Former BYU-Idaho student says school needs to do more for survivors of sexual assault

REXBURG, Idaho (KIFI) - A former Brigham Young University Idaho student is going viral for a video addressed to the university.

Halie Lewis says the school isn't doing enough to protect survivors of sexual assault and abuse and was forced to leave the school after being assaulted by another student in November 2020.

Lewis says it's time for a change in the Title IX office.

"I think that they need to change the reporting process in the Title IX office and have it be people reporting to a group of people instead of just reporting to one person," Lewis said. "Because I'm not saying this is necessarily what happens, but maybe there's bias or, you know, one person might have their personal opinions. And so I think it needs to be a group of people that we report to and it needs to include men and women."

Lewis says while she understands the school can't take action when there's not enough evidence to kick the accused out, once legal action is taken, they should step in.

"Like a legal restraining order, which happened in my case that the law obviously saw there was enough danger for my safety, that they gave me a restraining order against him," Lewis said. "So in that case, I think the school needs to take them out because when I was at campus, I was worried every day that I was going to, that there was going to be a violation to the restraining order because it goes both ways; like I can't violate it either. And so I was worried about being within however many feet of him. And that's not something that I should have to worry about because I didn't choose to be endangered that way."

 Lewis wrote an email to the school, letting them know why she was leaving, and asking for change.

"I know that it's only been a year since everything happened to me," Lewis said. "But it affects my life so much and I'm healing and trying to recover from that, but I had to end up leaving the school because of how terrible it was to be there and not be protected, and so many other people have had to do the same thing. And so at this point, I just think enough is enough and the school needs to step up and address it and do something about it."

Both BYU-Idaho and the Title IX office declined to comment on how they handle allegations and treat survivors, but on their website it does state:

"The university may remove a Respondent from its Education Program or Activity on an emergency basis if it determines that an immediate threat to the physical health or safety of any student or other individual arising from the allegations of Sexual Harassment justifies immediate removal pending further investigation."