In the Wall Street Journal (ever notice how the Journal’s op-ed page is so much more interesting than the Times’?), Peter McGurn argues that many of the sexual scandals occurring on college campuses are due to the replacement of moral authority with legal trepidation.

Today deans have given way to lawyers. The consequence has been endless gestures to raise “awareness,” constant upgrading of procedures, and the proliferation of committees—all designed primarily to limit the institution’s civil liability.

There’s something to this, but it’s not the fault of the colleges. As McGurn himself points out,

….the students have picked up on the signals and the potential liability. Gone are the days when a loutish student might be called into the dean’s office, threatened with suspension, and find himself saying “I’m sorry.” Now when students go in for meetings, they have the family attorney in tow.

The flip side of this, however, is that college disciplinary methods haven’t always been fair, as the Brown student kicked out after being allegedly falsely accused of rape can testify. (And apparently will.)

McGurn’s solution:

For example: How much formal ethics training do you need to know that you don’t secretly film someone in a private moment? Do you need a new committee to determine if women are being denied equal education at a school that has a female-majority student body? Instead of taking direction from lawyers, shouldn’t our college authorities decide the right thing to do—and then instruct the lawyers to make that work?

As with Caitlin Flanagan’s article yesterday, the evidence doesn’t support the conclusion. For one thing, the argument rests upon a stereotype of lawyers as people who get in the way of authentic problem-solving. Of course that’s the case sometimes, but plenty of lawyers, especially the good ones, offer useful and sage counsel. Moreover, one can’t simply “instruct the lawyers” to make a policy viable. One generally has to ask them if it’s legal—or, perhaps, vulnerable to a legal challenge.

Not being the op-ed writer, I don’t have to come up with a conclusion, except to say that colleges are a reflection of our culture but with a lot more young people. In that sense, they are both optimistic and immature places, as Yale is now being reminded.