A Bates College student, accused of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others, has withdrawn from school and hopped a bus home.

Another, accused of sexually assaulting two women, had a closed hearing last weekend before the college’s conduct committee and, for what in the real world is a felony, was expelled. A third, accused of rape, keeps his judgment day appointment with that faculty/student committee in a couple weeks.

Last week, about 300 students, mad that the college administration hadn’t done more to inform them about these assaults, held a late-night picket at the the home of the college president. The administration agreed to let students and local police know about allegations of sexual assault. It agreed to provide more sensitivity training for members of the conduct committee.

Most places, rape and sexual assault are crimes. Most places, people are arrested, they go on trial and, if found guilty, they go to jail. But Bates isn’t most places. There, those accused of some of the most serious crimes going get a good talking to. They face committees, scorn, expulsion. They face everything but justice.

Bates has taken a well-deserved pounding over this. The school should have notified Lewiston police when the allegations were made. But that notification does little good if the victims are not willing to cooperate, and these victims are not.

Rape is not the easiest crime to prosecute. Date rape is especially difficult, since the victim, at least at one point, consented to be in the perpetrator’s company. Rarely are there witnesses. But if any force was used, or even implied, if any drug was used to make the woman unable to resist, the attacker needs to be handcuffed and thrown into the back of a cruiser. That will not happen if the victims won’t come forward.

Rape also is not the easiest crime to report, but women who want justice summon the courage to do it. Like the 10-year-old Bangor girl was raped last summer. She reported it, she testified in court, she faced the monster who tied her up and attacked her. Now, he’s going to prison for a long, long time. Not to another private school in another town.

The Bates victims and their classmates are not 10-year-old children. They know that if a crime is to be investigated and prosecuted, it first must be reported; victims and witnesses must be willing to give sworn testimony. What they want, it seems, is for the attacker, without the ability to confront his accuser, to be tried by a sensitivity-trained conduct committee and sentenced to having to finish college elsewhere, to becoming someone else’s problem. Now, because they have treated a rapist like a guy who cheated on an exam, the administration, students and victims at Bates have made sure that’s exactly what will happen.