Higher education doesn’t have a good record on this subject. Why does this issue keep coming up?

Richard Perez-Pina of the New York Times reports.

Students File Complaints on Sexual Assaults at Columbia University

Pressure on Columbia University to overhaul its approach to sexual assault and harassment reached a new pitch on Thursday, when a group of students filed complaints with the federal government, charging systematic mishandling of assault claims and mistreatment of victims.

Twenty-three students signed on to three separate complaints, each alleging violations of a different federal law, against Columbia and the affiliated Barnard College, which were filed with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Such complaints have become more common in the last three years, since the department adopted a stricter view of colleges’ legal obligations, and warned that many of them were in violation.

Among other allegations, the Columbia students say administrators tell those who file assault claims that they must not discuss their cases outside the confines of the campus disciplinary process, though similar practices at other schools have run afoul of federal regulators, and victim advocates call them blatantly illegal.