Introduction: institutional failure

This book examines crime, deviance, injustice, prejudice, discrimination and victimization in educational institutions but largely in colleges and universities.¹ It details two, at times, related elements: ‘excesses’ in mostly elite male student societies; and sexual abuse particularly against female students (Schwartz and Dekeseredy, 1999). But importantly, the focus on ‘deviance and crime on campus’ has to be placed in the context of, at times, serious institutional failure; and that, in turn, is amplified by a wider system failure regarding policing, prosecutions and the judiciary. Indeed, underpinning that dual institutional failure are deeply rooted historical and societal assumptions leading to the tolerance of elite student excess, as well as engrained societal prejudices regarding sexual violence in general but held against women in particular. These assumptions are continually employed to mitigate the conduct of males accused of being serious or even serial offenders. Then ‘excess’ in the colleges is often tolerated in specific institutional and social contexts as on certain occasions and with high alcohol and drug use. Clearly this has become defined as having a ‘good time’ yet it brings with it an inherent element of risk, aggression, injury and even arrest. In the past this was associated with working-class groups but now that culture is also often present in colleges and universities where in a liminal period in their lives young people are in an environment with a high level of personal freedom and without the limitations of parental control or the constraints of a full-time occupation. But of particular interest here is when that ebullient student life and having a good time go well ‘over the edge’ (Lyng, 2004). This concept relates to where and when people push the boundary of risk and expose them themselves to ‘dirty’ zones, risky deviance and even danger, which provides excitement, bestows status within the group and which can be rationalized. This relates to high-risk intimidation, bullying, discrimination and forms of sexual and gender-related abuse, with psychological and/or physical harm. This can have serious consequences if it results in victims who then can meet denial and deflection as well as blame and even social expulsion; and this grave injustice is a theme permeating this work. For many clearly criminal offences in this area are never defined and pursued as such. Then if we take the view that not only is the university the culprit but also that it has failed its student victims, then we have to realize that this also includes some of the most prestigious institutions in our societies (Fisher and Sloan, 2007).

Gender is vitally important here, with a strong focus on prejudice, discrimination and offences primarily regarding female students as victims. Clearly, the concept of gender as intrinsically binary has altered in recent decades, with the categorizing expanding into diverse identities: the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual as well as non-binary and pansexual (LGBTIQA+) categories. This indicates that gender identity has become fluid. Moreover, in the symbolic interactionist perspective we are all viewed as actors – with, say, a primary identity as White male – but who continually adapt to differing situations and adjust to various contexts and audiences in secondary roles, often without thinking about it (Blumer, 1969). Kanter’s (1977) pioneering work on women in management, for instance, conveyed that there were different personas and styles that the women, chameleon like, adopted in order to cope in shifting settings within the then predominantly male environments. Here my attention is primarily on female victims and on student–student and some student–non-student cases – thus not on staff–staff or staff–student incidents. I make an exception where university staff and sports officials were involved with regard to the Dr Nassar gymnastics scandal involving Michigan State University (MSU) and US Gymnastics. That choice on victims is also because several cases with female victims have attracted wide attention and also some impressive publications, which illuminated the most salient features of such deviant practices, some clearly criminal encounters and institutional failures within academia, and also because male–female student cases form the majority of reported cases.

Alongside the centrally important gender issue there is, within the context of educational institutions behaving poorly, the key factor of the organization – be it a renowned school, an esteemed college or a distinguished university – being at times a significant ‘offender’. Moreover, the term ‘deviance’ is always relative to the specific and situational conduct, audience and participants with regard to defining behaviour, speech and publications as ‘deviant’ (Downes and Rock, 2011). For example, the college or university could be located in a city or ‘college town’ where the university was and is a prominent or even dominant presence with considerable advantages including social and economic ones. Oxford and Cambridge, for instance, are busy during the academic terms but remain also highly active during the entire year, with all sorts of lucrative courses and activities, and – like some major universities in the United States (US) – they attract high-tech firms, commercial enterprises and medical expertise. Then in the Netherlands, Fennema (2015, pp 62–3) writes of his corps at the University of Utrecht in the mid-1960s almost taking over the city for several days on a special occasion. The ‘old boys’ marched from the station for the formal opening in the city’s prominent cathedral – exclusively open for the corps – and with theatre productions, music with performers from abroad, sports in the city’s football [‘soccer’ in the US] stadium, yachts on the river and a final grand gala-ball. For diverse reasons that major presence of the corps in Dutch cities evaporated rapidly in the late 1960s.

In the US there is a much wider scale of local environments for universities and colleges throughout the 50 states, with some strongly reflecting the conventional and conservative values of the wider community. Some may be progressive and liberal institutions but as an ‘academic archipelago’ or ‘bohemian island’ they are marooned in highly conventional or deeply conservative environments (Gumbrecht, 2008).² In the US there is also the dominant commercial and reputational interest of sport in college towns. This makes the institution and its environment of importance in defining deviance and dealing with it; in tolerance limits for excess; in putting self-interest before control; and in promoting justice or injustice. For in the three main societies under consideration in this book, the presence of an academic institute or institutes – school, college or university – will doubtless impact on city governance and even law enforcement, with a certain latitude and tolerance for the escapades and antics of students that might not be accepted elsewhere.

Informing that perspective and this book is that much of my work has been focused on organizational deviance and crime regarding corporate crime, police corruption and state crime (Punch, 1996, 2009, 2012). Also early on I was influenced by the work on deviancy by several pioneers – including Goffman (1961), Becker (1963), and later by Downes and Rock (1982) – who all generally focused on labelling and on ‘outsiders’ low down the social scale. Others did examine deviance in corporations among research on ‘white-collar’ criminals (Clinard and Yeager, 1980). Later there was a broader orientation in the field to deviance in organizations and systems where the deviance is collective and systemic and is promoted and rewarded by the organization so that the institutional setting generates the opportunity, means and motive (Braithwaite, 1984; Ermann and Lundman, 1996). For example, attention has spread in recent decades to faith-related institutions, charities, entertainment, sport, media, non-governmental organizations and politics, and attending to gender-based discrimination and crimes in a range of institutional settings (to be discussed later). In fact, it is notable that a fair number of US universities that have been exposed in recent decades regarding excess or sexual abuse were, or still are, faith based. That has also been the case within other religious-based institutions for the young across societies, with some appalling abuse, exploitation and neglect being exposed in the media and court cases in recent decades (The Guardian, 2021, 2 September).

However, ‘crime in the colleges’ – which can take diverse forms – has not had the attention it deserves in relation to other areas (Fisher and Sloan, 2007). This is despite the fact that there have been periodic scandals in universities that have typically been related to plagiarism, intellectual property theft, the embezzlement of research funds and expenses, intimidation, nepotism and vandalism, and recently in the US to serious fraudulent practices regarding recruitment and admissions (BBC News, 2019, 15 March). Here my concern is with two specific topics in the broader context of institutional weakness or failure. One is when excess goes ‘over the edge’ with serious consequences; and the other is with the sexual ‘abuse’ (here a general term qualified later) of female students primarily by fellow male students in those elite or other student societies. Other groups can also face forms of discrimination and harassment so to an extent the issue is ‘otherness’, with dominant groups defining certain fellow students as different and inferior and which can lead to ostracizing or preying on them. This could be foreign, overly studious or ethnically different students or those from ‘provincial’ or limited-resource backgrounds; gender is often central, with transgender students attracting the most severe discrimination according to one US study by the Association of American Universities (AAU, 2015). This leads me to scanning the material on forms of abuse and discrimination against women in a wider context and in relation to some societal responses as well as to the shifting definitions of certain offences as ‘criminal’. This also means examining those student institutions as a context and facilitator for deviance and crime; and also the university and some of its staff as offenders or as co-offenders in governance, control and care areas through ignorance, malice, incompetence, neglect or complicity.

My interest as a sociologist-criminologist in the two particular topics of student excess and sexual abuse, and mostly in tertiary education, draws on the broader context of organizational deviance in other institutions in diverse societies with varying forms of discrimination, abuse and sexual harassment. A major theme across those topics was the institutional abuse of power, deep injustice and great harm at times with many victims, and the injustice was especially when people and institutions evaded accountability. A particular element, furthermore, was that those endeavouring to expose deviance in certain institutions could meet persistent and malicious opposition (Gobert and Punch, 2000). However, critical scrutiny has been turned on patterns of serious student deviance within universities in the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Australia and Belgium. The issues raised were typically related to initiations, enforced conformity, heavy drinking, destruction of property, violence/intimidation, discrimination, injuries and occasional fatalities – and often with misogyny and with sexual abuse within the institution, corps, elite club or fraternity (The Washington Post, 2015, 30 January; Robbins, 2020). Those revelations in that particular area were clearly accentuated by the #MeToo movement in the US and elsewhere along with publicity about abuse and harassment in diverse other institutions and corporations (Guerra, 2017; Carlsons, 2018; Fowler, 2020).

My interest was further stimulated by colleagues in the US but especially in the UK as I have long been involved in the criminal justice area and in recent years as visiting faculty primarily at the London School of Economics (LSE) and for a period at King’s College London (KCL) and Essex University. These were, and are, enlightened places and with the LSE having a long history of social commitment while also opening the institution to women from 1895 when founded by Fabian socialists, including the feminist Beatrice Webb. Also my London colleagues researched, taught and published with strong engagement, which was also true of the wider, UK network in criminal justice. Then compared with my early university years dominated by men – ‘boring White males’ to some – there were many women along with LGBT and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff and students. That there were significant numbers with a LGBT or other orientation was viewed as an enrichment of the academic enterprise. Some had made major contributions to our field in relation to gender in queer, trans and sexuality studies and within areas of criminal justice. The dominant culture at both London establishments and in the wider UK criminological community was, then, of a commitment to race and gender issues. This was doubtless not representative of some other universities, colleges, faculties and disciplines elsewhere in the UK or in other societies.

Here I employ a variety of published and openly available sources, including Dutch material that is mostly not accessible to non-Dutch scholars. I have not conducted formal interviewing or mined archival research outside of published or digital sources, but I have discussed the project informally with colleagues in several countries. In the text I am restrained about certain expressions regarding sexual offences – these can be found in the original material – while not using the names of those students suspected of, or convicted of, sexual offences. Some female victim-survivors cited have written about their experiences – at times impressively and influentially – but for obvious reasons the offenders or suspected offenders do not usually do so. On sources for these two partly interlinked areas and the wider system weakness or failure, there is in the UK, the US and the Netherlands a mass of historical and contemporary material with a fair amount on elite student societies/fraternities. There is also solid material on sexual abuse in universities from several decades but which as a subject has come into particular prominence in recent years especially due to the #MeToo movement (Anitha and Lewis, 2018). And that in turn is linked to academic work on wider discrimination and prejudice in society with regard to gender.

For example, I draw on Anita Hill’s (1998) account of testifying before a US Senate Committee (1991–92) regarding an appointment to the Supreme Court as it is an early and impressive effort on illuminating discrimination in the workplace against women, and Black women, in American society. Anita was not a student and this was not in a university – later she enjoyed an impressive academic career – but her account forms a pioneering forerunner of the #MeToo movement. This makes it highly relevant today as the extent of sexual abuse and violence against women, but also others, remains disturbingly high. And for students and those new to this area I expand on certain cases that illustrate the wider incidence of discrimination and abuse. That discrimination and abuse of women in academia, including in our most elite establishments, is a matter of urgent concern and especially when the young female victim is poorly treated by university officials but the offenders get away with it or get off lightly. In contrast, the female victim – or other victims – may suffer long if not lasting harm. That is profoundly unjust and forms a blemish not only on higher education but also on our societies. In a wider perspective, all organizations and institutions are potential arenas for deviance (Johnson and Douglas, 1978; Ermann and Lundman, 1996). And in the face of exposure, scandal, complaints and legal suits, some display no conscience, selective recall, the misplacing of evidence and a near-vindictive determination to crush complainers. In some cases, individuals face many years in a bitter struggle that can come to dominate the rest of their life until justice is finally done – or never done (Punch, 1996, pp 30–1). In that perspective this work is also about the defence mechanisms of institutions and especially how they often mistreat the weak and neglect, if not abuse, the victim and cynically evade accountability. Here the sometimes callous context is the school, college or university and the victims, offenders and bystanders are primarily its female students.

Features of universities

Universities form the pinnacle of modern society’s educational system, and with other higher education institutions they now form the higher educational system. For centuries they were small, exclusive and served the elite; and as religious institutions preparing men for the clergy they had a strongly spiritual focus. Then, until comparatively recently, women were excluded from the academic community while most US universities and colleges in the second half of the 19th century were not only exclusively for men but also all the men were White and Christian. Black students were not accepted at most elite establishments for almost a century and even long after formal emancipation. Various universities in the US had, and have, a strong orientation to the military while some elite British schools and universities had, and have, a cadet corps in anticipation of military service (Judt, 2010, p 85); and two Dutch corpora retain largely ceremonial units with one parading on state occasions. Then even well into the last century and long after female emancipation movements had started to demonstrate for equality, many elite UK and US universities and colleges were still faith based, with exclusively male students and largely male staff. Moreover, some UK universities, along with certain colleges in the US, strongly resisted women’s entrance. Harvard had an early form of co-education yet women could not earn a degree there until 1963; Yale and Princeton only admitted women in 1969 and 1972 respectively and then reluctantly as recruitment was falling; and from the early 1970s, most ‘Oxbridge’ (Oxford and Cambridge) male colleges became open to women. Then when women started to be admitted to higher education their cohorts often remained a minority, but by the 1970s coeducation had become the norm, even among diehard and traditional institutions although some universities or colleges prefer to remain only for women or men. In essence, many universities and higher education institutions have become secular and co-educational, with female staff and students increasing in numbers and also making major inroads within subjects that had typically been male dominated.

Then compared to the US there was long a small number of universities in the UK taking a minute percentage of the age group and with a secondary tier of applied/vocational institutions, which was common elsewhere in Europe. There was expansion in the UK from the 1960s while from 1992 the numbers almost doubled when many applied institutions – primarily polytechnics – formed a wave of new universities. There are now 106 universities in the UK. For convenience I shall refer to the second-level institutions in Europe as polytechnics.

Here I shall turn to some features of universities and other academic establishments. Many traditional academic institutions had a near monastic element of isolation and contemplation, making them like ‘total institutions’ (Goffman, 1961). But unlike prisons and asylums there was a mandate based on ideal values and assumptions while their relative isolation was viewed as positive in supporting that value system. Importantly, the essence of the university is rooted in the ideals and values of the archetypical academic community (Newman, 1873; Kerr, 1963). These espoused in modern times that universities were based on the following:

• The university rests on the freedom to explore and disseminate knowledge, with security from outside interference and overt political control.

• The advancement of knowledge is central, with an emphasis on original research and publications and conveying knowledge to colleagues and students.

• Faculty have mostly tenured positions and are free to research whatever they want and to publish their findings freely.

• Faculty convey knowledge to students by stimulating intellectual curiosity and encouraging critical debate.

• There is a wide range of courses on offer including those with no explicit vocational relevance and with considerable choice and flexibility for students who are free to follow their interests.

• A prime function is to develop knowledgeable citizens, with an awareness and commitment to contributing to society in some way.

• Any form of discrimination or bias – in terms of gender, religion, ethnicity or class – is shunned. The university provides a safe and secure environment, allowing staff and students to function without hindrance while having an obligation of pastoral care towards its students.

Underpinning this are a further set of assumptions about the nature of an academic community. That it is based on tolerance and respect; there is an avoidance of aggression and violence; intellectual property, data and libraries are sacrosanct; theft and vandalism are abhorrent; and institutional and individual integrity regarding academic activities and duties is at a premium. The ideal university typically remains a somewhat closeted community, with respect for knowledge and its preservation, with a measure of tranquillity from the life outside and with respect for the particular habits and needs of young, maturing students in a kind of liminal existence between adolescence and adulthood. There is an implied if not explicit duty of care for students. In the past there was a major element of self-policing in small entities such as colleges and residences but usually along with residential or readily available supervision.³ That has altered considerably while higher education institutions now vary considerably in size, structure and location, with some in dispersed properties throughout a large city or on a single campus within or outside a smaller city community, while some have a degree of residential accommodation. Those features in turn give rise to a range of issues in terms of ensuring safety and security.

Abuse and harassment

The field of criminology has long had a strong focus on common, ‘street’ crime. There has certainly been less attention to state, corporate and organizational crime, despite the sometimes high level of damage, injury and also fatalities caused to multiple victims by the offences (Gobert and Punch, 2003). Moreover, a particular feature emerging from research in the UK and North America has long been an emphasis on the position of the defendant in the criminal process, with far less attention to the predicament of the victim (Rock, 2004). However, the criminological spotlight has not only increasingly shone on the powerful but also on the victims of their and other crimes (Rock, 2010). Another prominent factor in the wider public debate on crime has been the political and media-driven focus on the threat of ‘stranger-danger’. For many sexual offences, however, the victim knows the offender, who may be a family member or acquaintance, and the offence occurs in a home or institutional setting. In the UK the victim knows the offender – including partner, ex-partner, relative, friend or carer – in about three quarters of abuse cases so that around only a quarter involve a stranger. Furthermore, there is increasingly convincing evidence in the UK and elsewhere of systemic sexual offences being committed in residential institutions – some of them faith-based – over a long period of time and largely against vulnerable youngsters where the offenders were not outsiders or strangers. In some cases the victims were mostly male but in others, as with those associated with personalities from the media, the victims were largely young women. The offenders were internal care and/or external authority figures in positions of trust while some were members of societal elites with access to those institutions (Daily Mail, 2015, 20 May). In recent years, however, there have been large-scale investigations, naming and shaming of offenders and court cases with convictions.

Then the more that is learnt about abuse and harassment in their diverse forms the more evidence there is of their prevalence at all ages – from kindergarten to the retirement home – and within institutions at all levels of society. There have, for example, been several mega-cases regarding child abuse in the UK employing historical investigations that retrospectively focused on elites and with an ‘epidemic of child abuse’ in the 1970s and 1980s. These led to an independent public inquiry, led by Professor Alexis Jay, which was initially announced in Jay (2014) and which led to multiple inquiries involving no less than 1,400 male suspects, including 260 ‘high-profile’ individuals (The Guardian, 2015, 4 August; The Guardian, 2015, 27 November; IICSA, 2018). Later the police national lead on child protection spoke of multiple investigations with some 7,000 possible suspects and with offenders who were ‘teachers, religious workers, youth and care workers’ (The Guardian, 2020, 6 February). And in Australia there have been concerns about an ‘epidemic’ of sexual violence against young female pupils in schools (The Guardian, 2021, 28 June). Indeed, Professor Jay has since warned that the scale of youngsters facing abuse in the UK, particularly within certain faith cultures, is immense and possibly in the millions (IICSA, 2021; The Guardian, 2021, 2 September).

These inquiries typically convey major if not recurrent failures in multi-agency functioning, including police failures in not taking victims seriously and in not following up with investigations. They have also turned attention upwards to people of standing and influence who could use their status to evade suspicion and to engage in systemic abuse committed at times by those with a duty of care in institutions or with access to young victims through other channels. The UK media scandals, investigations, court cases, media exposure and public inquiries are mentioned here to illustrate a number of factors that may also be applicable within universities and when dealing with student victims and offenders. In diverse cases – within cities and diverse institutions – there were hundreds if not thousands of victims who were often vulnerable youngsters; the deviance was systemic and the consequences severe and long lasting; the authorities missed several opportunities to halt the abuse; and the ostensibly ‘respectable’, and often celebrity, abusers got away with it for quite some time or permanently (Henriques Report, 2019). To illustrate this there was, among the high-profile suspects, the (deceased) entertainer and philanthropist Jimmy Savile who was granted a knighthood for his charity work. He became suspected of being a pathological serial abuser including necrophilia (Davies, 2014). He seemingly used his position in the media and philanthropy to sexually abuse mostly young girls but also boys, to abuse patients in hospitals, in an ‘approved’ (custodial) school for girls, in the media, in two secure prisons for inmates with a psychiatric condition and in care homes for people with a disability. His vulnerable victims are estimated at 450 or more (Gray and Watt, 2013).

Systemic elite abuse

There is, then, at times ‘systemic elite abuse’ whereby institutional position and/or elite status provides the opportunity, means and protective defence based on reputation, connections and legal resources (Punch, 2019a). Indeed, the material on colleges and universities examined later has to be placed in the wider context of deeply rooted discrimination against women in many societies, along with high levels of bullying, discrimination and sexual harassment in organizations, professions and institutions. The offences are often committed by people in positions of authority and trust and against those who are dependent on their abusers. There could even be forms of deviance at the highest level of government as in the UK Parliament at Westminster (Brown, J., 2017). This has led to a discussion that British politics at the national level has long been a male preserve, with forms of harassment and misogyny along with the bullying of younger male and female Members of Parliament (MPs) and of parliamentary staff (The Guardian, 2021, 15 January). A similar refrain has emerged about the toxicity towards females in Australian politics and in the media, and also with Governor Cuomo of New York State who was accused of running a ‘toxic workplace’ and of sexually harassing his staff (BBC News, 16 May 2019; The Guardian, 2021, 22 February). His resignation came when he faced prosecution after a ‘meticulous’ detailed report from the New York Attorney General; but the criminal case against him has been dropped (The Guardian, 2021, 11 August; Reuters, 2022, 4 January). Then the once-iconic BBC broadcaster, Selina Scott, speaks of the Corporation in the 1980s as a ‘hothouse of misogyny, gaslighting and harassment’. ‘Gaslighting’ is a form of emotional abuse often found in abusive relationships. Selina hosted a popular programme with a renowned male colleague who kept coming on to her but he was protected by senior management for there was a ‘victim-blaming culture among the Oxbridge educated leadership which she likens to a mafia’ (The Guardian, 2021, 4 January). Then a recent review of a documentary on the Harvey Weinstein case comments: ‘#MeToo has morphed into a larger reconsideration of not just sexual assault but toxic workplaces, the legacy of trauma and deference to those with money and power’ (The Guardian, 2021, 11 March, HBO, 2021).⁴

This conveys that forms of discrimination against, and the abuse of, women and others are to be found at all levels of society and that we should shift our academic gaze upwards. Indeed, the material presented in this work conveys that we have to widen our notions of crime, threat, danger and victimization with regard to ‘gender-based violence’:

• from the street to the home, as much abuse occurs domestically, with the home as ‘the most dangerous place to be for a woman’ (Snyder, 2019);

• from strangers to offenders known to the victim;

• from random or episodic to systemic;

• from individual or group to large numbers of victims; and

• from presumed ‘hazardous’ locations in society to higher echelons in society with particular attention here to educational institutions.

Importantly, that fresh focus should be on offenders in positions of authority, the professions and high-status elites, with this leading to critical scrutiny behind college walls and within university campuses. Moreover, in that reorientation is the accumulating knowledge of several decades that sexual crimes, among the most heinous of crimes especially against the young and the vulnerable, are disproportionally committed against women who are most at risk from men. And that risk factor can alter in changing settings and opportunity structures. Furthermore, there is increasingly the realization that adolescent and young adult women are likely to be victimized in a school, college or university. But much is not reported and never reaches the authorities or the courts. That often highly disturbing material in a range of educational institutions directs our sociological/criminological gaze to forms of abuse and sexual harassment that may constitute crimes and may at times be defined and processed as such.

This disturbing 2021 study, and Westmarland’s comment, strengthen my refocusing, which has led to examining educational institutions that almost everyone has to attend for a significant period in their life while some go on to spend their entire adult careers within them. There can be particular forms of deviance, criminal offences and victimization within them although there has been a broad assumption that schools and colleges are fairly safe environments as they have a pastoral function and duty of care, with staff often serving in loco parentis. However, there is increasing evidence of sexual offences against girls and women, and others, being committed in schools and higher education in large numbers and with a recurring, systemic element.

Then most social scientists and others who research, teach and shape policy related to deviance, crime and criminal justice have themselves studied in universities and many go on to function within them. Hence their disciplinary perspective should also be directed inwards to the institutions in which they daily work and especially with regard to responses and policies about excesses, abuse, sexual harassment and related injustices to women and other victims. For example, it has been noted that ‘in an ironic twist, higher education institutions are capable of, on the one hand, producing progressive, feminist research on sexual violence, while on the other hand ignoring the import of that research for governance’ (Klein, 2018, p 76). Indeed, Klein goes on to observe that Harvard University – often ranked as global leader among universities and with a multi-billion endowment – has brought forth impressive research from a ‘small army of noted feminists’ but this has not been matched by positive action from the university itself. Furthermore, in exploring elite student societies, residential colleges and fraternities in the US, the UK, Australia, Belgium and the Netherlands I discerned a pattern of deviance that is often viewed as the ‘exuberance of the young’ within the somewhat protected arena of tolerance that colleges and universities often provide. That tolerance of deleterious conduct can no longer be the case as that wider exuberance can have serious consequences – including physical damage, serious injuries, lasting trauma and even fatalities – and with students facing diverse forms of abuse and with women, but also others, encountering serious sexual harassment (Flanagan, 2014).

In relation to the latter, Scales (2009), detailing sexual abuse committed by US college athletes, writes of ‘open secrets’ where a deviant practice is not spoken of but is widely known to be prevalent. This has happened in the US within sport and at times with many victims. There are estimates that at the University of Michigan some 1,000 athletes across diverse sports were abused by the athletics doctor. Many were Black or from minority ethnic communities while many victims were reluctant to report the abuse with regard to their masculinity and concern about being disbelieved because of their ethnicity (CNN, 2022, 2 February). And at Ohio State University (OSU) there was a scandal related to the abuse of some 177 athletes by Dr Strauss, the team’s doctor; he subsequently committed suicide. A law firm report for OSU in 2019 wrote of an ‘open secret’ among students and that ‘coaches, trainers and other team physicians were fully aware of Strauss’ activities, and yet few seemed inclined to do anything to stop it’ (The Guardian, 2021, 11 November). That pattern will become familiar in the material that follows.

‘Open secrets’ and #MeToo

Indeed, it has been said of Harvey Weinstein, mentioned earlier and with allegedly some 80 victims of his abuse during four decades, that ‘claims of his serial sexual harassment and alleged rapes were an open secret’ (The Guardian, 2018, 23 November). He has now been convicted in a New York court of rape and sexual assault and sentenced to 23 years, and awaits a second trial in Los Angeles (BBC News, 2020, 24 February; The Guardian, 2021, 11 March). But that concept of an ‘open secret’ leads to contemplating why they remain ‘secret’ for so long: what is the tipping point, and exposing process, that makes them become suddenly ‘open’; and to what extent are the silent onlookers also culpable? In recent years, for instance, that particular secret has been broken open due to major societal concern about the nature and consequences of sexual abuse within the wider society, which has reached staggering proportions in the UK and elsewhere. This scrutiny includes deviance and abuse occurring in schools, colleges and universities where the offences have been frequently tolerated by ignoring them and, if brought to light, not taken seriously or investigated adequately. It has taken a number of victims to come out bravely to accuse their abusers while their stance has been reinforced by the #MeToo movement (Farrow, 2019; Kantor and Twohey, 2019). That has brought the sexual violence, harassment and intimidation of women, and other victims, strongly into the limelight.

There had been earlier efforts to address the issue of sexual harassment with Susan Brownmiller’s (1975) groundbreaking Against Our Will (Bantam, 2007). And the first US survey to detail it regarding universities was, remarkably, already back in the 1950s (Kirkpatrick and Kanin, 1957). According to Klein (2018, p 64), that report indicates ‘that in some ways little has changed over the last fifty years’. Clearly attention to the area has recently accelerated with the #MeToo movement – originally fostered in 2006 by the activist Tarana Burke as an influential ‘silence breaker’ – and it signified that women should combine to seek justice by speaking out regarding sexual abuse. Then five female silence breakers were ‘persons of the year’ on the prestigious cover of Time Magazine in 2017. The concept and movement have gathered pace in recent years, with accusations of women against powerful men, which has led to broad public support including from female and male celebrities (Kantor and Twohey, 2019).

Crucially, that recent shift has drawn attention to the systemic nature of the abuse of women in certain occupations and institutions, including the film industry, modelling, media, sport, politics and business corporations. Subsequently, certain powerful male icons in diverse sectors have been pilloried, barred from elite posts, stripped of awards, ostracized and sometimes prosecuted. Across various occupations, the exposed deviance was clearly systemic, deeply rooted and strongly linked to abuse of power; and the victims were often faced with the acute dilemma as to either comply, for social and occupational reasons, or to depart with possibly serious professional consequences. What has started to emerge, then, is convincing and disturbing evidence in a number of societies of widespread sexual abuse. This has been strengthened in recent years in the UK partly relating to investigations and media publicity about sexual and other offences in the domestic sphere, in a range of care and other institutions for vulnerable people, and with offenders who were in positions of power or influence including members of elites.

My particular focus is, then, on ‘over the top’ excess and on sexual violence within a range of educational institutions and then primarily on student–student, and some student–non-student, but not staff–student cases. For instance, University College London (UCL) stated in 2020 that staff–student intimate relationships were forbidden. This is often an unspoken norm but UCL is one of the few UK academic institutions that has made this explicit in regulations. This has caused considerable concern about how far universities can go in such matters (The Guardian, 2020, 26 February).⁵ This further raises a bewildering range of variables including the location and accessibility of the institution with regard to security, formal and informal control and interaction with non-university members within or without university premises. All of that leads to a matrix of possible situations and behaviour, with implications for internal and external threats to female and other students. For instance, some campus universities effectively form a separate community, which may enhance control and other factors, whereas some city universities have academic and residential facilities spread throughout a large city. Then how students, staff and others conduct themselves – individually and in groups – can have an impact on deviant behaviour and risk taking. So a pivotal factor in all this is how educational establishments react to scandals and how they deal with deviance through mostly ‘private justice’.

It will become clear from a plethora of documented cases that cross-culturally many universities have responded lamely, defensively and even criminally. Of course such conduct is not peculiar to universities but is generic to institutional imperatives of self-protection as with medical scandals, abuse in the armed forces, deviance in religious institutions and misdeeds within corporations, political parties and governments. Although there are differences between institutions, it does seem that many slot into defence mode when facing accusations that threaten their reputation and public front and can react strongly and deviously. Furthermore, academic institutions including universities are usually highly conscious of their reputation – and the top ones are involved in a highly competitive, global market – while also having the institutional obligation of a duty of care for successive cohorts of mostly young people. It is, then, academically interesting – and socially important – to examine how they employ, or fail to employ, their agreed mechanisms of private justice when faced with serious deviance and suspected crimes that may be conducted by male students of high standing in the academic community.

‘Toff’ and ‘celeb’ offenders

Drawing on this background and material, I have employed ‘systemic elite abuse’ as a concept in the abuse and sexual harassment of female students in college environments (Punch, 2019a). For increasingly there is the realization that they are likely to be victimized at school, college or university – including at the most prestigious of establishments – by a student offender, at times with high status in the university community and perhaps also outside it (as with some sports in the US). In the literature on gender-based violence, for instance, there is reference to the UK ‘lad’ culture of certain male groups – often White and working class – centred around sport, alcohol, aggression, homophobia, sexual stereotyping and trivializing gender-based violence (Phipps, 2018). That ‘lad’ culture was originally said to be generated by alienation and resistance. Yet those values and conduct are to a degree also evident within segments of universities – hence among those with a potentially upper-level occupation – which plainly requires a different interpretation. My main focus, however, is a variant of that lad element, which I refer to as ‘toff’ and ‘celeb’ groups and cultures in higher educational establishments, including the most prestigious ones such as the US ‘Ivy League’ universities and leading universities in the UK including Oxbridge.⁶

‘Toff’ refers to largely upper-class or aristocratic groups, and others, who ape that lifestyle, which are typically well educated yet contain certain elements of that lad culture but are further defined by family status, an extravagant if not exorbitant lifestyle and bouts of excess. Here the brazen breaking of many social norms derives from a sense of high status and class entitlement while alongside the excess there is the dual aspect of formal rituals and conduct on certain occasions as well as an internal disciplinary code. That dual feature in such elitist student societies is not found within ‘lads’ groups. To a degree that elitism and conduct is evident in the more exclusive US fraternities and select male university associations elsewhere. ‘Celeb’ refers to male staff or students with high status in the university community because of family background and/or a high profile role. This could be in the US with leading members of fraternities (usually White men) or especially college university athletes (in some sports mostly Black men). Indeed, a significant factor in this complex and sensitive area is racial but also other forms of bias in the labelling of assumed suspects and in forms of control and adjudication.

In some US university sports, for example, many of the athletes are Black, which may lead to rumour or suspicion against Black players as well as false accusations if there is abuse on the campus; and a false accusation against a Black athlete could bring suspicion or expulsion with serious consequences such as not being able to gain entry at other colleges or to professional teams. Bazelon in the New York Times (2018, 4 December) argues with regard to the processing of sexual harassment cases in colleges that: ‘We have long over-sexualised, over-criminalized and disproportionately punished Black men. It should come as no surprise, that in a setting in which protections for the accused are greatly diminished, this shameful legacy persists.’ She cites data showing that at a predominantly White college, 50 per cent of the accusations involved Black students and 40 per cent of the students subjected to the disciplinary process were Black. Furthermore, in some US academic institutions where sport is dominant, some athletes can even be viewed as ‘super-celebs’ within the student community and of major symbolic and mercenary value to the university.

One feature of toffs and celebs – as well as toffs who are also celebs – is that they often get away with their excess within the college–university environment as an arena of tolerance and are treated lightly if at all sanctioned even when serious deviance or crimes are involved. In contrast, the aggressive conduct within lads culture is often in public settings and far more likely to attract formal control and stiff sanctioning. What does tie lads’, toffs’ and celebs’ cultures together is that they exhibit a prominent masculine culture. That culture may not in practice lead to actual deviant or criminal conduct and one would need a wealth of data to determine which groups behaved in deviant ways, in what circumstances and with what consequences. For instance, some sports in US college and university athletics have a reputation for deviancy yet some other sports have no record or reputation for deviant behaviour, while the cases that have been exposed would need to be compared with offences by similar male students with no sporting background. We have, then, to be careful about stereotyping, especially as all such comparisons are bedevilled by the poor quality of the data in this area, with patchy and unrepresentative reporting of offences.

However, there has plainly been a slew of reports, accusations and court cases pointing upwards in the academic hierarchy – including high-status staff and celeb students with prestige in the university community – which I shall address. I shall focus primarily on student–student cases but there are also celeb staff members as with Dr Larry Nassar at MSU, mentioned earlier, who held important medical functions within US gymnastics. He committed serial sexual abuse against at least 300 female athletes – some of whom were students – and with possibly 500 victims during three decades (to be discussed later). Such a mega-case, and all the claims and counter-claims that have surrounded it, suggests that there is a significant ‘dark number’ of offences, which raises considerable concern about the long-unexposed volume – and buried impact – of such crimes. Indeed, within the area of gender-based violence involving students, we have continually to bear in mind that a high majority of offences, including the most serious ones, are never reported; and if they are then they almost never reach a court of law (civil or criminal). Even if they do reach a court, that is rarely a suitable environment for resolution and justice when women accuse men of sexual offences.

Elite student societies: and ‘over the edge’

Here I shall examine the excesses that occur when students go ‘over the edge’ in higher education institutions. Regarding fraternities in the US – widespread and influential in academia and later within US society – there is a wealth of publications. But there is a particularly valuable periodical article on deviance and accountability within them and also on related university governance by Flanagan (2014), which I shall consider in detail later. But, crucially, what is considered unacceptable ‘excess’ by others is considered within certain elite student associations and school–college–university cultures to be an essential element in shaping identity, loyalty and even ‘character’. Traditionally, certain forms of student excess were – as mentioned earlier – predictable, localized and to an extent tolerated. Until comparatively recently, universities were small and for the established elite. The student clubs and societies were exclusively male and with elements of cultivated life along with ‘excess’ that was encouraged, justified as an intrinsic factor in ‘character’ and largely accepted within the college or university. There was, then, a double face of cultivated pursuits and certain forms of legitimized excess centred around high alcohol consumption, sumptuous feasting, dares and escapades. Women were not welcome on their premises; and it seems that the sexual abuse of women from their class would not have been acceptable. But the key element here is when what is perceived as tolerated, legitimized and even ritual excess goes ‘over the top’ and gets out of hand with serious consequences, and then how the student group responds followed by the response in the university, in law enforcement and in the courts.

There can also be certain festive social occasions in various societies that are perceived as a ‘moral holiday’ as during large-scale pop-concerts, major sporting events and traditional carnivals such as Mardi Gras or certain massively attended occasions as with the Munich Beer Festival attracting millions of partying people (Downes and Rock, 2011; Raymen and Smith, 2019). There are usually a large number of people in close proximity, much alcohol, sometimes fancy dress, dancing until late at night and a loosening of social norms that may be experienced largely as harmless ‘fun’ but can provide the possibility of various forms of excess (such as drug use, aggression and sexual harassment). Much depends on the setting, audience, expected response or message conveyed that encourages people to do things that they might not do elsewhere. There are also certain social occasions and settings in universities – such as initiation or ‘hazing’ during an introduction period, ‘pledging’ periods in fraternities, ‘rag weeks’ in the UK (with fundraising for charities along with formal and informal social events) and spring-break ‘watering holes’ for US students (at Florida beaches or in Cancun, Mexico) – that are traditional, predictable and tolerated within certain bounds. Such events are typically perceived as people having a ‘good time’ and ‘letting off steam’ in a harmless manner. There is, however, always the risk that ritualized excess lubricated by much alcohol exceeds certain bounds, while at certain covert and illicit events there can especially be the factor of willingly embracing excess, which relates to the concept of ‘edge work’ mentioned earlier.

This pivotal concept relates to pushing the boundary of risk and danger, which provides both excitement and bestows status within the group. In many US universities, for instance, there is a prominent culture among male and female students of drinking to excess – and even ‘getting wasted’ – with all sorts of consequences (Van der Ven, 2011). That can lead to injuries, sexual offences, psychological harm and even fatalities. This takes us beyond ritualized, predictable and contextually tolerated deviance into an area of serious harm and to the related audit chain of accountability. Furthermore, some sexual abuse and other cases shed light on the fact that some abusers – rather like certain male celebrities caught in flagrante delicto (red-handed) – are taking a considerable risk. But encapsulated in some male excess is that element of ‘edge work’. This can be stimulated by the element of daring and competition that encourages members of a group to seek that edge and to push boundaries. Many male groups and institutions are permeated with competitive conduct related to hierarchy, leadership, rivalry, ritual confrontations around prowess as well as indulging in dares, escapades and so-called ‘japes’, often lubricated by much alcohol. And in certain student circles, some are perfectly willing to go to the edge and others – especially on certain group occasions lubricated by intoxicants and/or drugs – are quite prepared to dive over it. Regarding sexual offences by male students, for example, there has been reference to ‘toxic masculinity’, which can include engaging in what can only be classified as grave criminal acts, which potentially carry heavy penalties should there be a conviction. For going ‘over the edge’ – regarding intoxication, drugs, damage, violence and sexual abuse – is taking a very high risk (Lasky et al, 2017, p 176) and that risk could have severe consequences for victims. Some of those traditional student societies remain male domains.

Elite student club culture

It is said of US fraternities that they shape life-long loyalties in which the ‘male, white and privileged’ support one another ‘whatever their transgressions’. Moreover, there is the ‘unholy trinity – racism, deadly drinking and misogyny’; and the toxic all-male camaraderie promotes ‘heavy drinking, boorishness, bullying and misogyny’ (Hechinger, 2017). Many US traditional fraternities are White, selective and secretive; they usually supply accommodation and although they have a reputation for ‘partying’ they also require members to maintain certain academic standards (Flanagan, 2014). There are also ones that are ethnic or faith based. Fraternities typically have Greek names and a lifestyle referred to as ‘Greek’. Their founding philosophies and formal codes are typically idealistic. Phi Delta Theta, for example, espouses three pillars: ‘The cultivation of friendship among its members, the acquirement individually of a high degree of mental culture, and the attainment personally of a high standard of morality.’⁷ They typically have an ‘honour code’ but that seems more about internal relations between members than about those outside the bond of brotherhood. What explains, then, the attraction and resilience of those seemingly ‘barbaric’ and at times shocking practices within higher education, which seem patently at odds with those expressed ideal values? And, most importantly, do these archaic institutions with their – for many people – repulsive conduct and risky rituals deserve a presence within the walls of contemporary academia?

My interest is, then, in the varying forms of deviance and excess within higher education and then largely – but not exclusively – in elite student societies, residential colleges and fraternities. To an extent this area is related to residential education, which has always been prominent in Anglo-Saxon societies and especially within the elite British public schools. In British aristocratic families, sons aged seven were sent off to austere boarding schools where discipline was harsh – some beatings were horrendous – while there was often bullying and sexual abuse by staff; this could foster an under-culture of male affection (Lambert, 1975). The residential colleges of the UK’s prestigious universities – particularly Oxford, Cambridge and St. Andrews (Scotland) – were until fairly recently exclusively male institutions. In some there was an underlying tolerance of male intimacy, which meant discretion as homosexuality was a criminal offence in the UK into the 1960s.⁸ Some elite student clubs were secretive anyway so members could indulge in private or collective excess while keeping quiet was the social cement binding them conspiratorially together. The key rule at the Stoics Club in Oxford, for example, was that you never admitted having been a member.

The Continental European student association typically had less of a formal residential nature but also developed a particular style. In the Netherlands, for instance, the elite student societies were highly influential and visible within the universities and Dutch society and they imposed a distinctly upper-class identity on members while enjoying a high measure of autonomy and self-regulation. The prime Dutch elite student association is, as mentioned earlier, the corps. The corpora have, however, been dogged historically by serious ‘incidents’ and failures in internal control and this has led in recent decades to heated controversy. The debates on this tend to have a repetitive character with more froth than reform but currently the matter is receiving considerable attention in the Netherlands but also in Belgium. That needs to be situated more widely within the current debate on the nature and future of the university in contemporary society as it is under multiple pressures. And a pivotal element is about responsibility for, and control of, student conduct (The Guardian, 2018, 26 February). For a major issue arising from this topic is that, given the controversy and cases of abuse across such societies in recent years, can these elite student societies and the wider and related practices of hazing be tolerated in the contemporary university?

For universities are not in a steady state but rather have been subject to much critical debate and mounting pressures for change for a variety of reasons. Drawing on this leads me to several key issues:

• What role does the university play in the responsibility and accountability for what happens within its ‘walls’; and what level of autonomy does it permit to the student community and the various student associations with their broad range of activities?

• Importantly, how much licence, within its ‘private justice’ arrangements, can a university permit for ‘excesses’ when we are speaking of damage, injuries, sexual abuse and harassment and discrimination against minority groups and vulnerable people – including women – and even when there are fatalities?

• What is the liability of the university, student associations and individuals if such contentious matters come to light?

Rite de passage

Elite residential education, as in the traditional Anglo-American universities with their colleges and fraternities, offered an opportunity in a liminal phase of life for various student associations to flourish. A significant factor was that these provided a relatively safe environment for young male, and later female, members of the aristocracy and upper class to ‘sow their wild oats’, meaning euphemistically boisterous behaviour and carousing. The style of studied nonchalance in some had its origins in the Italian renaissance model of sprezzatura (cultivated assurance) and the book of manners by Castiglione, Il Libro del Cortegiano. The rituals and practices in such traditional institutions in Europe often reflected the aristocratic male culture found in the German university korps (student corps) and military academies where there was a tough initiation ritual, wining and dining, gambling and duelling – with a cheek scar (schmiss) as a mark of distinction – along with disdain for openly studying and for bourgeois convention (Elias, 1996). There were, and are, doubtless wide differences across and within societies regarding such student clubs. A major one was between Continental Europe, where students largely led a parallel but influential existence while residing outside the university, and the Anglo-Saxon model with various student residences or colleges within the university’s orbit and intrinsic to the educational philosophy while housing a variety of student clubs and societies. All these student institutions and their ebullient practices can be viewed as offering a rite de passage.

In many non-Western societies, for example, there was – and often still is – the marking of adolescence leading to adulthood by the withdrawal of young men and women to undergo trying physical tests along with religious ceremonies and sometimes body or face scars (van Gennep, 1960). There were typically in these liminal, transitional processes elements of isolation, suffering and endurance, with ritual debasement (Turner, 1969). Certain African tribes had long periods of adolescent withdrawal where ‘seclusion, training, mortification and toughening are followed by a ritual initiation into adulthood’ (Lambert, 1975, p 11). Exposure to these often gruelling rituals of purification sees the initiate emerging ‘cleansed’ and with a new identity (Douglas, 1966). Such positive identity-changing rituals are also strongly present in religions with novitiates undergoing debasement ceremonies in discarding their old identity. Features of debasement are also prominent in the military where recruits need to be turned into disciplined, obedient soldiers and are stripped of their civil identity to mark their uniform identity change. There are rich examples in films and novels of the expletive-filled abuse, physical demands, humiliations and pressures to conform to the military environment; and such ‘boot camp’/‘hell-week’ practices are also often prominent in student initiations. In brief, the ritual features of withdrawal, debasement, tests of endurance and degrading abuse leading to a form of submission, are in certain contexts viewed as a necessary, or customary, element in identity change and the imposition of conformity.

Some are appalled by them in colleges and universities while arguing that there are viable alternatives. Universities have always provided not only an academic environment but also a social one where the young can develop in a kind of limbo between late adolescence and early adulthood. Within these elite student societies there is typically a fluctuating mix of stiff formalism and rigid ritualism along with what might euphemistically be dubbed ‘high spirits with low conduct’. The latter can continue after formal initiation and inauguration rituals and also be part of the wider university community, with informal pressure to conform to certain ebullient practices. To an extent, ‘toff’ and ‘celeb’ culture can mirror basal features of ‘lad’ culture, with both reflecting the elements found in certain male groups – as with the military in officer academies (NRC, 2021, 27 June), in barracks and on missions abroad – centred around intoxication, sexual harassment and informal intimidation of the weak or those viewed as ‘suitable victims’. Indeed, elements of this are not unlike the aggression and inaugurations in certain motorbike clubs with dubious, if not criminal, reputations. And that comparison between a criminal gang and a fraternity has been made in that ‘they’re both blamed for predisposing their members to violent acts’ (The Atlantic, 2018, 20 March).

Then in the US the main traditional fraternities are often secretive, selective and male. They display a wider range of types and cultures than the corps-style student association in Europe. Some, however, conduct a rite de passage characterized by enforced heavy drinking and a high level of intimidation if not violence. And it also appears that ‘pledging’ for the inauguration and initiation process can be quite severe and that hazing – combining harassment, ridicule and informal sanctioning for non-compliance with formal and informal fraternity codes – can persist for some time while also being a harsh form of intimidation against the timid and the vulnerable. US fraternities have an intake of about 100,000 newcomers (‘pledges’) – with some 400,000 students in fraternities (BBC News, 2017, 17 November) – and nearly all need to go through some form of pledging ritual, which can vary widely. This initial ‘rush’ phase is viewed as a selection process leading to membership and this can lead to high pressure to conform and acceptance of excess to gain entry.

The most well-known US fraternity is Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE), with around 15,000 members, and it has a presence in all 50 US states. Along with some other fraternities, SAE has long been associated with a series of excesses, injuries and even fatalities. Certain chapters have been in the news negatively, with one at the University of Wisconsin being suspended for ‘repeatedly using racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and anti-Semitic slurs, and then ostracizing a Black SAE member for speaking up against the deplorable behavior’ (Herzog, 2016). At times, excesses occurred at a particular chapter or particular fraternity house within a chapter and with male guests who were not fraternity members but were invited to parties by a friend or brother in the house; and other chapters and houses might be relatively compliant with regulations and decorum (Dick et al, 2016, p 52). Nevertheless, despite recurrent talk of reform of fraternities, it is evident from Hechinger (2017) and Moisey (2018) that there are still incidents of bullying, humiliation, degradation, intimidation, ‘cross-dressing and semi-naked wrestling’ while ‘parading your penis and testicles is almost de rigeur’ (The Guardian, 2018, 10 December).

Moisey (2018), for example, has produced a photo-book on The American Fraternity, which graphically illustrates many such elements including gross excess, humiliation and homo-eroticism. He portrays rituals, practices and documents and contrasts the excesses with the ‘grandly titled quasi Masonic ceremonies … The Ritual of Initiation, the Libations, the Candle Ceremony, Duties of the Chapter Orders’. There is typically the formal hierarchy with pompous titles and the Greek nomenclature suggesting the erudition of classical Greece. But then there is next to it – as characterized in the images in Moisey (2018) – some disturbing material including where ‘obviously distressed and inebriated young men are cajoled to drink more by older students with predictable results – retching, puking and unconsciousness. Aggression and humiliation are the norm here, the one driving the other’ (The Guardian, 2018, 10 December). And yet this does not discourage students from joining, with Greek life being ‘more popular than ever despite recent controversy and deaths’ (Chavez and Croft, 2018). I emphasize that the risky practices may not be true of many fraternities or everyone in a fraternity as there is no valid evidence across the whole range of fraternities; but there remains the concern about excesses including injuries and even fatalities, with roughly one death a year since 1970 in the US. Also outside of such elite student societies there may well be, within other student societies and informal groups, elements of bullying, damage to property, excessive drinking, drug use and sexual abuse on or off campus.

Finally, a particular concern here is when excess goes well ‘over the edge’, with the potential for physical or mental harm and especially for causing grave injury or for serious sexual offences predominantly against female students – and even at times causing a fatality. The key question that then follows is: Where lies the accountability? Who accepts it and who evades it?