Results of Sexual Assault and Campus Climate Survey

Guest:  Lindsay Orchowski, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Staff Psychologist, Rhode Island Hospital About a year ago, press investigations revealed that BYU students who had reported a sexual assault to campus authorities had their cases referred to BYU’s Honor Code office to investigate whether the victim had been doing anything that violates the honor code at the time of the assault. Extramarital sexual activity and alcohol and drug use are prohibited by BYU’s honor code. BYU’s president formed an advisory council to look at the issue. That council recommended sexual assault victims be given amnesty from honor code violations related to the reported incident. BYU implemented that policy in June. The advisory council also recommended BYU conduct a campus climate survey in order to gather research regarding perceptions and incidents of sexual assault. That survey is now finished and the results show there’s quite a bit of room for improvement. Read the results of BYU’s Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault here.