Due process on college campuses has become passé, and even an impediment to justice — at least according to sexual assault activists. But police officers like Susan Riseling may be giving activists a leg up.

Riseling is the chief of police and associate vice chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and recently told a conference audience that using the records from campus sexual assault hearings could be beneficial to police investigations.

"It's Title IX, not Miranda," Riseling said. "Use what you can."

When a student is accused of sexual assault on a college campus, they're often given vague descriptions of the charge against them — which may have occurred years earlier. They're forced to come up with a defense within days, told not to talk to anyone about the allegation (making mounting a defense nearly impossible) and not allowed to have an attorney speak on their behalf.

They face a system that has been shifted against them, where an accusation is all that's needed to brand them a rapist for life and kick them out of school. There is no due process in campus hearings — no rules of evidence, cross-examination or right to be represented by an attorney. They're not even told that anything said in the hearing can and will be used against them in a court of law.

You may recognize that last sentence to be the Miranda warning given to people when they're arrested. It's been around since the 1960s, when a Supreme Court decision ruled that a suspect in custody must be made aware of their rights.

But no such rights exist on a college campus, allowing police officers like Riseling to use the information gathered by such means against accused students.

Such is the case with one student in Wisconsin who denied to police that he raped a woman. But during his campus hearing, he said he regretted what occurred. This is how Inside Higher Ed described the situation:

"The accused student denied the charges when interviewed by police, Riseling said. In his disciplinary hearing, however, he changed his story in an apparent attempt to receive a lesser punishment by admitting he regretted what had occurred. That version of events was 'in direct conflict with what he told police,' Riseling said. Police subpoenaed the Title IX records of the hearing and were able to use that as evidence against the student."

Obviously there has to be more to this story. Perhaps the student flat out denied even having sex with the woman, or maybe he said it was consensual. Maybe he regretted what occurred because of how the woman feels now, or maybe there was more story changing than the article describes. Maybe he said he regretted what occurred just to receive a lighter punishment, knowing he was going to be found guilty even if he was innocent. Riseling's office did not provide the Washington Examiner with additional details about the story.

But it was Riseling's next comment that was really frightening. "It's Title IX, not Miranda," Riseling said. "Use what you can."

K.C. Johnson, who co-wrote the book on the Duke Lacrosse hoax, took Riseling's comment to be an "explicit celebration" of the evisceration of due process.

"The chief offered a rare explicit celebration of what too often is implicit: lack of civil liberties protections is a desired aspect of college inquiries," Johnson wrote. "The 'advantage' of the disciplinary hearing process, it seems, is that accused students have minimal due process protections, and — since sexual assault is, of course, a crime — law enforcement can then use student disciplinary proceedings to obtain information that they could not, under the Constitution, in a normal police investigation."

In a statement to the Examiner, Riseling expanded on her comment.

"Title IX is not a police action, and Miranda only applies to in-custody arrests," Riseling said. "Yes, in order to prosecute crimes, we should use every legal means available — it's all about using the legal resources we have to hold someone accountable for their actions."

She added: "Miranda and Title IX are completely separate systems with separate rules. Police don't make these rules _ we must follow and adhere to them."

Perhaps the student in Wisconsin really did rape a woman. At first glance, it would appear he would have a case for dismissing the charges, since he was not properly Mirandized for his campus hearing, which was the basis for the charges against him by the police.

The UW campus sexual assault guide never suggests that students receive a warning that their hearing testimony may be subject to police subpoena. Such a statement may change how cooperative an accused student is during the process. That wouldn't help the student with his university, however, as campuses compel accused students to provide unsworn testimony or risk a one-sided investigation.

The UW guide states that "If the student does not respond to the investigating officer's offer to discuss the matter, the investigating officer may proceed to make a determination on the basis of the available information." That is, the investigating officer will only have the accuser's side of the story and is under no obligation to investigate on behalf of the accused.

This presents an impossible situation for accused students, who must waive their 5th Amendment rights in their only chance to avoid expulsion. Of course, with the way the system is rigged now, that won't help. The student is also at the mercy of the investigating officer, who may take inaccurate or twisted notes and withhold information he or she deems "irrelevant." These same investigators work for the Title IX office, which is predisposed to support the accuser.

Police using information gathered from this Kafkaesque procedure may have an easier time arresting someone based on a sexual assault accusation, but would the charges hold up in court?