Hundreds of BYU-Idaho students protest to change Honor Code Office
Brigham Young University-Idaho students are calling and marching for reform on the school’s honor code.
“I 100% believe in the honor code, I believe we should all be following the honor code,” said Leanne Larson, one of the co-organizers of the ‘Reform the Code BYUI’ march. “However, people mess up. We’re in our twenties, some people are 18.”
Student activists took to the BYU-Idaho campus on Wednesday afternoon, in what they call a peaceful march to amend the university’s honor code.
“People come here to live the gospel and to be in an environment where you are going to be around that and encouraged to grow your testimony and things like that,” said Grey Woodhouse, another co-organizer. “People want to be here, but those things happening behind closed doors are not OK.”
Students at the Rexburg campus were inspired by the Provo campuses similar call for change.
Students are presenting a demand of action letter to the Honor Code Office.
“I have witnessed a lot of things go down in the honor office,” Larson said.
In that letter, it highlights some of the changes that some students want to see. Not really changing the honor code itself, but how some cases are handled. Students said that the Honor Code Office goes into a lot of cases with little investigation.
“Biggest thing right now is we want transparency in the honor office,” Woodhouse said. “The right to a witness, the right to even record, we just want those things happening behind closed doors to be more transparent, so it’s not your word against theirs.”
At the march, organizers asked those in attendance to draft a letter to BYU-Idaho about why the change is important.
A few students from Wednesday’s march went into the Honor Code Office with hopes to speak with someone. They could not be seen.
These students hope that eventually administration can sit down and talk with them.
“A couple of us have emailed the school, we haven’t heard back,” Woodhouse said. “They’ve watched all of our stories on Instagram and everything so they know. I tried to call the honor office and talk to them about it and they said they’d call me back, I have gotten no call and that was three days ago.”
The group says they will try to continue raising awareness in the meantime.
“I love this church. I’ve been born and raised in it and I love this school, a lot,” Larson said.
Local News 8 and KIDK Eyewitness News 3 have reached out to BYU-Idaho, but the school has not been available for comment and have not made any official statement on the matter.
