essay on sexual assault on college campuses

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Sexual Assault Among College Students Attending a Historically Black College/University

Deshawn Collington recently graduated from Morgan State University with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.

Markea Carter recently graduated from Morgan State University with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.

Aliyah Tolliver graduated from Morgan State University with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and received a Master of Science in Clinical Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Sexual assault constitutes a significant public health problem on college campuses including historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU). Recent research suggests that sexual assault is increasing on college campuses. However, there are few studies examining the prevalence and risk factors for sexual assault at HBCUs. To address this gap, the current study examined the prevalence, correlates, and outcomes of sexual assault at an HBCU. Participants in the study were 264 undergraduate students from an HBCU in the mid-Atlantic region. The majority of participants were female (71%), African American (91%), and seniors (41%). After providing informed consent, participants completed a Climate Assessment survey administered by the university’s Office of Diversity. Findings revealed that since starting college about 20% of students experienced sexual contact without consent. Of those sexually assaulted, 20% reported they were incapacitated or under the influence of alcohol (15%) at the time of the assault. About 17% of those assaulted experienced a physical injury and/or poor mental health outcomes (e.g., anxiety, depression, flashbacks). Participants reported not disclosing information of their assault due to embarrassment, afraid of retaliation from the perpetrator, believing it was a private matter. Close friends were more likely to be told about sexual assault. The study supports the need to address sexual assault on HBCU campuses through strong prevention and intervention programs and to address barriers to reporting.

PRESS SUMMARY

This article examines sexual assault among African American college students by providing prevalence rates, correlates, outcomes, and barriers to reporting associated with sexual assault. Findings suggest that sexual assault remains a problem and is prevalent on an HBCU campus.

INTRODUCTION

Sexual assault is defined as any sexual acts committed against someone without that person’s freely given consent. 1 It can be categorized as sexual activities such as incest, molestation, fondling, or forced sexual intercourse. 2 Women between the ages of 18 and 24 are at a higher risk of experiencing sexual assault. 3 Sexual assault remains a problem on college campuses, particularly among women. 4 Unfortunately, most studies examining sexual assault focus on predominately white (PWI) college campuses and not minority-serving institutions. This paper reviews the extant literature on sexual assault, general findings on studies of sexual assault on college campuses, and a review of findings from those few studies that examine sexual assault at HBCUs.

Sexual Assault in the U.S.

According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN, 2016), every 107 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted. 3 The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey (as cited in RAINN, 2016) reported there is an average of 293,066 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year. 3 Approximately 19.3% of women have experienced rape and 43.9% experienced other forms of sexual assault including unwanted sexual contact ( i.e ., kissing or touching) or sexual coercion. 5 About 3% of American men or 1 in 33 have experienced attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. 2 out of 3 sexual assault incidents are not reported to the police. 3 The LGBTQ community is also affected by sexual assault; 46.4% lesbians, 74.9% bisexual women and 43.3% heterosexual women have experienced sexual violence other than rape during their lifetime. 6 Cumulatively, these findings suggest that sexual assault is a problem in the U.S. and that there is a need to explore and better understand risk factors for sexual assault among at-risk populations, such as college students.

Sexual Assault on College Campuses

College and university administrators, faculty, staff, and students are aware of campus sexual assault, yet it remains a significant problem on college campuses. One in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college. 7 A study done by Jordan, Combs, and Smith (2014) examining sexual assault and academic performance found that more than 40% of the female participants had experienced rape or sexual assault during their teen years. 8 24% of women experienced sexual victimization during their first semester of college in addition to another 20% during their second semester of college. It is common that college-aged female victims know their offender in about 80% of rape and sexual assault victimization. 9 Although women are more likely to be victims of sexual assault, a Campus Sexual Assault study (CSA) found that approximately 6.1% (n = 84) of males reported experiencing attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college. Half of them (n = 50, 3.7%) experienced a completed sexual assault. Incapacitation of the victim is more prevalent among women. Incapacitation involves the use of alcohol or drug use, being passed out, asleep, or being unable to consent regardless of the perpetrator being responsible or the victim’s own actions to participate in substance use. 10 7.8% of women (n=466) were victims of alcohol or drug enabled sexual assault. 0.6% of women (n=31) were victims of confirmed drug-facilitated sexual assault while 1.7% (n=103) were victims of suspected drug-facilitated sexual assault. 1.0% (n=48) were unable to provide consent. According to the College Alcohol Study (CAS), 3.4% of women who were raped were unable to provide consent due to incapacitation and 3.1% experienced drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA). 10

Sexual assault is highly underreported. Evidence shows victims are more likely to disclose to friends and less likely to formally report the incident to authorities. For instance, a study found that in 2/3rds of incidents, the victim disclosed to another person, usually a friend, but not family or school officials. 11 Sable, Danis, Mauzy, and Gallagher (2006) described psychological and legal barriers that have discouraged college students who are victims of sexual assault from reporting. 12 This study identified 13 barriers to reporting for women and 14 for men. Each characterized which barrier were reasons to not report by importance. Women’s barriers to reporting included fear of retaliation by the perpetrator, financial dependence, did not want family or friend to be prosecuted, and lack of resources to obtain help. Men’s barriers to reporting included shame, embarrassment, confidentiality concerns, and fear of not being believed. Many women often may not report because they know the perpetrator. Men are less likely to report due to masculinity stereotypes. Alcohol and drug use are another factors that explains college students not reporting to law enforcement. 13 Self-blame typically occurs when the victim was under the influence. 14 Alcohol seems to be a key contributor in campus sexual assault. 15 Typically, both the perpetrator and the victim had consumed alcohol. Abbey, McAuslan, and Ross (1998) reported that 42% consumed alcohol prior to the incident and 53.4% reported that the perpetrator had consumed alcohol prior to the incident. 16 Alcohol effects on motors skills may limit women’s ability to resist sexual assault attempts. It also affects perceptions of responsibility. Alcohol consumption among men is perceived to be justification for inappropriate behavior allowing them to feel comfortable when engaging in such risky behaviors. However, some women who consume alcohol may take the blame for sexual assault. 15 These findings suggest that sexual assault is a problem on college campuses and must be addressed. Moreover, most of the research reviewed has focused on predominately White college campuses. While it is important to study sexual assault regardless of the type of campus, there is a need to examine the prevalence and outcomes of sexual assault on all college campuses, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).

Sexual Assault at HBCUs

As cited above, there is an extensive amount of research focusing on sexual assault targeting students at Predominately White Institutions (PWI) however, limited research exists addressing sexual assault among students attending minority-serving institutions such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). 17 Research suggests that there may be differences in sexual assault rates between these institutions. Differences between African American women at non-HBCUs to those at HBCUs is unknown. 18 According to Lindquist et al. (2013), approximately 9% of undergraduate women had experienced physically forced sexual assault prior to entering college. 3.4% experienced incapacitated sexual assault and 2.4% experienced both prior and since entering college. 18

The goal of the HBCU- Campus Sexual Assault (HBCU-CSA) study was to document information on prevalence, consequences, and risk factors of sexual assault among African American college students. 19 This study included 3,951 women from four HBCUs. 14.9% reported experiencing attempted or completed sexual assault prior to entering college. 14.2% reported experiencing attempted or completed sexual assault since beginning college. 3.8% of women experience physically forced rape, and 4.8% experienced rape while incapacitated and unable to provide consent. Prevalence estimates of victims suggest that some were incapacitated and unable to provide consent. 4.0% of women were victims of alcohol or other drugs (AOD) which includes the victim voluntarily consuming alcohol prior to the incident and 0.3% were victims of DFSA. Rates of sexual assault when the victim was incapacitated and unable to provide consent appears to be considerably lower for women at HBCUs than non-HBCUs.

The HBCU-CSA study also examined risk factors among victims of sexual assault at an HBCU. Prior victimization is associated with experiencing sexual assault after entering college. Women dating at least one person after entering college compared to those not dating were more likely to experience any type of sexual assault. Compared to women with no male sexual partners, women who had between one and five male sexual partners since entering college were more likely to experience incapacitated sexual assault and those with more than five male sexual partners were more likely to experience all types of sexual assault. Women who reported getting drunk were likely to be victims of incapacitated sexual assault. The study described individual and behavioral risk factors associated with sexual assault. The type of sexual assault was associated with a given risk factor. Factors such as prior victimization and party attendance were associated with physically forced sexual assault. Behavioral influences such as substance use and depression were associated with incapacitated sexual assault. Victims of incapacitated sexual assault reported engaging in alcohol or drugs prior to the incident. Other risk factors such as accepting drinks from strangers or sorority membership were associated with both forced and incapacitated sexual assault since entering college.

Women victimized by sexual assault were found to have significantly more symptoms of depression and were more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared to women who had not been sexually assaulted. 18 Sexual assault victims were more likely to report the incident to family, friends, law enforcement, or crisis centers. Victims were also more likely to drop their classes, change majors, or seek counseling.

Given the limited amount of literature to address sexual assault on an HBCU campus, the current study attempted to answer the following questions:

• What is the prevalence of sexual assault on an HBCU campus?
• What are the correlates associated with sexual assault at an HBCU?
• What are the outcomes associated with sexual assault at an HBCU?
• What are the reporting practices and barriers to reporting sexual assault at an HBCU?

METHODS AND PROCEDURES

Participants.

Participants were 264 undergraduate students attending a co-ed HBCU located in the northeast region of the US. Among the participants, 71.7% were female and 28.9% male. A majority of participants were African American (90.9%), 4.3% were Caucasian, 4.2% were Hispanic or Latino, 3% were American Indian or Alaska Native., 2.7% were Asian and 1.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Most participants were seniors (40.9%), 22% were juniors, 21.2% were freshmen and 15.2% were sophomores. Participant ages ranged between18–24. 11% (n=29) were 18 years of age, 16.3% (n=43) were 19, 15.2% (n=40) were 20, 17.8% (n=47) were 21, 11.7% (n=31) were 22, 9.8% (n=26) were 23 and 18.2% (n=48) were 24 or older. 79.2% were heterosexual, and 2.7% were gay. Approximately 39.2% reported living in a college residence hall and 4.6% living on-campus. 94.3% of participants were full-time students and 5.3% were part-time.

The university’s Office of Diversity submitted and received IRB approval to administer a campus-wide Climate Assessment Survey developed by an educational technology company which offers online training on various topics including sexual assault prevention. The survey instrument is based on a model template provided by the White House Task Force Report to Protect Students from Sexual Assault 20 . The survey was administered during the 2015–2016 academic year. Permission to assist with recruitment, data collection, and to utilize data from the study was granted to the student investigators from the Office of Diversity. All undergraduate students were recruited via email which included a hyperlink to the online questionnaire. Participants were also recruited via convenience sampling, flyers on social media. The online questionnaire remained available from December 2015 to February 2016. The home page of the study included a description of the study and allowed students to indicate their consent by clicking yes or no to proceed. The participants’ identities remained anonymous throughout the survey and they were given the option to withdraw or skip questions at any time without penalty. To ensure confidentiality and anonymity, participants were given a link to a site that would delete their web browsing history after completing the survey. The online survey was approximately 30 –45 minutes. After completion of the survey, on and off campus resources were provided for mental health services and sexual assault/relationship violence support in case of any discomfort. Participants were then directed to another link to participate in a raffle to win a notebook computer. All participants were thanked for their participation.

A web-based Campus Climate Survey was developed by an educational consulting company and aimed to identify the prevalence, perceptions of campus policies and reporting, risk factors, and outcomes of sexual assault on campus. The climate survey consisted of 14 sections with a total of 101 questions. For the purposes of this study, only three sections were analyzed:

• Demographics: This section asked background information such as biological sex, race, classification, living arrangements, and enrollment status.
• Alcohol and Drug Use: This section asked participants about their experiences with alcohol and drugs. Drinking or other under the influence at the time of the incident. A Sample item include “since the beginning of this school year, about how often have you consumed alcohol?” Participants responded to the frequency in which they engaged in a behavior from 1=Never, 2=Less than once month/A few times, 3=Once or twice a month, 4=Once or twice a week, and 5= Daily or almost daily.
• Sexual Violence: This section asked questions about the nonconsensual sexual contact which targeted five types of sexual contact (oral sex, touching of a sexual nature, sexual intercourse, anal sex and sexual penetration with a finger or object). Sample items include, “have you experienced sexual contact without your consent since you became a student or just prior to the incident.” In addition, items measured outcomes and barriers of reporting such as “did the incident have a negative impact on the following “( i.e ., schoolwork, social activities, or social relationships). Items were measured using yes/no responses, and multiple response options (i.e., check all that apply).

Study analyses

This study is a descriptive study that captures information involving unwanted sexual experiences of students. Descriptive analyses were conducted to identify participants’ demographics, prevalence rates, risk factors, and barriers to reporting associated with sexual assault and the outcomes of victimizations. Chi-square analysis was done to determine the prevalence rates of sexual assault by gender and classification.

Prevalence of Sexual Assault at an HBCU

Prevalence estimates of sexual assault prior to and since entering college was determined. Past research suggests that experience of sexual assault prior to college is a correlate of sexual assault occurring during college. Of the 264 participants, completing the survey, 174 responded to questions about sexual assault. Of these students, 25.3% (n=44) reported having experienced sexual contact without consent before becoming a college student. 20.6% (n=34) reported experiencing sexual contact without their consent since becoming a student. 17.6% (n=6) reported experiencing completed sexual contact through physical force or threats prior to entering college, 20.6% (n=7) reported after the start of the 2015 academic year and 11.8% (n=4) said both before and since the start of the academic year. 14.3% (n=5) had experienced attempted sexual contact by physical force or threats, 11.4% (n=4) after the start of the academic year and 8.6% (n=3) both before and after the academic year. As shown in Table 1 , women were significantly more likely to report sexual assault compared to men;x 2 (1) =9.47, p<.01. Table 2 shows that upperclassmen were more likely to report being sexually assaulted compared to lowerclassmen; x 2 (1) =3.99, p<.05. Since becoming a student, 20.2% reported experiencing verbal or non-physical coercion and a smaller percentage reported attempted verbal or non-physical coercion (11.4%). Since becoming a student, 6.1% suspected that someone had sexual contact with them when they were unable to provide consent or incapacitated, and 9.1% had experienced someone having sexual contact with then while being unable to provide consent or incapacitated.

Prevalence of sexual assault since becoming a student by gender. 21 students did not report their gender.

x 2 (1) =9.47, p<.01

Prevalence of sexual assault since becoming a student by classification. Lower classmen represent freshman and sophomores. Upperclassmen represent juniors and seniors.

x 2 (1) =3.99, p<.05

Correlates Associated with Sexual Assault

Of the 34 participants who reported experiencing sexual assault since becoming a student, as shown in Figure 1 , 5 participants (15%) had been drinking alcohol just prior to the incident, 3 participants (8%) were drunk, and 7 participants (20%) had been incapacitated and not able to give consent or stop what was happening. Participants were also asked who had the unwanted sexual contact with them. 10.2% said it was a male and 1.1% female. Victims also reported whether the incident involved the other person’s use of alcohol (44.8%) or drugs (83.3%), and their own use of alcohol (20.7%) or drugs (96.7%). From these results, alcohol consumption and drug use are a contributing factor to sexual assault.

Alcohol-invloved correlates associated with sexual assault

Outcomes Associated with Sexual Assault

17.2% of victims reported physical injury after the incident. Many of them faced sexual trauma outcomes presented in Figure 2 . The highest reported was anxiety (70.4%) and the lowest was alcohol or substance use (15.4%). As a result of the incident, victims reported being behind in their schoolwork, performing poorly on assignments, or missing a class. The incident also had a negative impact on their jobs, social activities, and intimate relationships. 22.2% sought medical treatment after the incident, 25.9% sought counseling services and 7.4% sought advocacy services.

Reported outcomes associated with victims of sexual assault.

Barriers of Reporting Sexual Assault

Approximately 22% of the sample reported a lack of knowledge of where to get help regarding sexual assault resources on campus. 24 % did not understand how to report a sexual assault on campus. Victims were asked who they told about the incident of sexual assault as shown in Figure 3 . The majority had told a close friend other than a roommate or no one and were least likely to report to police or campus faculty. Victims were also asked why the chose not to report their assault as presented in Figure 4 . Answers varied from embarrassment, wanting to deal with it on their own, afraid of retaliation, didn’t want the offender to get in trouble, or afraid of not being believed.

Reporting of sexual assault. Percentages are represented by those who reported being sexually assaulted.

Percentages are represented by those who reported being sexually assaulted.

The purpose of the study was to identify prevalence rates, correlates, outcomes, and barriers to reporting sexual assault at an HBCU. Our results suggest that since starting college about 20% of student surveyed experienced sexual contact without consent. This finding is similar to previous research studies examining sexual assault among college students. For example, similar to Krebs et al. (2007) and Sinozich & Langton (2014) 20% of undergraduate women attending a PWI reported experiencing sexual assault since entering college. 9 , 10 Also, consistent with previous research suggesting an association between alcohol use and sexual assault (Abbey, 2002). 15 our findings indicate that alcohol use does play a key role in sexual assault. Alcohol was the leading correlate associated with sexual assault which is consistent with the HBCU-CSA findings suggesting that women who reported getting drunk had higher chances of being victims of incapacitated sexual assault. 19 Another correlate was prior victimization. It is more likely for victims of prior victimization to experience sexual assault later in their lifetime. This is also consistent with findings from the HBCU-CSA study reporting that being a victim of forced sexual assault before college was significantly associated with being a victim of forced sexual assault. 19 Although a few men did report an occurrence of sexual assault, women were more likely to be sexually assaulted than men. Research suggests that there are barriers to reporting sexual assault and victims are more likely to report to friends or roommates. In addition, participants in this study indicated several reasons to not report which are comparable to findings from a study on barriers to reporting sexual assault. 12 , 21 Participant’s reasons for not reporting include but are not limited to embarrassment, did not want family or friends to know, or being afraid of retaliation. Other reasons include lack of knowledge of how or where to report incidents of sexual assault. Victims were more likely to experience safety concerns and anxiety after sexual assault. Also, concerns with trusting the college administration to protect victims and follow the necessary steps of reporting was a barrier.

While not examined in the current study, one theoretical framework that may aid in understanding these findings is the Intersectionality Theory. This theory posits that “people are often disadvantaged by multiple sources of oppression: their race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and other identity markers. Intersectionality recognizes that identity markers (e.g. “female” and “black”) do not exist independently of each other, and that each informs the others, often creating a complex convergence of oppression”. 22 , 23 Thus, the dominant group (e.g., men or campus officials) may be perceived as using power to normalize oppression within marginalized groups (e.g., women). In the case of sexual assault, women may be more likely to experience deleterious outcomes associated with assault, such as anxiety and safety concerns, due in part to not getting the type of support needed to address the assault for fear of not being believed by the current power structures or may not report for the same reasons (e.g., fear of retaliation and not trusting college administration).

Limitations

There are several limitations to this study. Given that this study was only done on one HBCU and the sample size was small, we cannot generalize the findings to other HBCU campuses. The response rate of the survey only represented 4% of the total student population.at the participating university. Also, the majority of participants were seniors which limit a representation of lowerclassman (particularly freshman) who are more likely to be victims of sexual assault. Since this was a self-report survey, we had to assume the accuracy of answers pertaining to sexual history as well as response bias. There was also missing data. This could have resulted from participant’s option to skip questions, discomfort from answering the questions, or accurately recalling sexual history.

CONCLUSIONS

Sexual assault remains a problem on college campuses, especially among women. The significance of this study was to add to the existing body of literature by examining sexual assault at an HBCU. With the exception of the HBCU-CSA study, most past research addressing sexual assault primarily target PWIs, so this study aimed to eliminate that gap by adding to the extant research on sexual assault at HBCU’s. Given that there is limited research on sexual assault in HBCU populations, future research could examine if there are differences among students attending a PWI and HBCU. This could allow researchers to determine if there are racial differences in sexual assault and its impact on students. Additional research should focus on other aspects of sexual assault such as consent and what prevention methods can be implemented to decrease and eventually eliminate sexual assault on college campuses. Addressing sexual consent is an integral part of understanding sexual assault. Within sexual consent, research could examine the role of alcohol in consenting to sexual activity. One key finding of this study was that alcohol was the only factor associated with sexual assault. Interventions should be created to help students reduce alcohol consumption while educating them about the consequences of drinking on their health and mental capacity. The results of this study also indicated the need for interventions to educate students about sexual assault and how to prevent it. Possible interventions could include self-defense courses and workshops that address sexual assault and prevention strategies. According to our study, a close friend other than a roommate was more likely to be told about the assault. Interventions should, therefore, target individuals who are told about incidents of sexual assault. Targeting these individuals may help better assist victims of sexual assault. Assistance could include helping the victim to report, provide them with resources such as counseling, medical examination facilities, or shelter if needed. It is important to make students feel comfortable about reporting to the police or other authority figures. Lastly, observations of university policies on sexual assault may address concerns of reporting. Students should learn as a freshman entering college where and who they can report incidents of sexual assault and be assured they will be treated fairly, attain proper help and safety.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project was supported by the National Institutes of Health NIGMS-BUILD TL4GM1189742.

The authors thank Ms. Tanyka Barber and Ms. Emily Ralph in the Office of Diversity, EEO, Ebele Oranuba and the participants of the study.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Campus Rape Policy

At many schools, the rules intended to protect victims of sexual assault mean students have lost their right to due process—and an accusation of wrongdoing can derail a person’s entire college education.

This is the first story in a three-part series examining how the rules governing sexual-assault adjudication have changed in recent years, and why some of those changes are problematic. Read the second installment here , and the third one here .

Kwadwo “Kojo” Bonsu , 23, was on track to graduate in the spring of 2016 with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Bonsu, who was born in Maryland, is the son of Ghanaian immigrants. He chose UMass because it gave him the opportunity to pursue his two passions, science and music. He told me he hoped to get a doctorate in polymer science or chemical engineering. At UMass he was a member of the National Society of Black Engineers. He also joined a fraternity (he was the only black member), played guitar in a campus jazz band, and tutored jazz guitarists at a local high school.

In the early hours of Saturday, November 1, 2014, Bonsu, then a junior, was at the house where many of his fraternity brothers lived. There he ran into another junior, whom I’ll call R.M., a white female marketing student. According to a written account by R.M., who declined to be interviewed for this story, the two started talking and smoking marijuana; eventually they kissed. As she wrote, “It got more intense until finally I shifted so that I was straddling him.” She told him she wasn’t interested in intercourse and he said he was fine with that.

Then, she wrote, “I started to move my hand down his chest and into his pants.” R.M. interrupted this to take a phone call from a female friend who was also at the house and trying to find her. The call ended and then, R.M. wrote, “I got on my knees and started to give him a blow job.” After a short time, “I removed my mouth but kept going with my hand and realized just how high I was.” She wrote that she felt conflicted because she wanted to stop—she said she told him she was feeling uncomfortable and thought she needed to leave—but that she also felt bad about “working him up and then backing out.” (In Bonsu’s written account, he stated that R.M. said she needed to leave because she was concerned her friend might “barge in” on them.) The encounter continued for a few more minutes, during which, she wrote, he cajoled her to stay—“playfully” grabbing her arm at one point, and drawing her in to kiss—then ended with an exchange of phone numbers. R.M. had not removed any clothing.

R.M. then went down to the kitchen to find her friend. As she explained in her statement, “[My friend] knows I was with Kojo. She probably told all the brothers in the room, and they’re gonna hate me when they find out”—she didn’t explain why. “I can never come back here.” Her friend started teasing her, asking how it had gone. R.M. was a resident adviser in her dormitory—someone tasked with counseling other students—and at that moment, she wrote, “as my RA training kicked in, I realized I’d been sexually assaulted.” She wrote that while in retrospect she should have left if she didn’t want to continue the encounter, she hadn’t wanted to be a bad sport—“that UMass Student Culture dictates that when women become sexually involved with men they owe it to them to follow through.” She added, “I want to fully own my participation in what happened, but at the same time recognize that I felt violated and that I owe it to myself and others to hold him accountable for something I felt in my bones wasn’t right.”

As she talked with her friend, R.M. wrote, she became distraught. She contacted the RAs on duty and reported that she had been sexually assaulted. The RAs called the campus police, who notified the Amherst police. R.M. gave her clothes to a police officer for evidence, although she said she was not ready to file charges. Then she went to the hospital, where she was given a battery of medications for possible STDs.

Just before Thanksgiving, according to a federal lawsuit filed against the university by Bonsu’s attorney, Brett Lampiasi, R.M. went to the dean of students and filed a complaint against Bonsu. She also reported him to the Amherst police. The police investigated and closed the case with no charges filed. On January 12, 2015, Bonsu got an email from a school administrator informing him that a “very serious” allegation had been lodged against him and that until a hearing was held, he was subject to “interim restrictions”: He could not contact R.M., he could visit no dormitories other than his own, he was limited to eating at a single dining hall, and he was forbidden from entering the student union.

The restrictions meant that Bonsu could no longer play with his jazz ensemble at a weekly Sunday brunch. Nor could he attend the meetings of the other organizations he’d joined. He was warned not to talk about the allegation, so he couldn’t explain to his friends why he was suddenly withdrawing from his activities. R.M. soon complained to the school that Bonsu had violated his no-contact order by trying to friend her on Facebook. Bonsu vehemently denied the allegation to administrators. He offered the university full access to his Facebook account and phone records. According to the suit, the university declined the offer. He later sent the records anyway. But in a February 4 letter, Bonsu was told that because of the later allegation, a new set of interim restrictions was being put in place. Effective immediately, Bonsu was banned from all university housing and was allowed on campus only to attend classes. His mother and an uncle drove up from Maryland to help him appeal his restrictions, but were largely unsuccessful.

He reached out to a student group that helps minority and other underrepresented college students, explaining in an email what had happened with R.M., protesting his innocence, and describing his treatment as discriminatory and unlawful. The student who received the email forwarded it to the group’s listserv, adding a note about spreading the news in order to organize a rally on Bonsu’s behalf. This email got back to campus authorities, the lawsuit says, and because Bonsu had used R.M.’s name, he received a new interim restriction: a total ban from campus.

Bonsu’s lawsuit describes the period that followed as one of extreme stress, during which he lost weight, contracted pneumonia, and was forced to drop two courses because the restrictions placed on him precluded him from attending class during his midterm exams. His hearing was on April 2, 2015. By then he was living back home in Maryland, sick a second time with pneumonia and in a state of emotional collapse. His lawyer asked for the hearing to be rescheduled, but the school refused, so it went on without him. He was found not responsible for sexual misconduct. But he was found responsible for using R.M.’s name in the email asking for assistance and for sending her the Facebook friend request.

The university listed Bonsu’s offense as “failure to comply with the direction of university officials.” His punishment: suspension until May 31, 2016—by which time R.M. was expected to graduate—and a permanent ban from living on campus. He was also required to get counseling to address his “decision-making.”

Bonsu decided never to return to UMass. He applied to universities in other states, but was not accepted. He spent a year studying music at a community college, unable to pursue his engineering degree. Eventually he was accepted into the engineering program at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, for the fall semester of 2016, a year and a half after he had left UMass. He is on track to finally graduate from college in the fall of 2018. UMass denied Bonsu’s allegations against it and otherwise declined to comment. Last September, his lawsuit against the university was settled for undisclosed terms.

T he way in which Bonsu’s case was handled may seem perverse, but many of the university’s actions—the interim restrictions, the full-bore investigation and adjudication even though R.M.’s own statement does not describe a sexual assault—were mandated or strongly encouraged by federal rules that govern the handling of sexual-assault allegations on campus today. These rules proliferated during Barack Obama’s administration, as did threats of sanctions if schools didn’t follow them precisely. The impulse behind them was noble and necessary—sexual assault is a scourge that should not be tolerated in any society, much less by institutions of higher learning. But taken in sum, these directives have left a mess of a system, and many unintended consequences.

On too many campuses, a new attitude about due process—and the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty—has taken hold, one that echoes the infamous logic of Edwin Meese, who served in Ronald Reagan’s administration as attorney general, in his argument against the Miranda warning. “The thing is,” Meese said, “you don’t have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That’s contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.”

There is no doubt that until recently, many women’s claims of sexual assault were reflexively and widely disregarded—or that many still are in some quarters. (One need look no further than the many derogatory responses received by the women who came forward last year to accuse then-candidate Donald Trump of sexual violations.) Action to redress that problem was—and is—fully warranted. But many of the remedies that have been pushed on campus in recent years are unjust to men, infantilize women, and ultimately undermine the legitimacy of the fight against sexual violence.

The Trump administration has recently begun to reconsider—and in some cases, roll back—many of the rules and policies made by the Obama administration regarding campus sexual assault. It has encountered immediate skepticism and fierce pushback; given Trump’s own behavior, this reaction is not surprising.

That pushback grew more forceful in July, after Candice Jackson, the new head of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the arm of the Department of Education that governs the adjudication of sexual assault on campus, tossed off some made-up statistics in remarks to The New York Times that were broadly dismissive of assault. Many college administrators have said they will not alter the adjudication policies now enshrined on their campus even if recent federal guidelines are rescinded; capacious campus bureaucracies that were created at the behest of Obama’s OCR are likely to resist change.

The Trump administration has amply demonstrated that its words cannot be taken at face value, and that its policy views, in many cases, are born of ignorance or calculated to inflame. Even so, a reconsideration of the policies surrounding sexual assault on campus, and public debate about them, is necessary.

This article, the first of a three-part series, examines how the rules governing sexual-assault adjudication have changed in recent years, and why some of those changes are problematic. Part II will look at how a new—and inaccurate—science regarding key characteristics of sexual assault has biased adjudications and fostered unhealthy ideas about assault on campus. Part III considers a facet of sexual-assault adjudications that demands considerably more attention than it has received.

On April 4, 2011 , the country’s more than 4,600 institutions of higher education received an unexpected letter from the Obama administration’s Department of Education. It began with the friendly salutation “Dear Colleague,” but its contents were pointed and prescriptive. The letter, and other guidance that followed, laid out a series of steps that all schools would be required to take to correct what the administration described as a collective failure to address sexual assault. Its arrival signaled the start of a campaign to eliminate what Vice President Joe Biden called an epidemic of sexual violence on campus.

The most significant requirement in the “Dear Colleague” letter was the adoption, by all colleges, in all adjudications involving allegations of sexual misconduct, of the lowest possible burden of proof, a “preponderance of evidence”—often described as just over a 50 percent likelihood of guilt. (Many universities were already using this standard, but others favored a “clear and convincing evidence” standard, requiring roughly a 75 percent likelihood of guilt. Criminal courts require proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the highest legal standard for finding guilt.)

Severe restrictions were placed on the ability of the accused to question the account of the accuser, in order to prevent intimidation or trauma. Eventually the administration praised a “single investigator” model, whereby the school appoints a staff member to act as detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury. The letter defined sexual violence requiring university investigation broadly to include “rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, and sexual coercion,” with no definitions provided. It also characterized sexually harassing behavior as “any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” including remarks. Schools were told to investigate any reports of possible sexual misconduct, including those that came from a third party and those in which the alleged victim refused to cooperate. (Paradoxically, they were also told to defer to alleged victims’ wishes, creating no small amount of confusion among administrators.)

In total, the procedures laid out by the letter and subsequent directives triggered the creation of a parallel justice system for sexual assault, all under the aegis of Title IX, the 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination in educational opportunities on the basis of sex. Colleges have traditionally addressed various forms of student misconduct, including sexual misconduct, through a combination of investigation, adjudication, and mediation. But they generally deferred to the criminal-justice system for the most-serious crimes. Today, colleges are required to conduct their own proceeding for every sexual allegation, even if a police investigation or criminal-justice process is under way.

The letter was merely the first of a series of administration reports and actions. In 2013, in a joint finding, the Departments of Education and Justice seemed to further expand the definition of sexually harassing behavior, noting that the standard of whether an “objectively reasonable person” of the same gender would find the actions or remarks offensive was not appropriate in judging whether a violation had occurred. (This contradicted a Supreme Court ruling that sexual harassment in a school setting must be “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive,” and raised civil libertarians’ concerns about freedom of speech.) Some schools have since written codes that make flirtatious comments or sexual jokes punishable.

These and other measures flowed from a genuine—and justified—belief within the administration that college women faced daunting challenges in seeking justice for sexual assault, and that many colleges had not taken sexual assault seriously enough, at times even disregarding allegations. (Of course, men can be victims of sexual violations and women can be perpetrators, and government regulations regarding assault are written to be neutral to gender and sexual orientation. But it is clear that the Obama administration rightly viewed campus assault overwhelmingly as something male students do to female ones.) In a particularly egregious case, Eastern Michigan University did not publicly reveal the 2006 dorm-room sexual assault and murder of one its students, Laura Dickinson, until some 10 weeks after the fact; by then, students could no longer withdraw from school without forfeiting their tuition.

Pressing schools to improve what were sometimes haphazard procedures surrounding sexual-assault allegations; to provide clear rules about what constitutes consent and to publicize those rules on campus; and to encourage students to look out for one another—these were all worthy ends. Biden said regularly that one sexual assault is too many, and that is inarguably true.

Yet from the beginning, the administration’s efforts showed signs of overreach, and that overreach became more pronounced over time. By early 2014, the terminology used by the federal government to describe the two parties in still-unresolved sexual-assault cases had begun to change. The 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter had used the terms complainant (and sometimes alleged victim ) and alleged perpetrator . But many subsequent federal documents described a complainant as a victim or a survivor , and the accused as a perpetrator .

Investigative practices also changed. OCR began keeping a public list of the schools at which it was investigating possible Title IX violations, putting them, in the words of Janet Napolitano, the former secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration and current president of the University of California system, under “a cloud of suspicion.” (OCR does not publish similar lists for other types of investigations that are still in process.) And investigations, including those begun due to a single complaint, did not result in a narrow inquiry into a given case, but into every aspect of a school’s adjudication process and general climate, and a review of all cases going back years. OCR publicly threatened the withdrawal of federal funds from schools that failed to comply with the new rules, an action that would be devastating to most schools. By 2016, according to BuzzFeed , the average investigation had been open for 963 days, up from an average in 2010 of 289 days. As of March of this year there were 311 open cases at 227 schools.

These measures made sexual assault a priority for every college president. But it’s not hard to see how they may also have encouraged bias against the accused. Several former OCR investigators and one current investigator told me the perceived message from Washington was that once an investigation into a school was opened, the investigators in the field offices were not meant to be objective fact finders. Their job was to find schools in violation of Title IX.

OCR also catalyzed the establishment of gigantic and costly campus bureaucracies. Since its beginning, Title IX has required schools to designate an employee to handle sex-discrimination issues. For decades, this was usually a faculty or staff member who had myriad other duties. But in another “Dear Colleague” letter, issued in 2015, OCR urged all institutions of higher education to hire a full-time Title IX coordinator. Large universities were encouraged to appoint multiple coordinators. These people were to be independent of other administrative offices and to report directly to the school’s senior leadership.

Harvard now has 55 Title IX coordinators (though an undisclosed number of them have additional duties). Wellesley College last year announced its first full-time coordinator to oversee sex discrimination on its all-female campus. Ozarks Technical Community College, which has no residential facilities and has had one report of sexual assault since 2013, now has a full-time Title IX coordinator.

Pushed by federal mandates, activists, fears of negative social-media campaigns, bad press, and increasingly the momentum of their own bureaucracies, schools have written codes defining sexual assault in ways that are at times troubling. Some schools recommend or require that for consent to be valid, it must be given while sober, and others rule that consent cannot be given when a student is “under the influence,” vague standards that could cover any amount of alcohol consumption. Some embrace “affirmative consent,” which, at its limit, requires that each touch, each time, be preceded by the explicit, verbal granting of permission. At times, the directives given to students about sex veer squarely into the absurd: A training video on sexual consent for incoming students at Brown University, for instance, included this stipulation, among many others: “Consent is knowing that my partner wants me just as much as I want them.”

As Jeannie Suk Gersen and her husband and Harvard Law School colleague, Jacob Gersen, wrote last year in a California Law Review article, “The Sex Bureaucracy,” the “conduct classified as illegal” on college campuses “has grown substantially, and indeed, it plausibly covers almost all sex students are having today.”

D ue process is the constitutional guarantee of equal treatment under the law and fundamental fairness in legal proceedings. The late Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas wrote in 1967 that it is “the primary and indispensable foundation of individual freedom,” and the high court has ruled that due process requires that laws not be “unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious.” But many campus proceedings seem to fit that description. For example, it is not unusual for a male student to be investigated and adjudicated for sexual assault, yet to never receive specific, written notice of the allegations against him. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil-liberties group, found in a report released on September 5 analyzing due-process procedures at the country’s top-ranked colleges and universities that about half fail to offer this minimal protection.

To ensure the safety of alleged victims of sexual assault, the federal government requires “interim measures”—accommodations that administrators must offer the complainant before any finding of responsibility, including steps to ensure that she never has to encounter the accused, as in the case of Kwadwo Bonsu. Common interim measures include moving the accused from his dormitory, limiting the places he can go on campus, forcing him to change classes, and barring him from activities. On small campuses, this can mean his life is completely circumscribed. Sometimes he is banned from campus altogether while he awaits the results of an investigation.

Interim measures against the accused make sense in some circumstances, depending on the severity of the alleged incident, the apparent strength of the case, and other matters, but they are too often applied bluntly and reflexively. And even if the accused is cleared during an adjudication, schools can issue a standing no-contact order between him and the accuser. In a 2015 article for the Harvard Law Review , Janet Halley, a Harvard law professor, describes a case at an Oregon college in which a male student was investigated and told to stay away from a female student, resulting in the loss of his campus job and a move from his dorm. He didn’t know why he was being investigated, but it turned out he resembled a man who had raped the female student “months before and thousands of miles away.” He was found “innocent of any sexual misconduct,” but the no-contact order was not lifted. “When the duty to prevent a ‘sexually hostile environment’ is interpreted this expansively,” Halley wrote, indifference to the restrained person’s innocence will tend to follow. But “ending or hobbling someone’s access to education should be much harder than that.”

The preponderance-of-evidence standard demanded by OCR requires schools to make life-altering decisions even when there is great doubt. Penn State, for instance, instructs its adjudicators to find the accused guilty if they deem there is a 50.01 percent likelihood that a violation occurred, adding that this means they “may have considerable reservation” about their decision. Last year, the American Association of University Professors called for universities to be able to return to using the “clear and convincing” standard that many had used previously in Title IX cases. This year, the American College of Trial Lawyers similarly called for the standard of proof in Title IX proceedings to be clear and convincing evidence. Groups of professors at Harvard Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School have each released open letters expressing their concern that OCR has undermined due process and justice.

Supporters of the preponderance standard, including Catherine Lhamon, the previous head of OCR, argue that preponderance is the standard that courts say to use in administrative and civil proceedings—and is hence fitting for campus adjudication. OCR guidance emphasizes the difference between a Title IX investigation and a criminal case, noting that the former “will never result in incarceration,” thus “the same procedural protections and legal standards are not required.” And the preponderance-of-evidence standard is held to be appropriate by the Supreme Court in civil litigation involving discrimination. But the Court has also ruled that the clear-and-convincing standard is appropriate for those civil proceedings where “particularly important individual interests or rights are at stake.”

What’s more, even in civil court cases, defendants have myriad protections not typically found in Title IX proceedings, such as receipt of a specific, written complaint; clear rules of evidence; knowledge of the testimony of adverse witnesses; and the rights to discovery, cross-examination, and the calling of expert witnesses. The absence of options and protections such as discovery and cross-examination sometimes works against complainants, too—it’s a bad system. But especially in a context where the standard for finding guilt is so low, it is particularly unjust to the accused. The 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter said that the basic right to question one’s accuser should be severely limited. To accede to OCR’s guidance, some schools ask the accused to assemble a list of questions for the accuser that campus officials can ask on his behalf, at their discretion. A number of young men have asserted in lawsuits that their questions were ignored.

In a 2014 Yale Law & Policy Review article, Janet Napolitano asked, “Should there be any recognition of an accused student’s rights against self-incrimination in the administrative investigation?” The answer has been no in recent years. If the accused declines to answer questions, he can be expelled. But whatever he says in an administrative hearing can be turned over to law-enforcement authorities and used against him in a criminal proceeding.

Geoffrey Stone, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, and its former dean, told me he believes that the integrity of the legal system requires rules designed to prevent innocent people from being punished, and that these same principles should apply on campus. But he is concerned that severe sanctions are being imposed without the necessary protections for the accused. As he wrote in HuffPost , “For a college or university to expel a student for sexual assault is a matter of grave consequence both for the institution and for the student. Such an expulsion will haunt the student for the rest of his days, especially in the world of the Internet. Indeed, it may well destroy his chosen career prospects.”

Stone also wrote that while campus codes of conduct say sexual assault is a Title IX violation, there is a widespread failure to clearly define sexual assault. Jeannie Suk Gersen and Jacob Gersen, in “The Sex Bureaucracy,” for example, document the frequent conflation on campus of the terms nonconsensual sex and unwanted sex, and explain why this is so concerning: “Many people, regardless of gender and sexual orientation, have consensual sex that is unwanted. Sometimes it is partially unwanted, not fully wanted, or both wanted and unwanted at the same time … Ambivalence—simultaneously wanting and not wanting, desire and revulsion—is endemic to human sexuality.”

Sometimes, of course, there is no ambiguity, as when a woman says no, or sends visible, consistent physical signals that she is not consenting to a sexual act. But many schools no longer require women to say or signal no in order for an encounter to be considered nonconsensual. Affirmative-consent rules, particularly when written or interpreted expansively, do that directly; in California, Connecticut, and New York, affirmative-consent codes for college students have been signed into law. So do policies that treat women who have been drinking—but who are not by any objective standard incapacitated—as unable to give consent.

The problem with both types of policies is that they are intrusive and impractical. Couples are especially unlikely to adhere to contract-negotiation-style bedroom interactions (and it is no small intrusion on privacy to require them to do so). The proscription on drinking before sex is certain to be widely ignored; sexually inexperienced students (and even experienced ones) often drink in order to lower their inhibitions. And yet ignoring these rules puts men in great jeopardy should their partner later reconsider what seemed to have been a consensual encounter.

In the world outside campus, people who are merely intoxicated, not incapacitated, can legally consent to sex, even if they make poor or regrettable decisions. In many states, sex with an incapacitated partner is a crime when the accused knows, or reasonably should know, about the incapacity and intends to act without consent. Recently, some schools have adopted clearer standards for incapacitation, including the requirement that the accused should reasonably know about the incapacity in order for consent to be invalidated. But on many campuses, no such knowledge or intent is required for an adjudication to determine that a violation has occurred.

A central tenet of advocates seeking greater accountability for sexual assault is that the complainant is virtually always the one telling the truth. As a 2014 White House report, “Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action,” stated, “Only 2–10 percent of reported rapes are false.” Campus materials aimed at students make similar assertions.

But as Michelle J. Anderson, the president of Brooklyn College and a scholar of rape law, acknowledged in a 2004 paper in the Boston University Law Review , “There is no good empirical data on false rape complaints either historically or currently.” The data have not improved since that time. In a 2015 working paper, Lieutenant Colonel Reggie Yager, a U.S. Air Force judge advocate who has defended men accused of sexual assault, took a comprehensive look at the research on the incidence of false rape reports, and concluded that the studies confirming the overwhelming veracity of accusers are methodologically unsound.

For instance, consider Yager’s analysis of a 2010 study titled “False Allegations of Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Ten Years of Reported Cases.” The study is one of the few to examine false reports with specific reference to campus allegations, and is frequently cited by government officials and activists. David Lisak, a former associate professor of psychology at UMass Boston and a prominent consultant on campus sexual assault, is the lead author; when he and his co-authors reviewed the reports of sexual assault at one northeastern university to determine what percentage were false, they concluded that the figure was not quite 6 percent. “Over 90 percent of reports of rape are not fabrications. They’re not false allegations,” he said in a videotaped interview describing the research.

Yager writes, however, that about 45 percent of the cases Lisak reviewed did not proceed, because there was insufficient evidence, or the complainant withdrew from the process or couldn’t identify the perpetrator, or the allegation did not rise to the level of a sexual assault. In other words, no one could possibly determine whether these claims were true or false.

“Policy is being driven,” Yager wrote in his analysis, by the idea “that false allegations are exceedingly rare.” But we simply don’t know how rare they are. What’s more, no legal or moral system purporting to be just can make presumptions about individual cases based on statistics. For many years, feminist activists have said that the legal system and culture tend to prejudge assault claims, with an inclination toward believing men over women, accused over accuser. They have rightly pointed out the deep injustice of that bias. But it is also unjust to be biased against the accused.

A troubling paradox within the activist community, and increasingly among administrators, is the belief that while women who make a complaint should be given the strong benefit of the doubt, women who deny they were assaulted should not necessarily be believed. The rules at many schools, created in response to federal directives, require employees (except those covered by confidentiality protections, such as health-care providers) to report to the Title IX office any instance of possible sexual assault or harassment of which they become aware. One result is that offhand remarks, rumors, and the inferences drawn by observers of ambiguous interactions can trigger investigations; sometimes these are not halted even when the alleged victim denies that an assault occurred.

A recent case at the University of Southern California that resulted in the expulsion of Matt Boermeester, 23, the kicker for the school’s football team, illustrates this. In January of this year, one neighbor thought he saw Boermeester hurting his girlfriend of more than a year, Zoe Katz, 22, a top USC tennis player. The neighbor, also a USC student, told another USC student, who told his father, a USC tennis coach. The coach was a mandatory reporter, and he told the Title IX office. A months-long investigation was launched, Boermeester was put on immediate suspension, and a no-contact order was placed on the couple (which they ignored when off-campus). Eventually USC found Boermeester responsible for violating the school’s student code of conduct, which prohibits intimate-partner violence, as well as for violating the no-contact order. He was expelled.

In a statement issued to the Los Angeles Times through a lawyer, Katz said that on the night in question the two were playing around and that nothing untoward happened. She wrote that Boermeester “has been falsely accused of conduct involving me” and that he “did nothing improper against me, ever. I would not stand for it. Nor will I stand for watching him be maligned and lied about.” She said the investigation went on despite her adamant objection; that Title IX administrators treated her in a “dismissive and demeaning” way and told her she was a “battered” woman; and that during “repeated interrogations,” her words were “misrepresented, misquoted and taken out of context.” Boermeester recently filed suit against the school seeking to have his expulsion overturned. In papers filed in response to the suit, USC has said that it stands by its investigation and has asked the court to deny Boermeester relief, citing the completeness of the university’s investigation and the due process afforded him during the school’s administrative proceeding. The school wrote that Katz “initially confirmed” the version of events supplied by the neighbor and other witnesses, that she asked for the no-contact order, and that she texted that she was worried Boermeester would find out she had spoken with the Title IX investigator. USC said her “attempts to protect Petitioner were consistent with a recognized pattern of recanting in intimate partner violence that may be motivated by love or fear of reprisal.” Katz called the university’s statements “ludicrous,” again denying its allegations, and noted that she and Boermeester are still dating.

There are no national data that let us know the prevalence of third-party reports, but they appear to be a significant source of allegations. The University of Michigan’s most recent “Student Sexual Misconduct Annual Report” says that the school’s Office for Institutional Equity “often receives complaints about incidents from third parties.” Yale releases a semiannual report of all possible sexual-assault and harassment complaints. Its report for the latter half of 2015 included a new category: third-party reports in which the alleged victim, after being contacted by the Title IX office, refused to cooperate. These cases made up more than 30 percent of all undergraduate assault allegations.

Mark Hathaway, a California attorney who has dealt with several no-complainant complaints, says that the zeal with which these complaints are sometimes handled can be wounding psychologically to both the accused and his partner. Hathaway represented a young man who was in bed with his girlfriend in her dorm room. They were fooling around but not having intercourse. In the next bed was the girlfriend’s roommate and a male student. They thought that the girlfriend had had too much to drink to be able to consent to sexual activity. They mentioned their concern to a resident adviser, who was obligated to report it to the Title IX office, which then opened an investigation. “The girl says nothing happened; it was all consensual,” Hathaway told me. “But the school still goes forward.”

Because the school considered her a witness, the girlfriend was compelled to answer questions; had she refused to cooperate, she could have been disciplined. (If she had been the complainant, she would have had the right to decline.) Hathaway told me she “was in tears because she was required to explain to total strangers intimate sexual details.” The school concluded, despite her statements to the contrary, that she couldn’t have consented to the sexual encounter, and suspended her boyfriend for a semester. He was also required to attend eight sessions with a therapist on the topic of alcohol and sexual relationships.

While police and prosecutors, after evaluating an on-campus or off-campus complaint, can make a discretionary decision about whether to pursue further action, OCR guidance makes clear that school administrators are not supposed to render such judgment. In response to any complaint, including those by third parties, they are supposed to investigate. Hathaway says of campus administrators, “There is a machine that needs to be fed, and they are part of the machine.”

University administrators are in an unenviable place today. Students arriving on campus are, by many measures, less socially developed than were those of previous generations. They have dated less and spent less time hanging out with one another without adults present. They also have less experience with alcohol, but suddenly encounter an environment in which binge drinking is a norm. Without a doubt, these characteristics make many students particularly vulnerable to assault. They also create an environment in which sexual experimentation followed by shame or regret is common, as is poor communication by both parties.

Candice Jackson may have intended to say something like this in July. If so, she bungled and dramatically overstated her point, and had to apologize for being flippant. (“Ninety percent” of sexual-assault claims, she had said, were the result of drunken hookups and bad breakups, reported later as sexual assaults.) But the actions she has taken or publicly considered taking so far—she has scaled back investigations to initially  consider only the complaint that was actually made; she has indicated  that she may cease to publicly list the universities under Title IX investigation—are sensible. OCR is considering other measures, some of which may be announced as soon as September 7, in a speech on Title IX by Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education. Any reforms OCR eventually makes should receive a fair public hearing.

It’s likely they will not. Since Trump’s election, many college presidents and administrators have promised that they will not willingly change policies they now have in place. The president of California State University at Northridge, Dianne Harrison, wrote in an op-ed in February that she hoped DeVos would uphold the 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter and added, “This is not something from which we or any campus should retreat, no matter what the U.S. Department of Education under the new administration may propose.”

Harrison won’t have to retreat on preponderance. That standard is already part of a California law governing campus adjudications; preponderance is also a requirement under an Illinois law soon to go into effect. Prescient activists, fearing that federal guidance might be overturned, have already begun lobbying state legislatures to enshrine as law much of the Obama administration’s Title IX sexual-assault guidance—California and Massachusetts are considering such bills.

And while some college administrators express concern about due process, that concern does not always appear to be top of mind, even though lawsuits are piling up. Some 170 suits about unfair treatment have been filed by accused students over the past several years. As K. C. Johnson, the co-author, with Stuart Taylor Jr., of the recent book The Campus Rape Frenzy , notes, at least 60 have so far resulted in findings favorable to them. The National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, one of the country’s largest higher-education law firms and consulting practices specializing in Title IX, recently released a white paper, “Due Process and the Sex Police.” It noted that higher-education institutions are “losing case after case in federal court on what should be very basic due process protections. Never before have colleges been losing more cases than they are winning, but that is the trend as we write this.” The paper warned that at some colleges, “overzealousness to impose sexual correctness”—including the idea that anything less than “utopian” sex is punishable—“is causing a backlash that is going to set back the entire consent movement.” Even so, in a February op-ed, Carol Quillen, the president of Davidson College, wrote that while “criminal justice is founded on due process and the possibility of innocence,” ideals she valued, these goals were inherently in conflict with other important goals. “Nothing about due process says to a rape survivor, ‘I believe you,’” she wrote.

Over the past several years of reporting and writing on this subject, the people I’ve spoken with who deal closely with campus sexual assault—school administrators, lawyers, higher-education-policy consultants, even investigators for the Office for Civil Rights—do not typically describe campuses filled with sociopathic predators. They mostly paint a picture of students, many of them freshmen, who begin a late-night consensual sexual encounter, well lubricated by alcohol, and end up with divergent views of what happened.

Lee Burdette Williams, who from 2009 to 2014 was the vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Wheaton College, in Massachusetts, and before that was the dean of students at the University of Connecticut, spent some of her final years in academia overseeing such tricky cases. She told me that sexual assaults do, of course, happen, that allegations must always be handled seriously and with great care, and that she herself oversaw the expulsion of students who were found to be violators. But she also said that many of the cases she dealt with—especially recently—involved a female student who’d had a sexual encounter that had left her unsettled but that did not fit the definition of a crime.

She told me that one reason so many cases involved first-year students was that these students were particularly “inexperienced and clueless about how to talk to each other about sex.” Many of them didn’t know what they wanted or didn’t want, and many of them experimented, then later felt embarrassed or maltreated. Parsing allegations, considering intent, holding violators accountable, providing guidance and counseling to one or both parties when no violation could be established—these are crucial duties of administrators, and they require judgment and discretion. Williams came to believe that in recent years, this discretion—and the duty to dispassionately weigh the rights of both parties in an assault allegation—has been harmfully eroded. In 2014, she left her career to become a higher-education consultant and writer. She wrote a farewell essay in Inside Higher Education , stating that while she used to think of herself as “Dean of All Students,” her job had become “Dean of Sexual Assault.”

At its worst, Title IX is now a cudgel with which the government and school administrators enforce sex rules too bluntly, and in ways that invite abuse. That’s an uncomfortable statement. It does not cancel or diminish other uncomfortable statements: Women (and men) are assaulted on campus, those assaults can be devastating, and the victims do not always receive justice when they come forward. But we have arrived at a point at which schools investigate, adjudicate, and punish the kind of murky, ambiguous sexual encounters that trained law-enforcement officials are unable to sort out—and also at a point at which the definition of sexual misconduct on many campuses has expanded beyond reason.

Institutions of higher education must protect their students from crimes and physical harm. They should also model for their students how an open society functions, and how necessary it is to protect the civil liberties of everyone.