Sexual assault is one of man’s most heinous crimes. Yet, when it comes to punishing offenders, college administrators are often reluctant to be harsh. The least controversial course of action is expulsion, but is it enough to just banish the miscreant from campus?

The complex dialogue regarding the punishment of offenders is brought to a head by the ongoing debate of whether schools should put a permanent note on transgressors’ transcripts that outline the reasons for their withdrawals.

On one hand, it seems that schools have a moral responsibility to flag offenders. It is simply a matter of public safety. If an abuser is allowed to quietly withdraw from one school, there is nothing to stop that individual from simply applying to a second. The administration of this second school will be in the dark, will accept this delinquent, and the horrific and likely result is that the offender will claim another victim.

Many have compared this broken system to the Roman Catholic Church school of disclosure: just pass the abuser from school to the school. As long as the individual isn’t on your campus, she or he is not your problem.

This is approach is, at best, irresponsible. But it also is nauseating to comprehend and wildly dangerous in practice.

Furthermore, it seems inequitable that a perpetrator should face no repercussions for an undeniably despicable action. Transferring schools is a nuisance, an inconvenience; surviving sexual assault is life-long struggle with shattering consequences.

A significant pressure is now upon schools to adopt a policy of marking transcripts. In fact, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers recently overhauled its policy, pivoting from opposing to promoting transcript notations.

Yet, while mandates encouraging notations have passed in New York and Virginia, they have failed in Maryland and California.

The argument against transcript notations tends to follow a binary path.

One concern is that more extreme punishments will have the perverse effect of insulating offenders. It is possible then that schools will be hesitant to expel transgressors due to the added stipulation of tagging transcripts.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, some believe the punishment is too harsh. Is it fair to brand students as a sexual offenders when they have not been tried in a court of law? Additionally, the nature of sexual of assault is one difficult to prove. While the detrimental effects of a transcript notation may be fitting for a guilty party, the same cannot be said of one who has been falsely accused.

Despite these protestations, it seems that the pressure to mandate notations shall win out.

Here, however, is when the issue becomes even more complex and the debate more fiery, especially in regard to the permanency of the notation.

A case can be made for a temporary mark. Once the offender has atoned for his or her crime, perhaps this individual deserves the chance for a fresh start. Branding a student for life for a mistake made at the age of 18 or 19, especially when this brand will greatly diminish his or her chance at getting an education and finding employment, does, indeed, seem severe. Our justice system is, after all, built on the idea of rehabilitation and reentrance into society.

Yet, when one considers the disastrous consequences and effects that will haunt a victim for life, losing the opportunity to graduate from college seems a small price to pay.

Why should perpetrators be given the opportunity to purge their crimes from their lives when they can never be purged from the victims’? In short, they shouldn’t.