Ms. Hutson’s account shows what happens when amateurs attempt to invent a criminal justice system in place of the real criminal justice system: a rapist gets off scot-free, and may go on to rape again somewhere else. The real system has real penalties (many years’ imprisonment) for the guilty, and real safeguards for the innocent accused. The amateur system can, at most, expel the perpetrator, trivializing the crime of rape by imposing the same penalty as for cheating on an exam.

The purpose of the “Title IX” system is not to punish rape, which it cannot do. It is to avoid the bad publicity of a Washington University student or former student on trial for rape in the criminal courts. University administrators fear one thing only, bad publicity.

If the Wash. U. administration wanted to prevent rape, it would ban alcohol from all University-owned residences, and not obstruct the enforcement of the drinking-age laws.