Brown University, one of the leading schools that purports to educate our future leaders, recently declared that consensual sexual encounters between students are impermissible under university rules unless both parties consent.

Fair enough, but here’s the rub. A training video discussing sexual consent for incoming students defines the operative word as follows: “Consent is knowing my partner wants me just as much as I want them.”

Two of my former colleagues at Harvard Law School, the wife-husband team of professors Jeannie Suk and Jacob Gersen, are quoted in an excellent article in The Atlantic by Emily Yoffe as concluding that the impossible consent rules, such as the one at Brown, “plausibly cover… almost all sex students are having today.”

That is why so many of my friends are urging their college-age sons to refrain from having any sex on or off campus with college-age women, who have been empowered by “the Sex Bureaucracy” to destroy the lives, education, and careers of any male student with whom they had an imperfect sexual experience.

“Next-morning regret” is a common phenomenon, especially in the current hookup culture facilitated by Tinder and fueled by alcohol. 

The current criteria for what constitutes “consent” has turned “no means no” on its head. Even if a woman says “yes,” the rule is now that “assent does not constitute consent” if the woman is under the influence of alcohol. But many college-age students want to have sex while under the influence of alcohol. Some need alcohol to free themselves for sex. Nearly all have some alcohol. 

The role of alcohol in sex at college is ironic at best. The use of alcohol — by men or women under the age of 21 — is illegal. It’s a crime to serve alcohol to a minor, and a minor for purposes of alcohol is 21. But for purposes of consenting to sex, it’s between 16 and 18, depending on the state. It’s never 21.

If universities were to enforce the law regarding liquor and minors, the problem of campus sexual assault would be reduced considerably. But universities turn a blind eye to underage drinking. If universities were to spend one-tenth of the resources they now spend on micromanaging sexual relations on enforcing the liquor laws, they wouldn’t need the army of bureaucrats they employ to assure that every student who engages in sex “wants” it “just as much” as their partner does.

Among the worst aspects of current university policies toward sex is the gender discrimination implicit, sometime explicit, in the enforcement of these gender-neutral rules. Taken literally, the “wants [it] just as much” rule is equally applicable to women and men, as is the “assent is not consent” rule. But in practice, these rules are applied only to men. If a woman were to persuade her tired male partner to have a second round of sex — if the man reluctantly says “alright, if that’s what you want” — she would be guilty of unconsented sexual assault. But I am aware of no such case.

What I am aware of are many, many cases where the man and woman are both under the influence of alcohol when the sex occurs. Invariably, the man is accused, not the woman, even if the woman initiated the sex. In several such cases, the woman administered oral sex to the man while they were both under the influence. Yet only the man was charged with having unconsented sex with the woman who gave him the blowjob. This is the topsy-turvy world of sexual politics and bureaucracy on campuses today.

And believe it or not, it’s all about money. Many university administrators hate these rules and policies. But if they try to change them to make them fairer to their accused male students, they risk losing federal funding — which would be the death knell of many universities. They go along to get along.

This extortion by the federal government was the brainchild of the Obama administration, which mandated — as a condition of obtaining federal aid — that every university adopt the lowest possible standard of proof in determining when an accused man is guilty. This standard — a mere preponderance of the evidence, which translates into a 50.1 percent likelihood that the accused did it — is far lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard constitutionally required in all criminal cases, or even the “clear and convincing evidence” standard required in non-criminal cases, such as deportation and commitment to a mental hospital.

A 50.1 percent probability means that for every 100 people found guilty, more than 49 of them may be innocent. When you couple this with the lack of due process in campus sex cases — no confrontation of witnesses, no discovery of exculpatory evidence, a strong presumption that the alleged victim is telling the truth, often no lawyer for the accused, and no appeal — the likelihood is that the majority of students who are convicted are in fact innocent.

This should not be surprising, since so many of the cases involve grey-area, rather than black-and-white, situations. Memories are blurred by alcohol, regret, pressure from activists, and sometimes revenge for a relationship gone sour.

To be sure, there are some unambiguous rapes on campuses, and they should be prosecuted vigorously. But they should not be prosecuted by campus bureaucrats who have a heavy thumb on the scales of injustice. All such cases, like cases of non-sexual assault, should be investigated by professional prosecutors and tried in courts of law.

The federal government should get out of the business of telling universities how to deal with accusations of sexual assault. Universities should get out of the business of prosecuting sexual assault. Recent history proves they are terrible at it.