BYU Is Under Fire, Again, for Punishing Sex-Assault Victims

Last month, a common scene in higher education unfolded at Brigham Young University at Idaho: A female student reported that she had been sexually assaulted by a male student. The university investigated and substantiated her complaint. Officials suspended the man she accused.

But they suspended the woman, too. Why? Because her bishop said so.

Bishops are spiritual leaders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. To attend any BYU campus — there are three, including the main one in Provo, Utah, plus a business college — students must receive an ecclesiastical endorsement from their bishop confirming that they are committed to upholding Mormon values, like abstaining from premarital sex. Bishops can revoke the endorsement at any time.

Those values, outlined in BYU’s Honor Code, also include abstaining from alcohol. So when the female student’s bishop learned about the assault and discovered that she had been drinking alcohol beforehand, he took away her endorsement, leaving her no longer in good standing at the university.

The case, outlined in detail by The Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday, has reignited a debate about sexual assault that first consumed the Mormon university more than two years ago, when multiple students and alumni said the institution had punished them for reporting sexual misconduct.

In response, BYU’s Provo campus announced in the fall of 2016 that an immunity clause would be added to its sexual-misconduct policy. The change meant that a student who reported a sexual assault would no longer be investigated for potential Honor Code violations, like drinking or being in the bedroom of a student of the opposite sex. Students can be expelled for violating the code. (The immunity clause was spearheaded by the main campus, but all BYU campuses eventually followed suit.)

University leaders have held up their adoption of the clause as a sign of how serious they are about combating sexual violence.

However, the case of the BYU-Idaho student has some observers wondering: If students can still be punished by their bishop when they report a sexual assault, does immunity even matter?

More than one fourth of BYU students who experienced unwanted sexual contact said they had reported the incident to a bishop or other spiritual leader, according to a climate survey done last year on the Provo campus. Just 3 percent said they reported to the campus Title IX office, and nearly two-thirds said they didn’t report to anyone.

Some of the students and alumni who came forward publicly in 2016 said they’d had negative experiences when talking to bishops about their assaults.

Control Over Eligibility

The BYU-Idaho student — who was not identified by the Tribune — didn’t report to her bishop initially, but he quickly became involved anyway.

After she reported her assault to the university, the Title IX office contacted the male student she was accusing. The male student then talked with his bishop about what had happened, and told him the woman had been drinking during their encounter. (Both students had the same bishop.)

The bishop then reached out to the female student. After she said she didn’t want to discuss the incident in detail, because of an active police investigation, he told her he was withdrawing his ecclesiastical endorsement, which meant she’d be suspended from the university. The fact that she’d been assaulted, she said he told her, was “irrelevant.”

BYU at Idaho didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday.

The main campus in Provo pointed to a statement from Daniel Woodruff, a Mormon church spokesman. “If a student within the Church Educational System wishes to dispute their ecclesiastical leader’s withdrawal of their endorsement, they can petition the institution’s dean of students to remain in school.” Deadlines for doing so vary from campus to campus, Woodruff said.

“The final decision regarding a student’s enrollment,” he added, “rests with each college or university.”

Even as students and alumni lauded the changes BYU announced back in 2016, they faulted the university for not outlining new guidelines for the bishops who work with students, and for not requiring them to go through sexual-assault training.

The final report from a BYU advisory council that recommended the changes said only that the findings “regarding ecclesiastical leaders’ varied responses to sexual-assault reports” should be shared with the Mormon church. “The university does not have stewardship for ecclesiastical functions,” the council members wrote.

Jan Scharman, vice president for student life at BYU in Provo and chair of the council, said at the time that the group was only asked to look at university policies. “There’s a pretty clear division between the ecclesiastical side of things and the university side of things,” she said.

As long as bishops continue to have the authority to unilaterally suspend BYU students, said Colleen Payne Dietz, the immunity policy is “completely irrelevant.” Payne Dietz is a 2005 graduate of BYU.

When she was sexually assaulted as a student, she confided in her bishop. He considered the incident to be consensual sex and threatened to contact the Honor Code office.

As Payne Dietz sees it, the university is “passing the buck.” Here’s how she interprets the perspective of BYU officials: We will no longer punish students who report sexual assaults. But if a bishop wants to withdraw his ecclesiastical endorsement from a student for whatever reason, they can do so, and that’s a church matter. What are we supposed to do about it?

“It just shifts expulsions to the bishops,” she said, “and allows BYU to claim no involvement.”

Moral Communities

BYU is one of a number of religiously affiliated institutions that have struggled to find a place in the national conversation about preventing sexual misconduct on campuses.

In attempting to set up moral communities that adhere to church teachings, colleges like BYU often have stringent policies that restrict student behavior, like banning premarital sex.

These policies, say many campus officials at religious colleges, help create cultures that keep students safer from sexual assault, because drinking and partying are less prevalent. Some scholars who have researched the issue — often focusing on Christian institutions — have said the same thing.

“There is emerging evidence, as suggested in my research, that a commitment to traditional Christian sexual practices actually provides greater protection for women from sexual violence,” said James Vanderwoerd, a professor of social work at Redeemer University College, in Hamilton, Ontario, in an interview last year with a Christian magazine.

Religious colleges shouldn’t disregard their commitments to church teachings about sexual activity just because many people consider such policies to be outdated, Vanderwoerd told the magazine.

But many of the students who spoke out at BYU say it remains difficult to have conversations about sexual violence on a campus where students aren’t supposed to be having sex at all.

Payne Dietz said the case of the BYU-Idaho student makes clear that Mormon colleges need to do more soul-searching — and need to take on the church itself. As things stand, she said, bishops retain control over students’ academic future. Students who drink alcohol and are then sexually assaulted can still be kicked out of BYU, if their bishop finds out.

The immunity clause, she said, “did nothing to change what had happened to me and to protect people from enduring that in the future.”

Correction (8/7/2018, 2:31 p.m.): The original photograph on this article showed the main Brigham Young campus, in Provo, Utah. The student who was suspended because her bishop revoked her eligibility attended the university’s Idaho campus. The photograph has been changed to show that campus.

Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.