Colleges' crackdown on sex assaults provokes questions of fairness

Article here. Excerpt:

'It was nearly midnight on a crisp Friday in December, the week before finals, when a young man walked a young woman home to her dorm in St. Paul.

The pair, both students at the University of St. Thomas, had started flirting at a campus party where the alcohol was flowing freely. After several drinks, they made their way to a dorm lounge, where a security camera kept watch. Then they retreated to the most private of spaces — a small bathroom.

What happened there would haunt them both, and draw St. Thomas into a legal battle and a divisive national debate over the role of colleges in policing accusations of sexual violence.

This spring, the young man, identified only as “John Doe,” sued the university, saying he was suspended for sexual assault without a fair hearing or even a lawyer to present his side of the story. It’s one of a flood of lawsuits across the country asserting that colleges are trampling the rights of the accused in a rush to crack down on campus rape.

St. Thomas denies any wrongdoing. But increasingly, colleges and universities are finding themselves in the awkward position of trying to ferret out what really happened between students behind closed doors, often in alcohol-fueled encounters. And the stakes for getting it wrong have never been higher.'