As some of you may have heard, Brigham Young University has suspended the star forward of their basketball team just a couple weeks before the start of March Madness.
The reason for the suspension is that he had sex with his girlfriend, and the BYU honor code states that premarital sex is not allowed.
With the money to be made off of success in March Madness there are some who question the wisdom of the choice. Others are condemning BYU for what seems to be a narrow minded or outdated viewpoint about morality. Some have even raised the race card because the player in question is black.
Now I am personally a pretty conservative person when it comes to moral conduct but I’m not sure I would have supported imposing this strict of an honor code. I also see merit in at least the first two arguments and given the history of the Mormon church can even understand those who consider the race issue.
However, I think that the decision they made was the right one.
The fact is, whether you consider it wise or not, they did produce this honor code. Every single student who attends BYU chose to sign the code and agree to obey it. Nobody put a gun to their heads, nobody forced them to attend BYU. There are many other universities to attend and given the talents of this player I suspect he had many offers.
The students, faculty and alumni also had the option to decide what kind of honor code to have and they made the choice to establish the rules they did.
Too often today we find that rules are bent or ignored, they are relaxed when it is not convenient or when people make a fuss. For once someone has decided that a rule is a rule, an honor code is an honor code and a violation is a violation.
Nobody will die because of this, nobody will suffer any serious harm at all. A team may lose a bit earlier than they otherwise would have but I think they will also have learned a much more important lesson.
So even if I don’t entirely agree with the code, I applaud the choice to enforce it.