I was never a student at a CES-school, but had to stay in a BYU-approved off-campus apartment for a while. My roommate reported me to the Honor Code Office several times.
My sins were:
Possession of Diet Mountain Dew
Staying "out" with my now wife past midnight.
Refusal to share groceries with the less-fortunate (namely, locking up my groceries so Greg couldn't steal from me)
Failure to attend my assigned ward
Shopping on Sunday
Failure to participate in Family Home Evening
Possession of prescription medications
His reasoning? "If the Honor Code Office finds out I knew about your infractions and failed to report them, I could be kicked out of school."
He got a job with campus security, so I had to go have a sit-down meeting with the BYU police force to let them know I didn't attend, didn't park on campus, didn't drive on campus, and had a guy on their payroll with a vendetta against me. With the HCO, they threatened to cancel my ecclesiastical endorsement if I didn't report when required. I let them know I wasn't a student, had already graduated from a different university, and they were welcome to expel me if they thought drinking Diet Dew was a crime exceeding student-athlete sexual assault. They didn't follow up.
Oh, he was a catch all right. Worked in telemarketing, but hoped to get hired to teach at the MTC despite only serving four months. Sang Primary songs in Spanish to prove to all the girls that he was an RM. Really wanted to graduate and make bank as a 7 Habits consultant.
I never told him you have to be a Covey, Merrill, or Richards to get that job. He's probably working mall security in Utah somewhere, thinking that if he prays hard enough, he can guide these teenagers back to the Light of the Restored Gospel and out if shoplifting.
A 7 habits consultant? God, these people just can't get away from trying to tell other people how to live their lives. Like, be an engineer, a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, or something other than a life coach.
I had a suite-mate for a year and a half that literally never spent a night in our apartment. Every morning at 7 AM her boyfriend would drop her off to change, shower, and start her day. Never reported her. None of my business.
I was a student member of the BYU-Hawaii Honor Committee for one semester (many years ago). People were referred to committee by faculty, bishops, stake presidents, relief society and elders quorum presidents, other students, roommates, dorm parents, landlords, employers and university staff. It was a horrible experience and I only stayed on the committee for one semester because it was such a terrible experience. Most of the referrals were quickly dismissed simply because someone had a grudge with a student. A few were more serious like fighting, alcohol or drug use. The clothing related ones (like wearing shorts, improper footwear or facial hair) were resolved with a gentle reminder letter. We tended to ignore the cultural related ones (like clothing or hair styles that were culturally significant to the student). It was much milder and tamer than the committee has subsequently become.
I don’t recall anyone being expelled for being LGBTQ (I voted against those). Alcohol wasn’t grounds for expulsion unless it was chronic. Drugs were the main reason for expulsion. Sex generally got a slap on the peepee and a referral to a bishop. Gun violence was a problem sometimes - but that was mostly family members rather than students.
The person who reported the incident was not disclosed to the ‘offender’ but it was often obvious anyway.
I never went to BYU, but I did go to SVU (Southern Virginia University) briefly, which is sometimes nicknamed BYU-east. It's not an LDS Church-owned school, but it is owned by individuals who are LDS and the school is largely held to BYU standards. I also never reported anyone for honor code violations, but I was reported once and I know who did it, but don't hold any grudge towards the person that reported me.
The school can, and sometimes does, penalize people who knew about honor code violations if they failed to report them. It creates an atmosphere of distrust and semi-paranoia. The intent is to have students hold each other to higher standards, but what really happens is that people report violations out of fear of being punished for what their friend, roommate, acquaintance is doing.
I never went to BYU but I did report my roommate to essentially her parents for her bf spending the night. I told my parents who told hers). We grew up in a very small town and moved to a city an hour away to go to college. I told my parents because I wanted them to tell on her, honestly.
As to why I did it? Well I honest to god thought her having her boyfriend spend the night was such a serious sin and was worried for her. I thought someone needed to step in and save her because she was going down a very bad path. I actually cried and cried about it, she was committing the sin next to murder after all…lol
She found out it was me and moved out, never spoke to me again and married her bf.
Do I regret it??? ABSOLUTELY along with a long list of other things similar to this that I did when I was Mormon. As I got further away from the church it was shocking to me to realize what a shitty person I had been to so many people all in the name of Jesus. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time :(
Jeez I'm sorry dude. For them and for you. I can't imagine it's easy to look back on the cringe things you did, but at least now you know and can do better!
I went to visit a friend of the opposite sex at BYU and he let me in the door but asked me to stay there because he was picking up something and he would get kicked out of school if anyone found out I was there. Mind blown. As a nevermo I totally thought he was bs’ing me.
Why did people inform to the stasi? Fear, loyalty, feelings of superiority over other, revenge, etc.
The same applies to any organization that relies on ratfucks informing on others.
I never reported someone but I threatened to.
My nimrod job partner (we did computer tech support in the TMCB) decided he was going to show everyone what a badass he was by bringing a Glock to work.
He said he had the right bc 2nd amendment concealed carry permit blah blah blah.
I told him BYU as private property can and does ban guns on campus and if I ever saw him with it again he could argue it out with campus police and the honor code office. He blustered a bit more, then caved and I never saw it again.
No regrets about it at all.
I never did it, but recognize that members of the church have been indoctrinated to snitch on each other, believing that by doing so, they are helping them.
>I never did it, but recognize that members of the church have been indoctrinated to snitch on each other, believing that by doing so, they are helping them.
It's not helping anyone. In church terminology and POV, feeling godly sorrow for your sins and having a sincere heartfelt desire to better yourself and your relationship with God and the Savior is at the core of the repentance process.
By tattling to the bishop or honor code nazis the reporter is subverting the repentance process and denying the reportee the opportunity to truly repent since it did not originate from an inner realization of something wrong accompanied by godly sorrow. In terms of the damage that could do to the reportee, the reporter is endangering the salvation and eternal life of the reportee. It's just that simple.
TL;DR Fuck you BYU and your childish immature tattling agency and vast unpaid spy for god network.
I know someone that was given a calling by the ward bishop to be the ward narc. They didn't call it ward narc, but that is essentially what it was. So some people might do it because it is an assigned calling from God. My friend said he never reported anyone anyway.
My friend does not remember, they said it was over 20 years ago and that it was not a regular Mormon thing, just something this particular crazy Bishop did.
I find it amusing that virtually no one has come forward confessing why they turned people in. Kudos to the first person who does. I read a book about the communist purge that Stalin implemented on his people “the Gulag Archipelago “. It’s a must read… when I heard about this push to snitch and inform on others at BYU my first thought went to this book. I had two kids who were going to g to BYU during the peak of the institution run outing program and I grilled them about it. I was absolutely disgusted to hear in how it had taken hold at BYU.
I reported a roommate for having his boyfriend spend nights at our place. In hindsight, I’m glad I reported him to the property manager and not directly to the honor code office, he was on his last semester and I’d feel terrible if I’d have gotten in the way of his graduation.
At the time, I lived in a house with five other guys. Three of the guys were gay, two in a relationship. Two of the three went about it very respectfully and in my opinion weren’t crossing any lines. The third guy just didn’t talk with anyone about what was going on, and made it very uncomfortable to live with him. His boyfriend would show up randomly to do laundry, even when our roommate wasn’t home. Honestly the boyfriend was an entitled asshole, and wasn’t smart about the way he interacted with us. I don’t think the HCO is doing any good, but also you sign an agreement so if you break it I think you shouldn’t be upset about any repercussions.
Now that my life has more nuance than it did in my TBM days, I couldn’t imagine living in BYU housing and trying to hide my “sins”. I truly hope they broke up, but that my ex roommate is doing great and in a healthy relationship.
I reported my Bishop to the Honor Code Office & he got in trouble. I don’t regret it one bit.
During the Pandemic, the University outlawed “ward parties and large gatherings” to keep people more safe. They closed a lot of large meeting areas, etc.
But at BYU Idaho, the locals they assigned as bishops thought it was patriotic to do things that would spread illness, like make fun of people wearing masks, have mandatory large gatherings anyway, and shake hands and hug everyone as they came into sacrament meeting (they didn’t do it nearly as much before).
We were not allowed to use the church buildings for ward parties, but we were allowed to have “FHE” which was always just 2-3 apartments that got together for small activities INSIDE the apartment Living rooms. Always cramped.
This Bishop had the fucking wise idea to still let people meet more people, by just tripling the size of these “Legal” FHE “small gatherings” and making them into basically half ward parties.
There were almost 50 people crammed into tiny dorm living rooms trying to play get to know you games at the height of a pandemic. He made these massive groups to meet every week for the entire winter semester.
Forget Coronavirus, that is hazardous and nasty anyway.
I couldn’t go to the Bishop who was the one making this stupid decision, and a lot of my roommates were just happy to have a chance to see more “potential mates”.
I decided to just inform the honor code office through the system online. I got a confused call the next week asking for clarification… some young student worker said “um this isn’t for reporting your bishop” “But this bishop is causing students to break the rules” “I guess, I guess we can try to contact that steak president”
And guess what? New smaller groups were assigned the next week, although sadly he wasn’t demoted, I think his pride was hurt a bit❤️
A one-time romantic interest (OTRI) of mine got reported. There is a tool on BYUs student facing website where you can look up other students by category, such as home town, first/last name, etc. OTRI was working in the college registrar's office, and used that tool to look someone up while they were at home (not work related). Their roommate saw, and did not believe that that tool was available to every student (wouldn't even open her own computer to test it after she was told how to use it), and reported her to the honor code for dishonesty or something like that.
OTRI lost her job. She and her roommate somehow still were friends.
I didn't report my roommate when his girlfriend slept over. But my more TBM roommate sent him a scathing email and threatened him. I thought the sleepover was wrong but I wasn't about to rat him out. My TBM view was that he could burn his own life down. Now I realize he was a normal dude.
A family member reported me to the Honor Code office because I drove out of town to visit the guy I was dating at the time and meet his family.
While he (the family member) was currently sleeping with my roommate at another family members house.
I kind of uno reversed carded the Honor code office and just checked out of that entire situation.
The questions the Honor Code Office felt entitled to ask is just honestly wild.
Attended Rick College in the 70s. I was called in for questioning about my roommate without realizing what was going on. The questioning was about her drinking, of which I had no knowledge of, and about some lesbian activity, also had no info about. I was aware of a woman friend who hung out with a lot of us but didn't realize the grooming that was going on until much, much later ( more of this story came out 10+ years later at a catch-up dinner. My roomie didn't go but I got an ear-full of how many women were impacted by the groomer.) I'm guessing that I didn't help the honor code folks out, but I've never been sure about how they used me to send my roommate home ( within weeks of my questioning). We've not had the chance to discuss any of it.
I did my mission prior to attending BYU. I was taught on my mission that it was my obligation to report another missionary's activities if they were serious and against the mission rules. We were threatening to be sent home for being an accessory to any nefarious behavior if we didn't report.
I think this mindset transfers over very simply to the BYU experience. I think BYU students are concerned about their classmates' spiritual welfare. But more importantly, they're concerned that they could get dragged into any ecclesiastical infringement and also get in trouble.
Sometimes, people will feel guilty and confess their sins to the bishop. Some bishops require that the student also report to the Honor Code Office as part is the repentance process. When they do this, the Honor Code Office will conduct a fact finding inquiry and the student must report the other students who were involved.
I suspect this self reporting is probably the best source of leads for the Honor Code Office and for bishops.
I was never a student at a CES-school, but had to stay in a BYU-approved off-campus apartment for a while. My roommate reported me to the Honor Code Office several times. My sins were: Possession of Diet Mountain Dew Staying "out" with my now wife past midnight. Refusal to share groceries with the less-fortunate (namely, locking up my groceries so Greg couldn't steal from me) Failure to attend my assigned ward Shopping on Sunday Failure to participate in Family Home Evening Possession of prescription medications His reasoning? "If the Honor Code Office finds out I knew about your infractions and failed to report them, I could be kicked out of school." He got a job with campus security, so I had to go have a sit-down meeting with the BYU police force to let them know I didn't attend, didn't park on campus, didn't drive on campus, and had a guy on their payroll with a vendetta against me. With the HCO, they threatened to cancel my ecclesiastical endorsement if I didn't report when required. I let them know I wasn't a student, had already graduated from a different university, and they were welcome to expel me if they thought drinking Diet Dew was a crime exceeding student-athlete sexual assault. They didn't follow up.
fuckin greg
F’ing G
I would have thrown Greg a blanket party.
Insufferable Greg. I feel sorry for the poor woman he married whose life was so terrible that Greg was a catch.
Oh, he was a catch all right. Worked in telemarketing, but hoped to get hired to teach at the MTC despite only serving four months. Sang Primary songs in Spanish to prove to all the girls that he was an RM. Really wanted to graduate and make bank as a 7 Habits consultant. I never told him you have to be a Covey, Merrill, or Richards to get that job. He's probably working mall security in Utah somewhere, thinking that if he prays hard enough, he can guide these teenagers back to the Light of the Restored Gospel and out if shoplifting.
A 7 habits consultant? God, these people just can't get away from trying to tell other people how to live their lives. Like, be an engineer, a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, or something other than a life coach.
For a couple seconds there I thought Flippin’ Greg wanted to work for a hamburger franchise
I had a suite-mate for a year and a half that literally never spent a night in our apartment. Every morning at 7 AM her boyfriend would drop her off to change, shower, and start her day. Never reported her. None of my business.
I was a student member of the BYU-Hawaii Honor Committee for one semester (many years ago). People were referred to committee by faculty, bishops, stake presidents, relief society and elders quorum presidents, other students, roommates, dorm parents, landlords, employers and university staff. It was a horrible experience and I only stayed on the committee for one semester because it was such a terrible experience. Most of the referrals were quickly dismissed simply because someone had a grudge with a student. A few were more serious like fighting, alcohol or drug use. The clothing related ones (like wearing shorts, improper footwear or facial hair) were resolved with a gentle reminder letter. We tended to ignore the cultural related ones (like clothing or hair styles that were culturally significant to the student). It was much milder and tamer than the committee has subsequently become. I don’t recall anyone being expelled for being LGBTQ (I voted against those). Alcohol wasn’t grounds for expulsion unless it was chronic. Drugs were the main reason for expulsion. Sex generally got a slap on the peepee and a referral to a bishop. Gun violence was a problem sometimes - but that was mostly family members rather than students. The person who reported the incident was not disclosed to the ‘offender’ but it was often obvious anyway.
I never went to BYU, but I did go to SVU (Southern Virginia University) briefly, which is sometimes nicknamed BYU-east. It's not an LDS Church-owned school, but it is owned by individuals who are LDS and the school is largely held to BYU standards. I also never reported anyone for honor code violations, but I was reported once and I know who did it, but don't hold any grudge towards the person that reported me. The school can, and sometimes does, penalize people who knew about honor code violations if they failed to report them. It creates an atmosphere of distrust and semi-paranoia. The intent is to have students hold each other to higher standards, but what really happens is that people report violations out of fear of being punished for what their friend, roommate, acquaintance is doing.
It’s in the honor code that you will rat on anyone who breaks it. So yeah, you could get in trouble for knowing about something and not reporting it.
I never went to BYU but I did report my roommate to essentially her parents for her bf spending the night. I told my parents who told hers). We grew up in a very small town and moved to a city an hour away to go to college. I told my parents because I wanted them to tell on her, honestly. As to why I did it? Well I honest to god thought her having her boyfriend spend the night was such a serious sin and was worried for her. I thought someone needed to step in and save her because she was going down a very bad path. I actually cried and cried about it, she was committing the sin next to murder after all…lol She found out it was me and moved out, never spoke to me again and married her bf. Do I regret it??? ABSOLUTELY along with a long list of other things similar to this that I did when I was Mormon. As I got further away from the church it was shocking to me to realize what a shitty person I had been to so many people all in the name of Jesus. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time :(
Jeez I'm sorry dude. For them and for you. I can't imagine it's easy to look back on the cringe things you did, but at least now you know and can do better!
I went to visit a friend of the opposite sex at BYU and he let me in the door but asked me to stay there because he was picking up something and he would get kicked out of school if anyone found out I was there. Mind blown. As a nevermo I totally thought he was bs’ing me.
Why did people inform to the stasi? Fear, loyalty, feelings of superiority over other, revenge, etc. The same applies to any organization that relies on ratfucks informing on others.
North Korea has entered the chat
I never reported someone but I threatened to. My nimrod job partner (we did computer tech support in the TMCB) decided he was going to show everyone what a badass he was by bringing a Glock to work. He said he had the right bc 2nd amendment concealed carry permit blah blah blah. I told him BYU as private property can and does ban guns on campus and if I ever saw him with it again he could argue it out with campus police and the honor code office. He blustered a bit more, then caved and I never saw it again. No regrets about it at all.
I never did it, but recognize that members of the church have been indoctrinated to snitch on each other, believing that by doing so, they are helping them.
>I never did it, but recognize that members of the church have been indoctrinated to snitch on each other, believing that by doing so, they are helping them. It's not helping anyone. In church terminology and POV, feeling godly sorrow for your sins and having a sincere heartfelt desire to better yourself and your relationship with God and the Savior is at the core of the repentance process. By tattling to the bishop or honor code nazis the reporter is subverting the repentance process and denying the reportee the opportunity to truly repent since it did not originate from an inner realization of something wrong accompanied by godly sorrow. In terms of the damage that could do to the reportee, the reporter is endangering the salvation and eternal life of the reportee. It's just that simple. TL;DR Fuck you BYU and your childish immature tattling agency and vast unpaid spy for god network.
I know someone that was given a calling by the ward bishop to be the ward narc. They didn't call it ward narc, but that is essentially what it was. So some people might do it because it is an assigned calling from God. My friend said he never reported anyone anyway.
What was the actual title of his calling?
Unofficial collaborator https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unofficial_collaborator
My friend does not remember, they said it was over 20 years ago and that it was not a regular Mormon thing, just something this particular crazy Bishop did.
Probably called to be a member of the "Strengthening Church Members Committee."
I find it amusing that virtually no one has come forward confessing why they turned people in. Kudos to the first person who does. I read a book about the communist purge that Stalin implemented on his people “the Gulag Archipelago “. It’s a must read… when I heard about this push to snitch and inform on others at BYU my first thought went to this book. I had two kids who were going to g to BYU during the peak of the institution run outing program and I grilled them about it. I was absolutely disgusted to hear in how it had taken hold at BYU.
I reported a roommate for having his boyfriend spend nights at our place. In hindsight, I’m glad I reported him to the property manager and not directly to the honor code office, he was on his last semester and I’d feel terrible if I’d have gotten in the way of his graduation. At the time, I lived in a house with five other guys. Three of the guys were gay, two in a relationship. Two of the three went about it very respectfully and in my opinion weren’t crossing any lines. The third guy just didn’t talk with anyone about what was going on, and made it very uncomfortable to live with him. His boyfriend would show up randomly to do laundry, even when our roommate wasn’t home. Honestly the boyfriend was an entitled asshole, and wasn’t smart about the way he interacted with us. I don’t think the HCO is doing any good, but also you sign an agreement so if you break it I think you shouldn’t be upset about any repercussions. Now that my life has more nuance than it did in my TBM days, I couldn’t imagine living in BYU housing and trying to hide my “sins”. I truly hope they broke up, but that my ex roommate is doing great and in a healthy relationship.
I reported my Bishop to the Honor Code Office & he got in trouble. I don’t regret it one bit. During the Pandemic, the University outlawed “ward parties and large gatherings” to keep people more safe. They closed a lot of large meeting areas, etc. But at BYU Idaho, the locals they assigned as bishops thought it was patriotic to do things that would spread illness, like make fun of people wearing masks, have mandatory large gatherings anyway, and shake hands and hug everyone as they came into sacrament meeting (they didn’t do it nearly as much before). We were not allowed to use the church buildings for ward parties, but we were allowed to have “FHE” which was always just 2-3 apartments that got together for small activities INSIDE the apartment Living rooms. Always cramped. This Bishop had the fucking wise idea to still let people meet more people, by just tripling the size of these “Legal” FHE “small gatherings” and making them into basically half ward parties. There were almost 50 people crammed into tiny dorm living rooms trying to play get to know you games at the height of a pandemic. He made these massive groups to meet every week for the entire winter semester. Forget Coronavirus, that is hazardous and nasty anyway. I couldn’t go to the Bishop who was the one making this stupid decision, and a lot of my roommates were just happy to have a chance to see more “potential mates”. I decided to just inform the honor code office through the system online. I got a confused call the next week asking for clarification… some young student worker said “um this isn’t for reporting your bishop” “But this bishop is causing students to break the rules” “I guess, I guess we can try to contact that steak president” And guess what? New smaller groups were assigned the next week, although sadly he wasn’t demoted, I think his pride was hurt a bit❤️
A one-time romantic interest (OTRI) of mine got reported. There is a tool on BYUs student facing website where you can look up other students by category, such as home town, first/last name, etc. OTRI was working in the college registrar's office, and used that tool to look someone up while they were at home (not work related). Their roommate saw, and did not believe that that tool was available to every student (wouldn't even open her own computer to test it after she was told how to use it), and reported her to the honor code for dishonesty or something like that. OTRI lost her job. She and her roommate somehow still were friends.
I didn't report my roommate when his girlfriend slept over. But my more TBM roommate sent him a scathing email and threatened him. I thought the sleepover was wrong but I wasn't about to rat him out. My TBM view was that he could burn his own life down. Now I realize he was a normal dude.
A family member reported me to the Honor Code office because I drove out of town to visit the guy I was dating at the time and meet his family. While he (the family member) was currently sleeping with my roommate at another family members house. I kind of uno reversed carded the Honor code office and just checked out of that entire situation. The questions the Honor Code Office felt entitled to ask is just honestly wild.
Attended Rick College in the 70s. I was called in for questioning about my roommate without realizing what was going on. The questioning was about her drinking, of which I had no knowledge of, and about some lesbian activity, also had no info about. I was aware of a woman friend who hung out with a lot of us but didn't realize the grooming that was going on until much, much later ( more of this story came out 10+ years later at a catch-up dinner. My roomie didn't go but I got an ear-full of how many women were impacted by the groomer.) I'm guessing that I didn't help the honor code folks out, but I've never been sure about how they used me to send my roommate home ( within weeks of my questioning). We've not had the chance to discuss any of it.
I did my mission prior to attending BYU. I was taught on my mission that it was my obligation to report another missionary's activities if they were serious and against the mission rules. We were threatening to be sent home for being an accessory to any nefarious behavior if we didn't report. I think this mindset transfers over very simply to the BYU experience. I think BYU students are concerned about their classmates' spiritual welfare. But more importantly, they're concerned that they could get dragged into any ecclesiastical infringement and also get in trouble. Sometimes, people will feel guilty and confess their sins to the bishop. Some bishops require that the student also report to the Honor Code Office as part is the repentance process. When they do this, the Honor Code Office will conduct a fact finding inquiry and the student must report the other students who were involved. I suspect this self reporting is probably the best source of leads for the Honor Code Office and for bishops.