This week, Brandon Davies was suspended from playing on the BYU basketball team for violations of the Honor Code. (ie: he had sex with his girlfriend) The responses have surprised me — Mormons everywhere have strong opinions about Davies’s suspension.
The reactions usually fall in one of the two following camps:
Some are cool with it. Even Jon Stewart — while cracking wise about the notion of a star athlete having consensual sex with, and only with, his significant other — gave a tip of the hat to the university for sticking by its rules despite the consequences. And Christian Post had this to say:
“Every student and staff that enters the school understands the rules, fully aware of the code of conduct, knowing what they can and cannot do to best represent themselves and the school. Davies was not an exception. The honor code is simple and black and white. Follow it or be willing to face the consequences, top rebounder or not.”
Some aren’t so cool with it. Tessa Meyer Santiago describes this viewpoint well on her blog this week, saying that God is a God of exceptions, and that laws require a human eye — a judge — to “put thought and effort into the deliberation, to examine without preconception, and to allow for individuality.” And, she made the following excellent point:
“Like the ark that crosses the Jordan, the gospel of Christ and the university that supposes to embrace its principles does not need the steadying hand of consistency, of rules to make sure that the university is not caught harboring fugitives from perfection on its sporting teams.”
And so you have it. A complicated situation with many great arguments on both sides, and Brandon is off to face the consequences of not keeping the honor code. I suspect he’ll be true to Mormon form and will humbly go through the repentance process, get back on the morality track, and be back on the court next year.
Underneath the whole story though, sits an Honor Code that begs for deeper inquiry.
I signed the Honor Code myself in 1990 for my Freshman year of BYU, knowing full well what I was signing and what the consequences would be if I failed to follow it. In theory, I had zero problem as a Mormon, signing and agreeing to be honest, to follow the Word of Wisdom, to remain celibate. But truth be told, I was (more than) a bit insulted to be a responsible 18-year old and find myself monitored like a child who wasn’t trusted to make her own decisions. I went through 4 years of seminary, had a good academic record, served in leadership positions at school and at church. I was an adult, and I was accepted by admissions. Isn’t that enough?
I soon discovered that living the realities of the Honor Code meant a micro-managing of students’ conduct which included being physically inspected whenever I went to eat at the cafeteria, the possibility of being turned into the Standard Office by any self-righteous person on campus, having a dorm mom who made sure no boys snuck up that elevator and — gasp! — studied in our rooms with us. (We all know what studying alone in a room together can lead to.) In short, I became fully aware that the campus had it’s own form of “Big Brother”.
I committed to sign and follow the Honor Code, but it didn’t stop me from pushing the limits in my own way or mocking it relentlessly. But that was the small stuff. An inch on the shorts was easy to mock, but everyone in my dorm took our core values seriously. We were Mormons after all, and committed to a clean life and celibacy before our signature was ever on an official honor code. It was easier for some than others, yet I remember almost all of the students making their best efforts to maintain them, and I believe it came from a place of personal integrity rather than a written contract.
No doubt, the Kindergarten approach to standards at BYU played into my decision to leave after Freshman year. I felt as if I was living in a bubble, and I knew it was time to live in “the world” a bit more. I found myself in Sacramento, hanging with Mormon kids at institute and the singles ward who were surprisingly capable of living moral lives, even without an Honor Code over their heads. It felt like a weight was lifted off of me when I meandered my new eye-opening campus and having the tables turned from being a liberal, snarky, limit-pushing girl in Happy Valley, to being the most sheltered person on campus in West Sac. And those shorts that kept me out of the BYU cafeteria? Let’s just say that they suddenly made me look like a Granny at my new school. My new non-member friends were exploring and expressing their sexuality, while my member friends and I took our standards as seriously as if we’d signed the honor code with actual ink.
There are many things I loved about BYU, but the Honor Code wasn’t one of them. The honor code took away my ability to make judgments for myself, at the very age where it is crucial to do so.
I’m sure that my opinion will garner a lot of influence with BYU (wink wink) so let me give a straight up suggestion: It’s time to do away with enforcement of the BYU Honor Code where personal living is concerned. Keep the code (enforce academic standards for things like cheating), send it to every student, hold firesides on the importance of integrity, clean living and standards. Just leave the enforcing of it up to the individual. Here’s why:
1. By taking punitive action against those who break the honor code, BYU takes the emphasis off of the natural consequences. Many people insist that Davies should accept the consequences of his actions, meaning expulsion from the team. But that is just the consequence for breaking the honor code. Has anyone mentioned any spiritual consequences for breaking a commitment of celibacy? Let’s have some faith in the universe without adding another layer of suffering!
2. When we create a culture of judgment, where officials and students and professors are constantly looking for standards violations, we create a world where we look for flaws in others and not in ourselves. If we mind our own business, and place our attention on our own set of standards, we’ll reap much bigger rewards.
3. The students will have a chance to work out their transgressions with themselves, and their Bishops if they choose, without worrying about their academic career. How many BYU students fail to reach out for help because of the punitive nature of the system?
4. It’s time to recognize that human nature excludes us from perfection, and that a big part of grace is accepting our innate imperfection during this lifetime. For every human on the planet, making mistakes is a reality.
5. We, as a church need to set a better example of how to manage shame and guilt and could stand to be a bit more tolerant of those who deviate from Mormon expectations.
6. It’s time to get over using BYU as a public reflection of Mormonism in this world. BYU is a private educational institution, not a missionary tool. Let’s focus on quality education, not how the rest of the world views us.
8. And, the most important reason in my book, is the importance of encouraging young adults to set and monitor their own morals and limits. College is the very time to be accountable oneself and one’s personal standards. If not then, when? It’s going to be OK – I promise! I know it’s scary to think about letting those wild ‘n crazy college kids loose on their own, but it’s OK to have some faith in your student body.
What say you? Do young adults need the force of what is essentially a written contract with lethal academic consequences to maintain their morality? Or do we extend a level of trust, knowing full well that some will likely fall down, and need a helping hand back up?
And just for the record, I still don’t own any short shorts. . …
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I guess I just think it’s strange and unfair. Why? Because I literally knew 100s of students who broke the honor code sexually at BYU. The line outside the Bishop’s office was long and longer and longest as the year went on. We were all young and away from home so it seems highly likely that things would happen. My best friend wasn’t a member and personally rolled most of the football team and the wrestling team – she laughed each year about getting her “priest” to sign the honor code. She finally joined that church – to be able to get the tuition discount. She was at BYU on a dance scholarship.
I had one roommate who routinely spent the night with her boyfriend. It made me really upset because that same boyfriend thought it was a good idea to give her a puppy – which spent it’s time pissing all over my stuff because she was never home to take care of it. She was not the only roommate like this. It was a regular thing to know of someone who was obviously breaking the code sexually – confessing or not.
It seems strange that with literally 100s of students breaking the code . . . that someone with such a high profile would be dealt with so harshly. Did he just so happen to be in the one ward with the one Bishop who wasn’t going to give him a second chance or what? Mormons are so weird that one. One will draw the line in the sand; Ten will listen to the confession and give a reprimand; One Hundred others will have a line outside their door that wraps around the block with nothing really happening. It’s hard to trust authority – that is so . . . dependent on what a man thinks at that time. Surely it can’t be of God to have such unfairness occurring.
I feel bad for this young man – if this derails his career and his spirituality.
Laurie, I like your take on this. I am no fan of BYU, so it’s not that I wish that Davies was still on the team, but through this whole controversy that the publicity he and the girl have to go through, and the swiftness of the decision were way beyond what the real consequences of the actions were. You raise some really good points about the Honor Code, beyond just the idea that rules are rules.
Here are a couple of quotes from Politico’s Pulse this morning that sum up my thoughts on this specific case:
“It’s an affront to true honor systems to call BYU’s one. It’s more than dishonorable to broadcast the player and girlfriend’s sex life like this.” … Salt Lake Tribune columnist Gordon Monson: “[A] noble faith like the LDS faith is based on helping others gain spiritual strength and forgiveness, preferably by confidential means, not subjecting them, even when they are imperfect, to the hot burn of the national spotlight.” http://bit.ly/haDmvR
Love that quote Paula. I would go even further that calling this list of behaviors “honor” in an academic setting diminishes the meaning of honor academically. Academic dishonesty or breaking civil laws should be an egregious offense in a college, and when you add in flagrancies for not-so-short shorts and consensual sex, it diminishes the importance of what is an actual honor code for that kind of institution. Other Christian universities limit students from attending the beach with the opposite sex, listening to any music other than classical or religious, and women from working off campus. Do we find those measures, which are more strict than BYU any more honorable?
I’d love to see a Christian honor code honor Christ’s message. Why isn’t being a peacemaker part of the honor code? Or abandoning pride, gossip and judgment?
Really well said, Laurie. The issue is not whether BYU should enforce its honor code (any institution has the right to enforce its rules), but whether the honor code is the best tool for promoting the kind of integrity and moral behavior they want students to have.
Like you, I deeply resented the honor code. It was certainly more intrusive than my parents had been and always felt unnecessary and a little insulting. Of course, all of that changed after I got married. In some ways, BYU was a completely different school once I was married.
Woweeee I am really surprised to hear some of the details of the ‘honor code’. And what does being ‘physically inspected whenever [you ate] at the cafeteria’ mean? The mind boggles.
I totally agree that this amounts to not only ‘a hedge around the law’, but is ‘a hedge around a hedge around the law’. It’s substituting real-world consequences for artificial consequences. And that insulation from life is bad for us, I think.
Andy, they looked you over to make sure your clothes were conforming to the rules. One time, an old friend, a non-member and non-student friend was visiting my roommate and we were sent away because she had holes in her jeans and a nose ring.
Very interesting indeed. I did my whole undergraduate degree at BYU and do not have a single memory of ever having been looked over in the cafeteria. (Now, BYU-Hawaii was a different story entirely. I did one summer term there and they were MUCH more strict. I once received a card in my mailbox telling me that the shorts I had worn the day before were too short.) But at BYU Provo? Nothing. This never happened to anyone I knew, either.
So I never know what to make of the contrast between my own memories/experiences and those of others. Did I have my head in the sand? Did I naively not own any clothing that would’ve been considered against the honor code? I honestly don’t know.
Heather – not the cafeteria in the Wilk, the cafeteria in the dorms. They were pretty strict there, and it was right where we lived so we opted pretty casual in our rooms and often had to change to go eat.
Yeah, that’s what I figured. I lived in Helaman Halls. I just don’t remember any of that. I never remember anyone looking askance or checking the length of anyone’s shorts or telling someone they couldn’t come in. ??
I remember being checked at the Helaman Halls dorms- at EFY. Once I had on this aline skirt on and was told I needed to go back and change. I turned it around in the bathroom so the long part was in the front and got in a different line. What a 16 year old rebel I was ;-)
I do remember my roommate being refused entry to the ‘winter preference’ dance for a too-short skirt. I thought it was utterly ridiculous. She was sort of embarrassed but it was also a bit of a badge of honor. This was a very ‘virtuous’ girl who was the valdictorian in her high school, never smoked, drank or done drugs or even worn a tank top as far as I know. We had our way of rebelling… taunt the Honor Code police!!
The dress had sort of a tulip-petal thing in the front with overlapping pieces that curved up in front (5 inch too high, I guess). As far as dressy dresses go, it was imminently modest and virginal looking in my mind (but it was bright red satin… 1991 and all).
When my mother went to school, you couldn’t wear trousers. There’s the infamous story of the woman wearing pants who wasn’t let into the testing center to take a final. She went into the bathroom, removed her pants and took her final wearing just her trenchcoat -apparently the staff thought she was wearing a skirt underneath it.
When I went to school, it was shorts that had to hit your knee, sleeves and no big scoop neck tops, no ripped clothing, no facial hair (although sadly, girls get away with that more than boys – lol), boys had to have hair above their ears… Brigham Young himself wouldn’t have been allowed to eat at the cafeteria or take a test!
I’m not sure what the guidelines are now, years later.
It would be an interesting experiment to compare college-age LDS men and women between those who attend a CHurch-owned school and those who do not – and see if there is any significant difference in the percentage who are able to maintain LDS morality rules. I have no idea how to get reliable data on such a topic, but interesting nonetheless.
There is a good point to be made that many LDS kids maintain their standards while attending secular schools. But one difference those kids have is they also lack the church activity requirement of those at the Y, where even a falloff in attendance can have implications for one’s academic career. In other words, I’m postulating that the kids active in Institute programs at non-Y campuses are those who have chosen of their own volition to stay active with the Church – and are therefore more likely to be living it’s rules anyway.
My observation is that BYU is relatively unique among higher-education institutions – in that many seem to be drawn to it for mostly non-academic reasons. I think many Mormon parents like sending their kids off to a school that enforces morality rules and church activity, and also provides plenty of LDS marriage prospects. Getting a decent education seems somewhat of a side benefit. This is why I highly suspect the Honor Code is here to stay, for better or worse.
The Honor Code at BYU is part of why I’m so glad that I go to a different school. Even though they have excellent academic programs for my interests (the arts and languages), I love that at my university, the dorms are not gender-segregated, my gay friends can be out and proud without negative consequences, and the honor code is reserved for academics. I am one of about five LDS people (including faculty) at my university, and even though we have an active social scene, I have never felt that my ability to maintain my standards was in jeopardy. If anything, it was having to say “I have to leave now, I have church in the morning”, or “No thanks, I don’t drink” that helped make me a real adult. Besides, at most secular schools, no one cares that you don’t drink–you might have better eye-hand coordination for a game of beer pong, and your friends are more than happy to drink on your behalf.
Victoria – you are hitting on something really profound when you say that maintaining your own code of morality and ethics at a non-LDS school is what made you a real adult. How do you learn to strengthen personal beliefs if we’re never really given the option? And yes – I found the same thing -I never once got negativity for turning down a drink and my friends were always happy to have a designated driver.
Hmm, I’m not sure I’m completely on the same page here. While I wholeheartedly agree with the disaster of having others making judgments and calling each other out, in part I am grateful for the guidelines I had to live under at BYU. Those four years were my most rebellious, and I made some pretty poor decisions. Looking back, I cringe at what could have been had I been someplace else that lacked the structure of BYU. I quietly rebelled against all the other obnoxious standards of Utah Mormon living – tattoos in places my clothing covered, tongue piercing, a plethora of odd fashion choices, amongst other things. It’s a miracle I made it through that first year and chose to return, but for me at least, the time I spent in Utah helped me decide for myself what I wanted and who I was (which wasn’t what the majority was offering). That being said, I’ve always been a rules girl – I feel more comfortable knowing where my black and white boundaries lie. That way I clearly and consciously make my decision to cross those boundaries. While the idea of having life seriously derailed by what can be a seemingly minor infraction is heartbreaking, we all know what we signed up for by choosing BYU.
We are truly talking about two issues here – the honor code itself, which clearly could use some re-evaluation; and the integrity required when you put your name to something and do what you said you would. When the media at large is supportive of BYU’s decision, even when they don’t quite understand it, I think that’s a clear indicator that as a society we are tired of the exceptions, the “yeah, but I didn’t really mean it…”, or why someone is too special for the rules to apply. That’s a very different issue from questioning the rules themselves.
Yea, I felt that I was really signing on for a big commitment when I committed to go to BYU. I tend lean heavy on the importance of integrity, even and especially when I was 18.
In theory, I’m not against an honor code – I’m just against the school taking punitive action to enforce anything other than academic standards. Let adults be adults, even if they’re young.
I once got in a C in an education class at BYU Provo because I was told to get a more conservative haircut. I did get a haircut, but I guess it wasn’t conservative, because I still got a C on professionalism in that class. I still to this day don’t understand. This was at a time when I had no rebellion in me at all – I just wanted to get through my classes. My parents were shocked and took me shopping for my student teaching to have a whole “new” conservative look. They didn’t know what was wrong with me either. Looking back – I think the professor just didn’t like my hair style, she wore hers in a football helmet 60’s hairsprayed bouffant.
They used to have posters up all over to “show” what was conservative. I guess I should have gotten a haircut exactly like the one on the poster? The posters also reminded men to wear socks. I just thought it was weird about the haircut when everyone around me was so immoral. All the hyprocrisy bothered me, but I was silent – but it still took me another 20 years of unfairness and cult-like mind control behavior before I left.
I still feel bad for that kid. Jesus has probably already forgiven whatever sin there was and now he is going to suffer. Maybe a team will pick him up and make him a millionaire.
I was a cashier/dress code enforcer at Deseret Towers from 1989-1992. It was my job to swipe the card and evaluate their clothing. If anyone was caught later seated and eating with “inappropriate” clothing, I would be at risk of being reassigned to the dishwasher job…. so I took it as seriously as possible.
However, my personal attire during the spring/summer months was always a pair of shorts a good 3-4 inches too short. I just stashed a long swirly skirt in my backpack for going to work or going to the testing center. Except for these two places, I never got questioned or corrected. However, I was always a back row kind of student, so I did not push my luck with the professors.
I agree with Laurie. I think they should scale back the enforcement to the academics and put some more trust in the kids. I really don’t think they woudl have the problems they seem to anticipate.
That being said, the part of the Honor Code/BYU Policy I most strongly disagree with is the part where you must remain LDS for the duration. If you have a change of belief during your time, you should have the option of shifting to non-member status and continuing your education. The heavy-handed policy of dismissal and then holding your transcripts is really wrong in my view.
Diane – there are some fascinating jobs at BYU. (My husband used to edit the bad words and scenes from movies at the Varsity – amazing what tithing dollars go to!) You probably swiped my dinner card more than once – I was there from 1990-1991!
I agree about the part of the honor code and remaining LDS. I’m not sure how they expect to enforce a belief system on someone at the cost of their academic career. How do you mandate belief?
I probably did! Its a very small Mormon world… and even a former Mormon like I am now (2 years out).
Laurie, we actually have a mutual friend who lives in NC now. She suggested your podcast on Mormon Stories.. which I really enjoyed. So I googled you and found this blog. I’ve really enjoyed reading your articles as I am on a new journey of finding spirituality myself in new ways and trying to continue to teach my kids… without a manual!
Anyway, just wanted to let you know that your work and sharing it this way is very much appreciated.
As far as mandating belief, I really don’t think you can do that. But you can create a place where disbelief will stay underground. I think that is what they have going there.
And it seems so hypocritical to be open to conversion FROM other faiths, but then be so unusually harsh when the opposite journey takes place.
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