The issue of campus sexual assault has received a great deal of attention in the media in recent months. This is warranted. There is a real problem on college and university campuses, and it is a problem that must be taken seriously. Rape and other forms of sexual violence and sexual assault are intolerable whenever and wherever they occur.

Some people say that, because such actions are crimes, colleges and universities should not attempt to adjudicate the issues, but should simply turn these cases over to the criminal justice system. I do not agree. Colleges and universities have an independent responsibility to keep their students safe and to ensure that they can live and learn in an environment free from sexual violence.

But the concern with campus sexual assault has begun to take on the characteristics of a panic in which government officials and school administrators have increasingly lost sight of other fundamental values that must shape the culture of institutions of higher learning.

In this post, I will address two issues that have caused me particular concern and about which I want to sound a bit of an alarm. The first concerns issues of substance, the second concerns issues of process.

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