strives for fairness, sensitivity and compassion, taking into account all mitigating facts and circumstances”.
Before they walked on campus to deliver their petition, they put away their bullhorns and signs which read “BYU: Protect Victims, Don’t Shame Them” and “BYU: Stop Blaming Victims”.
The Inquisitr recently covered the BYU campus sexual assault story when the school first received national scrutiny for their decision to prosecute the sexual assault victim, who’s now known as MacDonald.
“A victim of a sexual assault will never be referred to the Honor Code Office for being a victim of sexual assault”, BYU said in a statement on Monday. But students, activists and others say the practice at BYU could discourage women who have been victimized from coming forward and may violate federal law against sex discrimination in schools.
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Utah County Deputy Sheriff Edwin Randolph, a former women’s track coach at the school, was originally hit with the charges after prosecutors claimed he turned the documents over to the school in hopes of hurting Barney. However, Randolph has denied giving the report to the school with the intention that it investigate Madi: “Deputy Randolph never intended that BYU take honor code action against the female victim”, according to a statement provided to KUTV by Randolph’s lawyer.
