How schools could better handle campus rape cases

In The New York Times this weekend, Jed Rubenfeld crafted a breakdown of how cases of rape on college campuses are being mishandled:

Our strategy for dealing with rape on college campuses has failed abysmally. Female students are raped in appalling numbers, and their rapists almost invariably go free. Forced by the federal government, colleges have now gotten into the business of conducting rape trials, but they are not competent to handle this job. They are simultaneously failing to punish rapists adequately and branding students sexual assailants when no sexual assault occurred.

Handling campus sexual assault is becoming more complicated with lower evidentiary standards, broader definitions of rape and trials presided over by professors with little or no legal experience. Rubenfeld explains that in order to improve students' safety we need to start thinking more realistically about alcohol consumption on college campuses, return to the legal definition of sexual assault and encourage better collaboration between law enforcement and the college hearing process.