Opinion: Congrats to the Trib on their Pulitzer Prize

On Monday, The Salt Lake Tribune was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for “revealing the perverse, punitive and cruel treatment given to sexual assault victims at Brigham Young University.”

For church members, this may feel like mainstream praise for a condemnation of BYU, and, by extension, LDS policy. A Pulitzer for an exposé of church practices? It’s natural to feel a little bit of a sting.

Our persecuted past gives us an increased sensitivity to anything that feels like religious discrimination. Paired with the call to be “in the world, not of the world” and it may seem that this Pulitzer is an example of the ‘world vs. church’ mentality.

I’ve seen comments on Facebook blaming the victims, shaming ex-BYU student Madi Barney, and disputing the stories of unreported sexual assault on campus. But minimizing these charges, arguing against improvement of sexual assault systems, or, worst of all, accusing the victims of lying, is shameful and unchristian.

This situation—a campus in which individuals are scared to report being raped in fear of losing their education—is on us. BYU has accepted that, and has been working to change course.

But, I’ve heard it asked, how could something this serious happen at the Lord’s university? How could there be such a crucial policy shortcoming at a school with opening prayers at football games? With an inspired leadership, why would God let sexual assault occur right under the proverbial noses of university administration? If this is the Lord’s school, then surely the story must be false and this is some vast conspiracy against Mormonism. Right?

Unfortunately, temple changing rooms have padlocked storage. Infidelities, child pornography and spousal abuse occur throughout the Church. Processing tithing is monitored for embezzlement. Even Relief Society supply locker keys are only distributed to certain people.

The BYU sexual assault investigation and honor code policy review is a natural conclusion of a nauseating truth: several of these rapes were committed by some of our “stripling warriors.” Certain church-going, temple recommend-holding, garment-wearing, returned missionary BYU students have committed atrocities.

It’s not easy to face this kind of truth. Cognitive dissonance is hard. My great-grandfather, Lowell Bennion, was a church educator at the University of Utah many years ago, and this fact-faith conflict existed even then.

One position a student can take is to hold fast to his faith and let no knowledge or experience gained in study disturb it. . . . There is a simplicity about this approach. One is spared much mental effort and anguish by wearing blinders which shut out peripheral vision and even set boundaries to the view straight ahead. . . . But those of us who go to the University, who read books, who learn to view life from many angles of vision, thoughtfully and critically, cannot with integrity don blinders to reason in order to protect a child-like faith. To be sincere, to have integrity, faith must be examined and cherished in the context of one’s total life experience.
“Carrying Water on Both Shoulders” in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 6.1 (Spring 1971), p. 110.

Facing the reality that the BYU sexual assault policy needed fundamental changes takes “mental effort” and maybe “anguish.” We’re accepting that a beloved, inspired institution has made a mistake. Whatever intellectual or spiritual anguish we feel, though, is nothing compared to the pain of surviving sexual assault. And this isn’t sexual assault by the “world” we love to hate and fear. In some cases, this was sexual assault from individuals who have pledged to live the standards of BYU and the Church.

BYU has taken swift steps to update its sexual assault policy. They’ve created new administrative positions designed to assist victims in a safe, judgment-free space. If the university which has received such negative publicity can adjust and improve its processes, we as church members need to do the same. A good place to start is by applauding the Salt Lake Tribune and Ms. Barney for their openness and courage in shedding light on these issues.

So congratulations to the Salt Lake Tribune! They deserve journalism’s highest honor. Our religion celebrates the obtaining of truth and the process of repentance, and the Tribune’s work with the survivors of sexual assault allows us to see the hard facts. Now we can begin to try and make things right. And instead of blaming these survivors or accusing them of being anything other than victims, we should be their greatest allies. BYU is known as the soberest school in the United States. We should also seek to be the gentlest, kindest and most healing school and faith community for sexual assault and abuse survivors.

In order to do that, though, we’ll need to “view life from many angles of vision.” We’ll need to take the blinders off. Want to know where to start? I think the Trib wrote something about it.