Dorothy Rabinowitz

About the author: Dorothy Rabinowitz is a member of the Wall Street Journal's editorial board and contributes articles to the paper's editorial page, from which this viewpoint was chosen. In 2001, she won the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary for her articles on American culture and society.

A male college student is charged by a woman he briefly dated with having committed an act of unwanted sex. The college's investigation of the accusation is flawed from the outset, and an impartial hearing board returns a conviction, suspending the accused for three months and branding him a rapist in the eyes of his peers. This episode demonstrates how those accused of sexual misconduct rarely receive a fair hearing in university justice systems—the accuser's credibility is not questioned, and there are no judges asking if administrators...