Elizabeth Smart picks BYU rape response for her first story as a new TV correspondent

Elizabeth Smart joined the staff of the Fox TV show "Crime Watch Daily" this week and made BYU's response to student rape survivors the subject of her first report.

Smart studied music at BYU and interviewed two BYU graduates for the show who described how they were raped while students and investigated and cleared by the school for possible honor code violations.

During the two-part, 18-minute report, Smart joined the two women and other survivors who have called for BYU to alter its policies so victims feel free to report sexual assaults without concern that doing so could lead to expulsion from school.

"It really makes me feel terrible to think that these women are not coming forward and getting the help that they not only need but deserve because they're too worried about the rules that are in place, worried that they'll get expelled," she said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns and operates BYU, plainly outlined its position in a news release last week, when it condemned sexual assault and said the university is taking significant steps to ensure its processes reflect care for victims.

BYU President Kevin Worthen launched a review of the university's practices earlier this month when he formed a four-person advisory council to study the issue.

"At the conclusion of this study I believe we will have a system that people – particularly the victims of sexual assault – feel they can trust, and that creates an environment where we can effectively work to eliminate sexual assaults on campus," he said. "I have every confidence that this group will bring forward positive recommendations that will ultimately make BYU a better place."

Worthen acknowledged last month that BYU's Title IX office, where survivors report sexual assault under federal law, shares information with the campus Honor Code Office. A student survivor may be investigated for a possible honor code violation if there is a report of drug or alcohol use or consensual sex, which are proscribed.

"Victims of sexual assault are never disciplined for being victims of sexual assault," BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins said.

Smart and those who survived rapes while BYU students say that can create a chilling effect that keeps some from reporting when they are attacked. Some, including Provo Police Chief John King on the Fox TV show, say that rapists wield the threat of an honor code investigation to keep survivors silent.

Crime Watch Daily said the Provo Police Department has taken the position that BYU should provide limited amnesty to survivors, allowing them to report a sexual assault confident that the university would not discipline them for code violations around the time of the incident. More than 110,000 people have signed an online petition calling for an amnesty provision in BYU's honor code.

At the outset of the TV show, Smart said her alma mater's honor code is designed to protect students and should constructed so it can't be used to silence survivors.

She mentioned that her own captors, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee, used emotional power against her as well when they abducted her from her home in 2002. Mitchell raped her repeatedly during her nine-month capitivity.

"I don't think most people realize, rapes are premedidated and thought out," Smart said during the show. "These people who are committing them are not stupid. They know how to target women, they know how to target people."

One of the victim's in Smart's report talked about telling her LDS bishop about the assault. Jenkins, the BYU spokeswoman, said that bishops or other ecclesiastical leaders are not allowed to share information with BYU's Honor Code Office without a student's consent.

Smart spoke two weeks ago at BYU-Hawaii.

Email: twalch@deseretnews.com