BYU separating Title IX and Honor Code offices, adding amnesty clause from Advisory Council recommendations
Brigham Young University is adopting an amnesty clause to protect sexual assault victims, the school announced Wednesday morning. “Our top priority has always been the safety and well-being of our students,” BYU President Kevin J Worthen told students in an email Wednesday morning. “This is particularly true for those who have been the victims of […]
BYU assembles committee, asks for feedback on how to handle sexual assault reporting
BYU has organized a committee to investigate the university’s process on reporting sexual assault and how it works under Title IV. “We are listening to the concerns expressed about the reporting of sexual assaults to our Title IX Office,” said BYU President Kevin J Worthen, who promised in April that BYU would organize said committee. “We care deeply […]
Non-LDS, former BYU professor defends the Honor Code
In the wake of student protests calling for changes to Brigham Young University’s Honor Code, Damon Linker, former BYU assistant professor, who isn’t LDS, came to its defense. In Linker’s opinion article, published Friday morning, he called on his experience as a BYU assistant professor of political science in the 1990s to support his opinion that BYU should keep […]
BYU President Worthen addresses Honor Code and sexual assault investigation concerns in video
Brigham Young University President Kevin J Worthen addressed concerns about how the university deals with sexual assault victims in a video on Wednesday. “We’re not perfect,” President Worthen said in the video. “We don’t claim to be perfect. We can be better. This is important enough that we owe it to the community to say, […]
Orem self-defense class teaches women confidence to defend themselves
Karen Knudsen first signed up for a self-defense class at the suggestion of her current husband, who had noticed she still carried a lot of fear from a past abusive marriage. “I went to the first class and felt really safe there,” she said. … “For me it was so empowering because now I walk […]
Mayors, firefighters will walk a mile in women’s shoes Saturday
At 10 a.m. Saturday, people from all over Utah County — including Provo firefighters, Provo Mayor John Curtis and Orem Mayor Richard Brunst — will don women’s shoes to walk a mile at The Shops at Riverwoods in Provo. The event is a fundraiser for The Center for Women and Children in Crisis, an organization […]
UV crime: Upcoming sex assault trial, spitting drugs
Child rape case The man charged with the 2014 sexual assault of a girl who was on her way to Cherry Hill Elementary School in Orem was in court on Monday for a pretrial conference. Jayson Johnson’s trial is set to begin on April 14, but he’ll be back in court on April 13 for […]
Utah lawmakers and universities aid victims of sexual violence
Five years ago Tiffany Turley was sexually assaulted, becoming living proof that the traumatic and life-changing experience can happen to anyone at any time. “It rocks your emotional and physical foundation,” said Turley, who now works as the manager of BYU’s Women’s Services and Resources office. “It’s one of the hardest situations a person can […]
UV crime: Alleged BYU groper in court, police standoff ends in death
BYU groper A judge ruled on Thursday that there is enough evidence for Nathan Eric Fletcher to stand trial in the BYU groping case. Fletcher faces two class A misdemeanor charges of sexual battery. He has been banned from Brigham Young University’s campus and kicked out of school. Fletcher has been charged in two groping […]
UV crime: $35k drug bust in Spanish Fork, accused BYU groper back in court
Prelim for accused groper The man accused of groping women around BYU’s campus will have a preliminary hearing at 11 a.m. Aug. 28. During a hearing Thursday morning, Nathan Eric Fletcher told Judge Steven Hansen that he wants the hearing, in which the city will lay out its case against him. At his first court […]
UV crime: Arrest in Orem rape case, masked robbers hit Provo bank
Arrest and bail set in child sex assault Twenty-six-year-old Jayson Quade Johnson is being held on $150,000 cash-only bail after being arrested June 13 on charges that he attacked an 11-year-old girl on her way to school. Johnson was arrested after police said his DNA connected him to the assault on the girl in […]
Alleged BYU groper makes first court appearance
A somber Nathan Fletcher, wearing a dark suit, stood silently next to his attorney in court on Thursday at his first appearance on charges that he groped women on BYU’s campus earlier this year. John Allan, Fletcher’s lawyer, said there’s a substantial amount of evidence he’s waiting to see and asked that the next hearing […]
UV crime: Bodies discovered in Pleasant Grove, check recycling in Orem
Gruesome discovery A former Pleasant Grove woman admitted to killing six of her newborn babies and putting those and a seventh stillborn baby into separate containers in the garage where she lived between 1996 and 2006, police say. The woman’s estranged husband found one body while cleaning out the garage on Saturday, then called police, […]
There’s nothing funny about sexual assault, not even if it’s on Twitter
For the past several months, a man has been groping women on and around Brigham Young University’s campus — at least 15 women have reported being assaulted. Groping, under Utah law, is at the least considered a crime of sexual battery, a Class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail; at the […]
UV crime: Groper on the loose in Provo; goblin vandals will pay fine, won’t do time
Serial groper on the loose near BYU More than a dozen women have come forward as victims of a groper on and near Brigham Young University’s campus. The incidents started in January, and so far at least a dozen women have told police they’ve been victimized. Sometimes he grabs a woman’s breast as he walks […]
UV crime: Girl sexually assaulted walking to school, goblin topplers charged
Child attacked while walking to school An 11-year-old girl was sexually assaulted while walking to Cherry Hill Elementary School in Orem, on Wednesday morning. Police say the man forced her to walk to a church parking lot where he assaulted her. She got away and ran to school, where she told her teacher what happened. […]