Punished After Reporting Rape at BYU
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Controversy surrounding Utah's Brigham Young University after multiple young women say they were punished after reporting being raped or sexually assaulted. It's the school's honor code and students are demanding change there. Two of those young women, Madi Barney and Madeline MacDonald, join us now. Ladies, thanks so much for being here. Your stories are pretty incredible. And I -- I want to have you walk us through them. Madi, let's start with you. You say that you were raped in September.</s>MADI BARNEY, BRIGHAM YOUNG STUDENT AND RAPE VICTIM: Yes.</s>CAMEROTA: It happened off campus and at the hands of someone who was not a student at BYU. So you did the right thing. You went to police and you reported the rape. Then what did you hear from your school?</s>BARNEY: So, I reported my rape in the end of September and I reported directly to Provo Police. And about a month -- like two months later I received an e-mail from the BYU Honor Code Office. And it just simply said something along the lines of, we need to meet.</s>CAMEROTA: Uh-huh.</s>BARNEY: And I called them and I was trying to understand what the problem was and they would not tell me.</s>CAMEROTA: Huh.</s>BARNEY: So I met with them. I actually met with the Title IX Office, not the Honor Code Office. And when I came in, they told me that they had received a police report of my rape and they refused to tell me how they had obtained it.</s>CAMEROTA: OK. I also have a portion of the note that they sent you, that your school said, "we have received information that you have been a victim of behavior that is addressed in the university's sexual misconduct policy. We have also received information that you have engaged in behavior that violates the BYU Honor Code." You, by being a victim of a rape, violated their honor code? How does that work?</s>BARNEY: Well, all of their honor code allegations come directly from the 20-page police report that they received, which had details of my rape, it had statements from the nurse who performed by rape exam. And we actually had to subpoena BYU in order to find out how they got this police report. And through that we found out that my rapist had received a physical copy of the police report and he had given it to his friend who was a sheriff's deputy, named Edwin Randolph (ph). Randolph thought that I deserved punishment for telling people that his friend had raped me and so he took it directly to the Honor Code Office.</s>CAMEROTA: And, so, Madi, I mean, when -- and Madeline, I want to get to your story in one second, but when this safe haven, this place that you have gone to as your university that is supposed to be educating you, when you heard from them that you were the subject of sort of this honor code investigation, how did you feel?</s>BARNEY: I still feel incredibly betrayed and re-victimized because, I mean, I don't know how many BYU officials have read my police report. And instead of offering me help and services, like they're supposed to, they only said we need to investigate you. And the man who raped me is not a student. So I'm the only one under investigation.</s>CAMEROTA: Madeline, your story is similar, yet different from Madi's. You say that you were sexually assaulted in 2014 when you were a freshman. Did you report it to your school, to BYU?</s>MADELINE MACDONALD, BRIGHAM YOUNG STUDENT AND SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIM: Yes. So, I started off by going to the women's resources office, because I wasn't sure like what police department I would go to or how I would even go about reporting anything. So I figured, OK, like I'll talk to them. And they were the ones who said, you have to go to Title IX, and they walked with me down the hallway and had me report there. So I did report to my school.</s>CAMEROTA: And then what happened? What was the response that you got from the Title IX office? And Title IX is the place designated to investigate sexual assault on campus.</s>MACDONALD: So at first everything seemed really great. They were listening to my story. I was like really excited that they were going to be helpful. And they did offer me some services. And, you know, I went to counseling there and it was really good. But then they stopped answering my questions and they wouldn't tell me what they were doing or if they had contacted the guy who assaulted me. And there was sort of this silence. And then I finally got ahold of their policies to like start reading through and see what was actually going on and what rules they were following. And it was really hard to get answers to my questions about those policies. Nobody wanted to tell me things, nobody wanted to talk to me.</s>CAMEROTA: So, Madi, do you feel that you got justice by taking the route that you did by reporting it to your school?</s>BARNEY: Me? Me or Madeline?</s>CAMEROTA: Oh, sorry, Madeline. I'm sorry, Madeline, do you feel that you got justice?</s>MACDONALD: I feel like I didn't necessarily. Well, the thing was, my school couldn't really give me justice. The guy who assaulted me wasn't at BYU student in my case. So doing an instigation, I was the only one being investigated. There was not -- there wasn't really any justice to be had through the school.</s>CAMEROTA: Here's what the school says. Let me read it to both of you. They say, "our goal in every situation is to give students the support that they need and safeguard their educational environment. When a student reports a sexual assault, the primary focus is on the victim's safety and well-being under the Title IX policy. The victim of a sexual assault will never be referred to the Honor Code Office for being a victim of sexual assault. A report of sexual assault would always be referred to the BYU Title IX Office. Madi, what do you think of that statement?</s>BARNEY: It's not accurate. You know, it's clear that both Madeline and I were referred to the Honor Code Office for being victims of sexual assault. Any and all allegations that they have against me come from a rape police report. I don't know how much more direct you could get than that.</s>CAMEROTA: Madi, very quickly, you are not going -- you're not in school right now because of all of this. Why?</s>BARNEY: So I could not participate in an Honor Code investigation against myself because I have an ongoing criminal trial for my rape. So I'm a primary witness. I can't talk about the details of my rape. And BYU would not accept that. And so they told me that until I come in and participate in the investigation against myself, I can't register or enroll in any future classes.</s>CAMEROTA: Clearly something is wrong. Madi and Madeline, we appreciate you coming forward and talking about this and we will follow your stories until the completion and figure out how the system can be fixed there. Thank you so much, ladies.</s>BARNEY: Thank you.</s>MACDONALD: Thanks.</s>CAMEROTA: Let's get to John.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Alisyn, thanks so much. So the stunning raid, it happened five years ago today, U.S. special forces taking out Osama bin Laden in his compound in Pakistan. President Obama is now talking about what it took to make it happen in an exclusive CNN report. That's next.