At BYU Honor Code is Taken Seriously

When the sophomore center Brandon Davies was dismissed from Brigham Young’s third-ranked basketball team on Tuesday for violating the university’s honor code, it dealt a hard blow to the championship aspirations of the Cougars. But it also highlighted one of the big differences between B.Y.U. and other universities involved in major college sports.

Many colleges have honor codes, but they typically focus on protecting academic integrity and discouraging behavior that harms others. The United States Military Academy’s Cadet Honor Code states that “a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” Many universities follow that example.

At B.Y.U., owned and operated privately by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the honor code is separate from the academic honesty policy, and is more closely linked to the personal-behavior tenets of the Mormon church.

There are precise guidelines regarding grooming, clothing, chastity and language. There are restrictions against the use of tobacco, alcohol, tea and coffee. There are precise visitation rules for resident halls and off-campus housing. (“The use of the bathroom areas by members of the opposite sex is not appropriate unless emergency or civility dictates otherwise, and then only if the safety, privacy, and sensitivity of other residents are not jeopardized,” reads the off-campus housing policy.) Gambling and “involvement with pornographic, erotic, indecent, or offensive material” are forbidden. So is “homosexual behavior.”

The B.Y.U. Honor Code “aligns with the core principles and mission of the university, and certainly the sponsoring church,” Carri Jenkins, a university spokeswoman, said. It applies to all of the roughly 34,000 students, whether they are Mormon or not. More than 98 percent of them are.

In college sports, B.Y.U. has always played by some different rules. It declines to play games on Sundays, which forces schedulers of the coming N.C.A.A. basketball tournament, for example, to place the Cougars in specific brackets. Most B.Y.U. students are Mormon and interrupt their studies and athletic careers with two-year missions, which detractors say can give them an edge in maturity and size.

Read the rest here.