Last month’s suspension of Florida quarterback Treon Harris raised important questions regarding university procedures for dealing with potential criminal behavior. Harris was initially accused of sexual assault and immediately suspended on October 6. Four days later, the accuser withdrew her complaint and Florida reinstated Harris.

Harris never faced arrest or criminal prosecution. By all accounts, this was an internal investigation conducted by Florida’s university police. This is common practice at many colleges across the SEC and the rest of the country.

The dilemma faced by accused players, however, is that university investigations are not bound by the same constitutional and legal requirements as criminal prosecutions. Consider Florida State’s handling sexual assault allegations against Heisman-winning quarterback Jameis Winston. On Nov. 17, a former Florida Supreme Court justice will conduct an “investigative hearing,” which could lead to Winston’s suspension or expulsion.

As Sports Illustrated legal expert Michael McCann noted, this is a significant departure from established university procedures. Normally, a Florida State administrator would conduct a disciplinary hearing. Beyond that, the hearing itself “affords Winston far fewer legal protections that he would obtain at a trial” according to McCann. For example, Winston’s attorney will not be permitted to speak at the hearing, Winston may not cross-examine his accuser, and the judge need only find guilt by a “preponderance of the evidence,” not the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard necessary in a criminal jury trial.

Unfortunately for college players facing sexual assault charges, these types of kangaroo court proceedings are becoming the norm.

Former Yale quarterback Patrick Witt recently spoke of his own experience in a Boston Globe article. Witt said he was anonymously accused of sexual harassment, which led to the loss of educational and job opportunities, including a chance to compete in the NFL. Witt said Yale officials would not allow him to present evidence in his defense or even address specific charges. Instead, the process “begins and ends at the point of accusation.”

There is immense political pressure on colleges, especially large public institutions like those that dominate the SEC, to make it easier for women to pursue sexual assault charges with campus authorities, bypassing the “adversarial process” of the criminal courts. The U.S. Department of Education has said colleges may be held in violation of Title IX if they do not adopt the sorts of procedures used against players like Winston and Witt.

The prospect of any college student facing serious accusations without the ability to defend himself should concern everyone, including sexual assault victims. And in the context of college football, we must also be on the alert for any attempt to misuse the campus judicial process in order to affect the outcome of games.

To put it bluntly, gamblers and unscrupulous boosters could easily pay a woman to press false sexual assault charges against a high-profile player in order to secure his immediate suspension. Even if such a complaint was quickly made and withdrawn—as happened in the Harris case—the player could still be suspended before a critical game.

Just to be clear, there is no reason to think Harris’ accuser acted on behalf of some outside party or interest. The Harris case merely suggests a weakness in the system that others might exploit in the future. If schools like Florida maintain a “suspend-on-accusation” standard, they leave their athletes vulnerable to outside manipulation unrelated to any genuine incident of sexual assault.

Ideally, campus authorities would not be in a position to judge sexual assault complaints at all. Like any crime, these allegations should be handled solely by outside police and prosecutors. But that is not the current political reality.

Athletic departments are therefore in the uncomfortable position of preemptively suspending players before even giving them a chance to tell their story. Schools that don’t rush to judge inevitably face a media backlash, as in the proverbial court of public opinion, every athlete accused of a crime is guilty until proven innocent. And screaming pundits rarely criticize a school for acting too rashly or harshly against an athlete.