Sexual assault victim punished by Brigham Young University under Honor Code

Brigham Young University (BYU), affiliated with the Church of the Latter Day Saints or Mormons, is the largest religious university in the United States. Its main campus is in Provo, Utah.

 

All students who attend whatever their religion must adhere to an "Honor Code" that includes "living a chaste and virtuous life," using "clean language" and not drinking alcohol or even coffee. Of course, premarital sex is not permissible. Some students at the university complain that the "honor code" is being used by administrators against sexual assault victims. The code may also serve to keep victims from reporting sexual attacks.

Madi Barney, 20, told the Huffington Post that she filed a Title IX complaint against BYU with the Department of Education. The complaint alleges that the university put her on academic hold after they learned she had reported an off-campus rape to local police last September.

Title IX is a portion of the United States Education Amendments of 1972. In 2002 it was renamed the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act after the now-deceased co-author and sponsor of the act. It says in part:No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.In April 2011, a letter was issued by the Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights that said in part: "The sexual harassment of students, including sexual violence, interferes with students' right to receive an education free from discrimination and, in the case of sexual violence, is a crime."

Her accused rapist, Nasir Seidu, 39, has been charged with undressing Barney and engaging in sexual intercourse without her consent. However Seidu told police that the sex was consensual.

According to Utah County authorities, Seidu was at an apartment with Burney back in September of 2015. Documents indicate Seidu and Barney began to "engage in consensual sexual relations" when the victim became uncomfortable and said she wanted to stop. It was then that Seidu allegedly undressed and raped her. The assault was off-campus and Seidu is not a student at BYU.

Barney did not report the incident to the BYU. However, without Barney's knowledge or permission, Utah County Deputy Sherrif Edwin Randoph, a former women's track coach at the school passed the police file on to BYU. The school than began an Honor Code investigation against Barney. A BYU Title IX coordinator wrote to Barney: “We have received information that you have been a victim of behavior that is addressed in the university Sexual Misconduct Policy. We have also received information that you have engaged in behavior that violates the BYU Honor Code.”Barney's lawyer advised her not to partake in the Honor Code investigation as it could impact her criminal case. When she followed his advice the school responded by blocking her from both registering and withdrawing from classes.

Barney wrote on a petition that has more than 87,000 signatures: “Dealing with this hostile environment has been upsetting, re-victimizing, and discouraging, to say the least. It’s clear to me that BYU is not on my side.” The petition called on the BYU to give immunity to sexual assault victims. This would allow victims to report their experiences without worrying that they will face a separate investigation into their own behavior. She claimed that her own experiences were not unique that other women have been put on probation or even expelled "for circumstances of their rapes and sexual assaults."

BYU President Kevin Worthen agreed that there was an "inherent tension" between Title IX and the Honor Code provisions but said: “A victim of a sexual assault will never be referred to the Honor Code Office for being a victim of sexual assault. Sometimes in the course of an investigation, facts come to light that a victim has engaged in prior Honor Code violations.” Barney has claimed that the school has not informed her of which rule of the code she broke. Carri Jenkins, spokesperson for BYU told NBC: “I can assure you that we would never put a hold on a student’s registration because she reported her rape to the police.”

Although Seidu was arrested and charged with rape, he is also being charged with retaliation. Officers said Seidu's friends gave the police report to BYU.

Yemeni domestic worker enslaved and raped by U.S. diplomatic couple in Toyko

A Yemeni woman who was promised a job cleaning a home in the U.S. embassy compound in Tokyo was enslaved and raped by a U.S. diplomat's husband.

A Virginia federal judge awarded the victim $3.3 million in compensation for the abuse the woman suffered. The 12-page decision does not name the woman who was kept in involuntary servitude for three months in 2009. A State Department employee, Linda Howard, had enticed the Yemeni woman to move to Japan with the promise of a job cleaning a home in the U.S. embassy compound in Tokyo for $200 a month. In December 2008 the woman agreed after she had been offered a raise to $300 dollars a month and one day off every week.

When she arrived on the job the victim ended up being raped and also had to work more than 80 hours per week. The U.S. District Judge Liam O-Grady was quoted in Courthouse News as saying:

“At trial, plaintiff testified that Russell Howard raped her at least four times, and that he forced her to perform oral sex approximately ten times, and that he repeatedly sexually assaulted her...Plaintiff testified that Linda Howard was complicit in her husband’s sexual abuse, telling [the domestic worker] that she should gratify Russell Howard and make Russell happy.”

According to the victim Linda Russell told her that the two had hired previous domestic workers whom her husband had also raped and even formed a threesome. Any worker who refused was fired on the spot.

The worker also claimed that was denied the right to practice her religion. Everything she did was closely monitored, even phone calls. She was not allowed to leave the house alone. She was threatened with deportation if she did not comply with requests.

After the victim managed to escape from the home in March 2009 the Howards searched frantically for her. The wife even flew to Ethiopia to question the woman's husband to see if he knew where she was and tried to file false charges against her with the Ethiopian police.

However the victim reported her abuse to the State Department who removed Linda Russell from her post and launched an investigation. The couple was charged with human trafficking, forced labor, involuntary servitude, conspiracy, obstructing law enforcement, and unjust enrichment. According to this website:

According to Linda Howard’s profile on the professional-networking website LinkedIn, she is currently an IT manager with the State Department in Washington, D.C. The profile notes that Howard worked as a manager for the State Department at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo from 2008 to 2009. Before that, Howard worked for three years at the Embassy in Yemen, according to the profile.

Myth about rape and pregnancy has a long history

Todd Akin the Republican Senate nominee for Missouri has created a storm of controvery with his remarks on rape and pregancy. Atkin claimed that pregnancies from rape are quite rare since :“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” His choice of the word "legitimate" is itself controversial. Perhhaps he meant to distinguish between an actual rape and a false claim of being raped. Akin claimed the sources of his information were doctors but he did not identify them.

The Center for Disease Control cites a study that estimates 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year. This is a rather strange estimate. An estimate should surely be a more rounded number such as 32,000! Anyway if the estimate is in the ball park aboutk 5 per cent of raped women become pregnant. This is not exactly rare I should think and the absolute number is rather large. In any event for the individual involved the numbers who face the same situation is less relevant than the choices available to her.

Even though the position is not supported by the facts several politicians opposed to abortion have voiced the same opinion as Akin. In 1988 in Arkansas Dr. Fay Boozman a Republican Canidate for Senate said that hormones generated by fear usually prevented rape victims from getting pregnant. The doctor an ophthalmologist claimed he learned his facts from anecdotal information and his own medical residency. Although he lost his election gamble Dr. Boozman was appointed to run the Arkansas Dept. of Health by then Governor Mike Huckabee.

Back in 1995 a Republican member of the North Carolina state legislature dentist Henry Aldridge said in a debate:: “The facts show that people who are raped — who are truly raped — the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.” In further explanation of his remarks “To get pregnant, it takes a little cooperation. And there ain’t much cooperation in a rape.”

The view adopted by a number of politicians is not at all new. In fact medical historian Vanessa Heggie notes: “The legal position that pregnancy disproved a claim of rape appears to have been instituted in the U.K. sometime in the 13th century,” One of the UK's earliest legal text written about the end of the thirteenth century said: “If, however, the woman should have conceived at the time alleged in the appeal, it abates, for without a woman’s consent she could not conceive.” Ms. Heggie notes that the view that a woman had to have an orgasm in order to conceive was apparently widespread in popular thought as well as medical literature in both the medieval and early modern period. Ms. Heggie might add that it is also still prevalent among a few politicians in the twenty-first century. For more see this article.