Honor Code Considerations

                                                                               

       Recent articles in the Deseret News on both protests against the current way the Honor Code at Brigham Young University is handled and coverage of Brother Utt's statements about how the Honor Code Office operates has caused me to reflect on the matter.

     While there is probably room for better interactions with students by the Honor Code Office, this does not seem to be the source of the complaints. Some protestors were asking for accomadations that are just not going to happen. The ban on same-sex dating, which in practice means a ban on same-sex kissing is not going to be lifted. If we are going to see reforms here it would be more stringent rules about all extra-marital expresions of affection, and maybe specifically rethinking policies with regard to issues of sexting by non-married couples. When I started at BYU 20 years ago I do not remember the honor code addressing issues of allowed image communication. This may be a revision worth considering.

      Equally important is for students to realize that there are thre types of policies in the Honor Code. One are non-negotiable policies related to the Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity and other commandements. There are not going to change at all, and protesting for revisions related to LGBT policies put one at odds with the Church.

      The second are academic integrity policies. While these also grow out of the command to be honest, cheating would seem to preclude being honest in all your dealings and prevent both a temple reccomend and eccesiastical endorsement, it is one of the issues where BYU policies are for the most part the same as other instutions of higher learning. Also in an academic context it involves issues of plagerism that deal not only with using others words, but the complex decision of what was unintentional failure to make it clear how muchyour were citing in a footnote and what was deliberate intentions to obscure you were using another's work. To adjudicate these requires special skills, and having a group of people trained in this matter is very important for academic honesty.

      The last set of rules are the ones that get the most coverage in some circles. They often are the ones most subject to serious movements to change, the most complaints, and have in actuallity probably gone through the most revisions. These are the dress and groming standards. Much of the confusion around them stems from the fact that several of them, especially the rules on modest attire, do closely relate to general teachings about the sacreness of the body. However they go beyond this. They seek to present a specific image of the student body and are therefore situational and conditional in ways other rules are not. For example attire that is allowed in dance classes at times would be frowned upon if warn to a physics lecture. The rules on hair length, styles, the general with exceptions rule against beards and other such polcies focus on certain goals that best can be summed up as a liveable community.

      The same can be said for visiting hours and other guest restrictions. Those who want to remove such rules or end the enforcement of them have clearly not thought about the consequences of such. Those of us who also attended public universities have. The consequences of non-enforcement would be drastic. Maybe not in most cases, but without enforcement mechinisms they would come to be and spread. They would be things like sex exile from your own bedroom if your roommate has his girlfriend over. 

      The other issue is that I do not think that the problem with enforcement is that done by the Honor Code Office. Of the decisions I made at BYU one I think I handled less than wisely was as a Y group leader telling one of the young women in my Y group she was wearing a shirt that was too low cut. Thinking back I should have spoken with my female co-leader and then had her approach the situation.

     In part this was a result of rashness on my part. In part it was a result of training by the Y group leader trainers that probably should have advised that in issues of clothing only leaders of the same sex address it with incoming students, and not those of the other sex. 

     This leads me to think that rethinking and better training for RAs, Y group leaders, testing center staff, dining center staff, and other employees, especially student employees, that have positions where they can speak to honor code compliance is needed. Related to that, having read Brother Utt's statement on interactions with YSA and marriage student stake and ward leaders, I am thinking that consideration should be given to maybe also including leaders of some non-student geographical units that have large numbers of students. While the biggests issues that come up probably go through YSA units, some YSA students chose to go to geographical units especially for language reasons, and many many married students go to their regular geographical units, and there are potential issues there too, so involving a few such leaders would probably be wise.

     Another possible issue is making sure that in the initial giving of eccesiastical endorsement people really are committing to live by the rules in an informed consent way. This needs to especially apply to dress and groming and residential rules that go beyond Church guidelines.

     Yet much of the complaining focuses on either an Honor Code Office that never existed, or one that has not existed for decades. The policy on anonymous complaints may articulate by Brother Ott may allow more than when I was at BYU at various times from 1999-2004. I distinctly remember that at that time anonymous complaints were not allowed. It was a good rule that caused me at times to directly speak with my roommates and bring a resolution to issues instead of excalatring them. That was under different off campus housing policies, that took in more area and I think had more non-BYU students in off campus housing. In my experience off campus housing managers did not properly prepare non-BYU students to abide by the contracts they signed. I know there have been changes, so hopefully there is better compliance there, but knowing the nature of housing managers I wonder if some of them still rush sign contracts without making sure the potential residents have actually read and agreed to the whole thing and understand that they are expected to live by it.

      With the lone exception of issues involving safety the Honor Code Office does not respond to anonymous tips. It is high time that those who dislike the Honor Code stop the anonymous campaign of malicious lies, outdated attacks and half truths. 

      It might also be worth considering better training for student employees and volunteers who have chances to interact with the public. I am remembering my first date, which involved going to home coming my freshman year at BYU. The woman I went with was not happy that they checked how much her blouse under her jacket covered. It was capped sleeves, so essentially sleeveless. They allowed it because it was capped, not cut further up. She felt since she intended to keep on her outer jacket all evening she should be allowed. The situation worked out, but I have to wonder if there would have been a way to make it flow smoother. 

     Yet, this is not the problem or responsibility of the Honor Code Office. It actively works with clear and generally high level violations. It is not generally processing people who wore a short shirt showing their midriff or even a tank top around campus. It is dealing with people who broke the law of chastity, word of wisdom, became loud and disruptive, and plagerism and cheating. 

     To me the sit in and protest attempts to deal with issues miss the whole point. This is in large part because there is no coherent workable solution. Destroying enforcement just does not make sense from a university standpoint. Those who want it fail to consider the structure, goals and realities of universities. They also fail to adequately focus on what really is going on. With less than 20 people expelled at BYU annually the claims the punishments are harsh is not supported by the facts on the ground. 

     Maybe a problem is some have interpreted the langauge of encoraging adidance into "every student an Honor Code Officer." This is not what is meant or what is needed. It is not even the reality of the system. Most actual reports to the Honor Code Office are incidents of self-reporting. People need to praise compliance more than look for non-compliance. Compliance is much more evident than non-compliance. At the same time people need to accept praise of compliance as the sincere praise it is often meant to be, and not find in it insults of those elsewhere who live by other standards. 

    Equally important, first year students summer term who are told that wearing a bikini to the dorm pool is not in accordance with the honor code, need to not over react and assume that the conversation means they are being attacked as a person, or that their academic standing is in jeopardy. Issues of dress and groming, from wearing shoes in public to properly covering ones body, and even being in your girlfriends apartment at 12:07 when you should have left at midnight, are not going to get you taken before the Honor Code Office alone. Those presenting the issues, be they roommates or employees should bring them up in as loving and teaching a way as possible, I say from having at times totally failed to do so. Still, those being corrected need to not blame the Honor Code Office for the corrections nor to act as if they can balance such incidents with claims that BYU has tolerated know sex offenders.

    This of course is another issue. The Mandy Baily and related issues, where somehow BYU was wrong for Honor Code investigations of women who wilfully chose to drink, use drugs and in other ways break the honor code because they were then allegedly raped have poisoned a lot. The current rhetoric of not blaming victims has ignored the fact that we are talking about adults who willfully chose to break covenants they had made. This is not to say what allegedly happened to them was right, although the presumption in some circles that such people for sure were telling the truth has also gone too far. 

     In some ways this weeks protest seems not to acknowledge the 2016 reforms. It may also in part be driven by radicals enpowered by the 2016 reforms who hope to be able to destroy the whole honor code. The Honor Code will not exist with enforcement. 

     I do have some ideas on changes, but they are not to less emforcement. I think the honor code would be better if there were more guidelines and language urging conditional and situationally acceptable clothing. Maybe this is better handled by conversations on this matter. Basically students should be encoraged to avoid sexy and super cute or ostentatious outfits that are still within the realm of modesty for a dance during class time. 

    Also as I mentioned before considering if the current policies address online communication well enough is worth considering. Emphasize to students that sexting is both against the Honor Code and opens up to other dangers. Also emphsize to male students that online requests to wome to post pictures of themselves in more revealing outfits are almost always wrong. Even if the resulting outfit is by any outward criteria still modest, the request itself is problematic.

    This is a good test. Would you ask a woman you were speaking to to do this thing, say, unbutton her shirt. If no, then do not do it in an online request. If they say yes they would ask their date to unbutton her shirt, we probably have to give them a better training on the law of chastity.